| If you have Arachnophobia look away.... |
[Jun. 13th, 2009|01:52 pm] |
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I've been wondering about potential avatars in my prop bet...
For those unaware I've got a little bet on with AdriennesRevenge on DC for us to get some hands in this month.
Jess's goal is 100 total hours play.
My goal is 3850 VPPs which will keep me on track for Supernova and see that I hit the 3rd insta-cash bonus this month.
While this may seem a little unbalanced don't forget I do work full time as well so overall it seemed a decent go and the whole point really was for us to have an incentive to get our play in.
If either of us fail the other gets to change our avatar so I was contemplating some for Jess last night...
So far she's come up with "TAGs Rule LAGs drool" and various other ones based on my supposed Looseness so now it's time for a warning shot from my end :)
Any of the following may be considered....
HU 4 Roll Spider's always been a favourite of mine and Ribbo and I think this would be a fun addition....of course I know Jess kinda like cats too so we've also got these options...
Of course there are all just preliminaries I could choose to be more or less nice depending on my mood at the time, and if I keep running the way I am at the moment Jess may be getting something from Night of the Living Dead...no it wasn't pretty.
But still can't complain overall.
Assuming I stablise and don't go on some kind of hideous 20 session downswing like I did before I've had the idea of being a little more aggressive with my bankroll.
Since I have a monthly nut of 0 due to the fact I actually work for a living this means I can be a little more frugal. Now Kelly Criterion would state that bascailly a 1BB/100 winner with a Standard Devisation of 18BB/100 should maintain a bankroll of about 250BB for the limit he plays, moving up or down based on where he/she is which provides the best balance of moving up whiel attempting to negate risk of ruin.
I'm not quite ready to embrace that but if I were to say move up when i have 350BB for a new level and down when I only have 200BB that'd be more than enough for controlled shot and I think that's how I may approach it from now.
This leaves he currently "rolled" for 2/4 but i want to talk to BBB first and also get some hands in this month before I do so, assuming all goes well I'll be reporting from 2/4 by this time next week.
Take Care Guys
Boomer |
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| I'm lazy..... |
[May. 28th, 2009|04:57 pm] |
Wowzers....*dusts down blog*
I barely even know where to begin here, it's been almost 2 months since I let loose. Well I'm going to be starting a poker-related blog on Deucescracked soon and leave this one for mainly personal whining and occasional updates....BUT there's big news for this month...
I got put at risk of redundancy at work....and survived by the skin of my teeth. None of that agin plzkthx. What a horrible time of my life that was, didn't know what to think or say and still have a case of rather epic survivor's guilt. What am I supposed to do? Celebrate? That'd be like celebrating a car wreck. Either way I'm glad it's over and fortunately it looks like everyone affected is going to be ok, one way or another. Big Changes though.
Anyway with that out of the way how about good things. Well after facing near calamity I decided it was time to do a little moving on. Obviously my mother and I are kinda stuck with each other at the moment since we both own half the house and the housing market is currently to use a thoroughly British phrase "On its arse" so we decided to make the best of a rather non-optimal situation and we're currently splitting the house in 2. Me top half, her bottom half.
In my half one room with be the boring ol' bedroom, the upstairs study is currently being converted into a full on home cinema and entertainment room with Projector (awesome btw), PC, XBox 360 (not yet here but Stars should oblidge in a couple of months), 5.1 surround (shipped today) and, more than likely, the heads of any neighbours who complain...it's Boomer's turn now...MWAHAHAHA!!! And the smaller room will be filled up with various DVD series etc I've collected over the years.
Obviously this required a bit of a move round and a lot of upheaval but we've managed the hard parts now so it should be pretty plain sailing from here on in.
Also starteed back playing a bit of golf since I'm an unfit sod who needs the exercise. Had first round for a while last week and after a, frankly, tragic start ended up either par'ing or bogey'ing 10 holes in a row before the light finally got us.
So what else? The car's still awesome, my Ipod and Phone BOTH broke at the same time and are currently in the process of being replaced (I'm good with technology accoridng to BBB....it's all lies and rigeramole....no I don't know how to spell it either)
In Poker musing Pokerstars made the controversial move to bascially hand Supernova on a plate to most grinders from the UK this month. Of course 2+2 blew up LIKE a supernova at the news but it was immensly gratifying to be rewarded for one's awesome accent for once.
I've also moved back up to 1/2 at the behest of half my Skype buddy list and so far it's gone ok but I've got a huge grind ahead at the weekend and it could all goes tits up soon enough. For full results I'll be doing a video blog as I think that's a little more interesting than a standard garph of DOOM.
Until then have fun and I'll try to remember to blog more in the future.
And Congrats to Pygmyhero and Lysistrata as well *Party Time*!!!!!!
Take Care, Boomer |
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| Slow Habit PLO Book – Initial Draft Review |
[Apr. 12th, 2009|07:42 pm] |
Out of the blue 2 weeks ago I was contacted by Slow Habit on Deucescracked and asked if I would like to review his new eBook regarding PLO. Knowing that Slow Habit was co-author of the NLHE eBook “Let there be Range” along with Cole South and having a more than passive interest in PLO I jumped at the opportunity.
The book and more information including a blog will be available at http://www.dailyvariance.com
There is also more info on the "Let there be Range" book there as well so it's worth checking out.
Now I’m always going to be a little bit more critical of an eBook that I will of any other form of poker education and that’s for one very simple reason. EBooks are incredibly expensive in comparison to standard learning methods.
Taking “Let there be Range” as an example the cost of the book is $1800.
For that $1800 you could have:
1)Between 4.5 and 6 years membership at any of the top coaching sites (Cardrunners, Stox, DC, Bluefire etc)
2)A Bankroll, or close enough, for 100NL, or at least a very deep roll for 50NL.
3)2-3 personal sessions from a top NL coach (Just from DeucesCracked, FWF, Vannessa Selbst, DJ Sensei and Flawless Victory come to mind)
Having said that though, from everyone who’s read it (My guess being mostly 400NL+ players) that book is worth the cost.
Slow Habit’s PLO book is coming in at a much more affordable to the small stakes player cost of around $350 which looks quite attractive when you consider:
1)The level of the author
2)The fact that PLO is an under-developed and under-represented game on most poker coaching sites
3)There isn’t anything like it out there at the moment, Jeff Hwang’s book non-withstanding which, depending on who you talk to, is either very good or distinctly average.
However the standard remains that in order to justify the cost, especially to a player who may be forking out multiple buyins to buy this book, it’s going to have to cause a few epiphanies before it gets a full sign off.
So, with that said, let’s get on with it.
The reasoning behind this book appears to be, or at least claimed, that PLO is, and has remained, an under-developed game due to those who hold the knowledge about the game being eager not to repeat the “mistakes” that were made with Holdem wherein thanks to the overwhelming fountain of information available on the subject Holdem games are now reaching a point where only the true elite can hope to make a living from the game. The games from the 2003-4 years at Party Poker where anyone with even the remotest clue could sit down at a 5/T or even a 10/20 table and grind out a decent profit are well and truly gone and it’s something the poker world will have to live with.
Whether that claim is true or not is open for debate but it’s certainly plausible that those who make a killing playing the game and don’t want to see it develop the same way Holdem did into a game where the smallest of edges are worked around. It is not to say there aren’t resources out there but the ratio of NLHE videos to PLO videos on coaching sites I would put at somewhere between 8 and 10-1. Maybe even higher. This is a gap that Slow Habit is looking to fill with his eBook and I sat down looking forward to be enlightened, or at least to understand more about a game which has almost 100 times the starting hands of everyone’s favourite 2 card grind.
The books starts quoting Mike McDermott’s famous phrase from the film about even Pros not playing NLHE because they can’t handle the swings. Safe to say he hasn’t heard of PLO…..or LHE……or Razz….or Tournaments. But most of all PLO.
The author is keen to point out that due to the very nature of the game of PLO, i.e. the players involved are dealt 4 cards, there are very few cut and dry drawing dead situations in PLO which, in line with the aggression which is, on occasion, shown in the games especially online that PLO invites swings that no NLHE player will be used to. Gone are the potential 80/20 preflop all-in situations replaced by 60/40’s at best and usually more like 55/45’s. Gone are the flops where you can stack off with any set and know that you’re in good shape, replaced by the knowledge than your current nuts, top set, may very well be an underdog due to the size of your opponent’s Wrap and Flush Draw. Gone is the ability to 4 and even 5-bet bluff opponents off hands preflop, replaced by the fact that by 4-betting you’re often committed no matter your holding. Welcome to PLO, let the swings begin.
Now whereas videos are in the entertainment business as much as the information business books pretty much solely reside in the information business and this is reflected in the style of the book.
There is maths and lots of it. Graphs, statistics, equity calculations, it’s all there. However as opposed to the dullness which can result from a lump of maths being thrown at you it’s presented in a very compelling way through example hands that Slow Habit has played allowing himself to explain core concepts, such as calling 4-betting and 3-betting, by using a combination of maths, which show the underlying “truth” behind the hand and hand examples which show how to entwine the maths with a good thought process to arrive at the correct conclusion.
This was brought to life very early in the book for me. PLO has long been heralded as “a game of the nuts” however one of the first few examples, on calling pre-flop 4-bets in position, showed how calling 4567ds and even 5567ds, and stacking off 100bb deep when shoved into on a K72r board vs AAxx was a profitable maneuver. Now obviously this is a bit of an extreme example since it’s almost impossible to narrow someone’s range down this tightly but it did demonstrate how playing via “Cliché” and supposition is dangerous and there is a lot more to the game than “Uh I don’t have the nuts”.
Omaha can be an extremely frightening game for those who are not familiar with the concepts but the book does an excellent job of not just hand-holding the reader through pre-flop, flop, turn and river but also showing the reader common situations they will find themselves in and also shows common mistakes which the author is aware that player migrating from Holdem are likely to make.
One of the things which is hammered constantly into the reader is that, as important as position is in Holdem it is even more so in PLO. Slow Habit even goes are far to say that it is almost impossible to win money off a decent aggressive player who has position on you when you have marginal hands in the long term in PLO because it’s just that big of an advantage, describing the situation as “neither fun nor profitable”. Now almost any poker player who’s got any familiarity with poker concept knows the power of the button but in PLO it may as well be made of solid gold and, again, clear concise and good examples are used showing how difficult decisions can be, especially if your opponent is capable of making moves.
PLO appears, throughout the book to share some concepts with Holdem with playability post-flop often outstripping Pre-flop equity in how you’d like to play the hand with double-suited wrap hands often being more desirable than Big Pairs with good supporting cards simply based on their post-flop playability. A similar situation in Holdem I suppose would be that vs a tight player you’d much rather have a hand like 98s when facing a raise than a Hand like KTo. If the money is going in pre-flop you want KTo every time but if you’re going to get a significant amount of money in post-flop, or desire the ability to push your opponent off a better hand post-flop, you want the additional playability a suited connector provides. On a side note, watch episode 8 of Passing the Torch on DC for examples of why this concept is a good thing, I make a bit of a boo boo early on in this regard in my opinion. In the 4567 example it is shown that although calling 4567ds and 5567ds is easily profitable when your opponent 4-bets 100BB deep calling with a hand like KKT9ss is more than likely breakeven to losing because you can’t stack off as easily as you won’t flop the 31% equity you need as often.
One of the most common situations I see in PLO and indeed Slow Habit mentions is the subject of C-Betting and getting it in. There are many situations in PLO where players make bad stackoffs on the flop, usually because “ZOMG I have a wrap”. This is usually in a situation where there is a flush draw on the board and they don’t’ realise how big of a dog they are to a hand like a Pair and a nut Flush Draw, for reference it’s about 2-1 which is a pretty big dog on the flop for PLO. It’s also common for Holdem players to think any set is the nuts and gleefully try and get it in, without realising that any hand coming with them is going to be either flipping a coin with them (FD + Wrap) or crushing them (Higher Set). This topic is covered nicely in Slow Habit’s section on Flop play, him adding that in a lot of situations, especially with position, it’s often advantageous to wait for the turn to decide what your best move is and not just to stack off on the flop because the flop looks good.
This theme is continued in the turn section, especially out of position. This is where Slow Habit shines with hand examples again by showing how it may be more advantageous to check the turn OOP to either illicit a semi-bluff or help keep the pot that bit smaller when you're out of position. In the turn section there is also mention of how donk-betting can be a powerful strategy especially vs those who'll bet the flop in position in order to buy a free card on the turn.
What appears to lie at the centre of Slow Habit's work in planning ahead for the hand. If 60% of the deck is going to be a scare card for you on the river then potting the turn may not be a good idea, even though you may currently have the best hand. Maybe checking is a better line. How about check-call vs Check Raise OOP? It's all covered. Things change rapidly in PLO and you have to be ready to change with them and plan for them. A simple early street strategy won't give you the crushing winrate you'll desire and this is what holds a lot of players back in PLO.
So overall what did I think?
The version I saw required a bit of work on preflop play. Yes it's very simple in a way but there are topics which could have been covered further such as limping, and dealing with limpers, which is something that comes up both in FR games and at the slightly lower limits. I understand this is being worked on and I think this will be an excellent addition.
You get the feeling this book is definitely aimed at NL players who have been successful at say NL100-200 and now want to apply their trade elsewhere. This isn't a hinderence at all, in fact it helps graduate you from one discipline to the other but I'd say you're going to need a pretty solid ground in NL if you're going to get the best from the book.
I am not by any means an expert but I know enough that I wasn't overwhelmed by the book and what I was able to pick up was excellent and Slow Habit communicates very effectively. I'd say that anyone looking into playing PLO100 and above would do exceedingly well to read this book.
Yes it's going to cost you 4 buyins or so but you'll make that back believe me and if you combine it with a decent coaching site membership you're probably paying 7-8 buyins over the course of a year for something which could make you easily 10's of buyins.
I know that I may dabble at the low limit PLO tables having just read it a couple of times....could very well be fun. Just make sure you're bankrolled.
Cheers, Boomer |
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| What Really Matters…. |
[Apr. 8th, 2009|12:53 pm] |
Well yesterday was a happy day and a sad one all in one go.
It was the day I took my last drive in my beloved Alfa Romeo 147.
There is a reason that people buy Alfa Romeos. It’s not for the reliability. It’s not for the fuel consumption. It’s not for the onboard equipment. It’s not for the service quality. You buy one of these, because you WANT one.
No car for the same price includes anywhere close to the level of passion, style and soul that these cars produce.
[147 picture to come when I get my Sim Card connected]
Now through its lifetime this 14ft marvel has been everything to me. I’ve experienced the joy of flying over Woodhead in it, the happiness of driving through the Cheshire fields on a glorious summer day with a big open road and no-one else on it, the terror of almost maxing it very early on in it’s life, the shame of breaking down when it was 6 weeks old with a Clutch retaining ring fault and holding up most of the North of England on the M6, the pain of humongous service bills caused by exuberant driving style and standard Italian frailty. I’ve ferried 3 people over 800 miles in one memorable day, I’ve despaired as petrol prices went spiralling, I’ve been grateful to it for, on more than one occasion in my belief, saving my life.
As Jeremy Clarkson said about Alfas on Top Gear:
“If these had been any other cars we this would just have been another drive. But it wasn’t. These cars had turned it into an adventure. Laughter, mayhem, thrills, mishaps, friendships. We had reached Petrol-Head Heaven and as we’ve said many times before, the only way to get there…is in an Alfa Romeo”.
I’ve fully cleaned it and it will stay on the drive for a few days until it’s picked up and I will be enormously sad to see it go. However, I will also be joyous in the knowledge of what is replacing it.
[Mito Picture coming]
Yup, it’s another Alfa Romeo. The 147’s offspring, the Mito. 155 Veloce in fact. And it looks like this one is going to start right off where its predecessor left off. So far it got stuck in Dover for 3 weeks and insurance companies scrambling trying to insure it in time and the joy of the first drive. What a joy it was, it’s smooth and civilised in low revs and Normal mode but an absolute roaring animal in high revs and Dynamic mode. The Blue & Me Voice Activated system is something I wasn’t prepared for on a £16,500 car and it’s even got the Alfa personality already with the Passenger Seat Belt indicator having a stutter when I first got the car and there being an interior light for nothing other than bathing the interior of the cabin in red ambience when it’s dark, totally useless, yet utterly wonderful. In all the time up to the point I picked up the car I was worried that the technological improvements and what is supposedly better reliability would interfere with what means most. The car’s soul. But it doesn’t. The Mito may not have the poise and balance of a high end Mini with which it’s competing (although I’d love to see the 1.6 Mini try to keep up on a track with it in Dynamic Mode) but it doesn’t matter. It took me 2 miles to fall in love and I think that’s all that needs saying. The Mito is a good car without a doubt…but even better than that. It’s most certainly, without fail a fabulous glorious real 100% heart-winning true to the name…Alfa Romeo. |
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| Bluefire Poker - Thoughts and Review |
[Mar. 29th, 2009|04:12 pm] |
Bluefire Poker is the latest in a long line of poker coaching sites joining such illustrious names as Deucescracked, Stoxpoker, Cardrunners, LeggoPoker, PokerXFactor, Baby’s First Holdem Site…..oh wait that one’s not been done yet…HEY stop thinking you’re going to start “Baby’s First Holdem’ Site”…it’s mine now!!
In this review I'm not going to concentrate on any particular series or video, although I will be pointing out the all-stars, but I'm more going to try and give an overview of what I think of the site and whether it will appeal to those thinking about joining it.
Anyway, Bluefire Poker is the brain-child of Phil “Jman28/OMGClayAiken” Galfond, most well-known for blowing Rail Heaven to pieces last year and taking home over $7 million in winnings, being a WSOP PLO Bracelet winner and being the only player excluded from durrr’s recent $1 million dollar challenge.
His idea is that most poker coaching sites out there have a circle of pros, usually high stakes players, who do one or two videos a month to attract the crowds and the remainder of the time the other pros/coaches are “mediocre” at best designed to fill the space when the high stakes guys can’t be bothered, whereas Bluefire would contain Jman and other hand picked pros who crush all aspects of the game. While not willing to bash anyone in particular I have certainly seen this tendency in the past so I would say if this were 2007 Phil would have a very good point. In 2009 I feel some sites have very much improved in this area and they are the ones who currently lead the voting on 2+2 any time there’s a “Which Site should I join” Poll. Not every coach has to be a 200/400 regular and, in fact, in some cases that can be a hindrance when dealing with micro and small games…as long as the coach is competent and good enough to get his/her point across, whether they are crushing nosebleeds isn’t really high on the agenda. However if you can get both….that’s a winner in anyone’s book.
Anyway, my exposure to Bluefire first came through a joint venture by Bluefire and the site I’m most attached to (or at least the one where I forum post, video post and video watch the most), Deucescracked. The joint project involved Emil “whitelime” Patel and Phil Galfond producing a PLO series together and in the spirit of greater co-operation there was a challenge to earn a Bluefire membership for a month and DC kindly parachuted me into Bluefire for a month on the condition that I wrote about my experiences.
First impressions were sceptical. The poker training market is already heavily saturated as mentioned above and many of Bluefire’s competitors have been here longer and have a heavier fan base. Of course guys playing 400NL+ will just go “meh it’s Phil Galfond and his hand selected pros” at the extra $30 a month and more than likely add Bluefire to their portfolio of sites they’ve joined but as for guys who play, say, 50NL and have to make a choice between one or two sites then Bluefire’s going to have to make a hell of an impact to break through, even with Jman’s presence and a cast of top pros.
Of course one of the ways to break in is to make a really loud noise to get everyone’s attention and then retain that attention with a quality product and in that regard Bluefire went off like Krakatoa thanks to the PLO series between Jman and Whitelime on Deucescracked and it was worth winning the month’s membership just to see the final 2 episodes from both perspectives.
Bluefire’s philosophy, incidentally the name of a series Jman is producing on the site, is that “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for his whole life”. I have to say it’s a bold attempt. They acknowledge that their video “volume” is going to be lower than the more established sites. It’s not unusual to see Stox et al pump out well over 10 vids a week and Bluefire at the moment are on a schedule of 5 a week. However their aim is for those 5 episodes a week to surpass the 10+ you may get elsewhere and in the field of NL Holdem’ they’ve certainly got a chance.
Their cast of coaches is certainly impressive and if they can deliver on the promised “Philosophy” of poker then they have a chance of overhauling the other sites since Bluefire currently has a full focus on NLHE and PLO, which is something I’ll come on to later.
As far as price goes Bluefire are pretty much in line with all the other sites being $100 sign-up fee and $30 a month with discounts available for longer contracts. DC are the only site I know so far with no sign up fee and you can’t blame a site for having a signup fee and, to be honest, there will more than likely be ways around it like winning a competition or being able to purchase a membership with VIP points somewhere or through Rakeback….whatever. So it’s not something to complain about, although it isn’t going to help them grab the lower end of the market (i.e. 25-50NL players etc) especially when they do not have a large library but I doubt it will hinder them that much.
A good start came from them though and that is that there is no DRM on their videos. Hallelujah. DRM is a pain in the arse and, let’s be honest about this, if people want to get around it they will and it can be a HUGE hindrance to the standard paying customer, as I have found to my cost with Cardrunners and Stoxpoker when their DRM servers have gone down leaving me to do nothing but stream the video which, on capped or slow bandwidth, can be a little inconvenient and at one point streaming wasn’t an option which left me completely hanging having paid for the video I was trying to watch.
Another up side is the custom built replayer which Bluefire use during their videos. It's smooth and allows the narrator to “play” the hand as if he were playing live, even going so far as to completely duplicate Full Tilt's noises and motions, which being in control as to what cards drop and are in player's hands. It's an excellent tool which allows them to produce “Replayer” style vids but give the illusion of Live Play which is sometimes just enough to grab someone's attention to get your point across. It's a tough ask but keeping your customer entertained is sometimes the difference between success and failure no matter how good your product is.
Moving onto the content;
In the time I’ve been there I’ve seen Don Nyguen, aka SoCalQuest, coaching the Small Stakes games from the ground up (25NL up) over the course of a long series of videos, called Beating the Microstakes, all of which were extremely well detailed and well presented helping players who are brand new to the game. These videos move well from aspect to aspect of the Small Stakes game and help to develop the player watching.
Martin Giggy provides a humourous and attention-grabbing set of videos, including one where he raises almost every hand and attempts to outplay his opponents post-flop. He has a very interesting outlook on the game and his delivery is very light-hearted yet doesn’t get in the way of the presentation, which can be a problem for a lot of coaches when they try to be funny. Martin's style is extremely aggressive and contrasts well to the other styles available on the site, emphasising Bluefire's motto that there is no best style to play the game but rather a series of thoughts are applicable which will allow you to become your own player and develop in a way which someone saying “do this, do that” will not let you develop.
It's similar in a way to what Danzasmack said on a video for Deucescracked.
“I can show you what I think is the right thing in a certain situation but if all you do is rely on me showing you the way there is no way you will ever be better then me.”
An interesting series that has recently begun and one that I want to see more of definitely is a series by Jason Senti, also known as PBJaxx, called “Two Views” which focuses on looking at both sides of a particular hand being played, which puts a focus on the reciprocality, read Elements of Poker if you aren’t sure what that is, which can be gained in certain situations along with the ability to try and exploit people trying to exploit you and looks to be a series which could be very good in the long term. The content in the first episode is spectacular with the very first hand shown showing a fantastic thought process to go through and really shows the ability of being able to out-think those who are trying to either run you over or exploit some part of your game. One warning about the series, which is in fact mentioned in the intro, is that a lot of the content is extremely high level and, in fact, not recommended for play against people who cannot read hands. Versus those opponents you are better off with a solid ABC style exploiting game taking advantage of their weaknesses as they're not on a sufficient level for you to have to get yourself involved in a levelling war. I really hope there is another one of these videos in the pipeline as this one video was a total eye-opener and if Bluefire can keep the content for this particular series at this level then the sky is truly the limit.
Ryan Fee (Fees) and Niman Kenkre (Samoleus) also both produce more standard play videos but also both high quality. Fee concentrating so far on the HU aspect of the game with a couple of HU videos, one of which he plays against PBJaxx and Kenkre's biggest video so far being a 4-part 1kNL session which he goes through in extremely high detail and very informative. Kenkre also has a Q&A session video as a reward to those who signed up. It will be great to see these two strut there stuff as the site develops, maybe with their own series which will help establish there character on the site.
And then there's the Big Cheese himself, Phil Galfond. Now everyone is aware of how good this guy is at poker. You don't beat the best in the world for $7 million in a year without being seriously talented and his name alone will be enough to bring in the legions, in fact in some reviews I have seen just the fact that Phil's involved in the website immediately elevates Bluefire to an automatic 8/10 score. But as I have said, you need to be more than a good player to be an effective poker coach and there have been plenty that have tried and failed. However the good news, especially for the rail, is that as good as Phil is as playing poker, he may be even better at teaching it. His Philosophy series, of which I have only seen the first 2 videos, but that's all that's out at the moment, is designed to try and trigger thought processes which Phil feels may be lacking in the current low-midstakes player. It is done through the use of cleverly designed hand histories in the Bluefire Replayer and Phil's delivery is very strong and, unlike some, doesn't feel rushed or have extreme pauses or use of short-speak to fill in the gaps. You want to listen because of who's talking but when you do listen you find a huge depth of information and ability being displayed and I'd recommend watching the theory videos a couple of times to make sure you get max value. Or download them, since there's no DRM. Phil also does the obligatory High stakes videos which appease the railbirds and also allow us into the mind of an extremely elite player and his outlook on beating the biggest games the internet has to offer. Phil is also Bluefire's dedicated PLO coach with the co-operative series with Deucescracked on PLO being the market leader now in PLO videos.
However it isn’t all a bed of roses for Bluefire despite the glowing report so far and there are a few things I feel they’d need to improve on, just from my perspective.
The first is the website itself. While fairly easy to navigate and the forums are well maintained I have found myself constantly getting web page errors while trying to download the videos which can be extremely frustrating. Maybe the code needs tightening up a bit, I don’t know I’m not a computer buff but all I can say in layman’s terms is that it’s irritating.
The second is that the content, as great as it is, is currently limited to NL and the PLO series ran concurrently with DC. Poker Coaching sites nowadays are under increasing pressure to broaden their horizons including games like Razz, Triple Draw and even Badugi along with FR, 6-max and HU variants of the standard games and simply offering 2 games at the moment, one of which may only get a couple of videos a month, is a bit of a strain and not likely to get the wider community involved.
However what must be remembered is that Deucescracked started off as an exclusively FL Holdem site and has developed, admittedly through a merger, into a Green and Black Colossus in the Poker Coaching world over the past 2 years so the blueprint is there for Bluefire Poker, however their goal of “Quality over Quantity” if adhered to too stringently could be an Achilles heel which may cripple their growth. However if they get in a couple of very high quality coaches in the other games such as FLHE or HORSE etc then Bluefire will have the quality and volume to bury some of the competition out there. Plus, let's face it, most would pay $30 a month just to see 4-6 vids from Phil Galfond never mind anything else.
In conclusion, while the site is currently light on library and has occasional gremlins it is worthwhile to recognise that the site is still new and there is plenty of time for it to evolve and it could be very exciting, seeing what is going to develop.
Good Luck to them for the future. |
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| YAY!! |
[Mar. 24th, 2009|05:59 pm] |
My new mouse and headset are being shipped!!
I shall celebrate when they get there by having such a MASSIVE losing session on Stars...oh wait that's not right....errrrm.
And btw, where the fuck's my car???
It's been in Dover now for twice as long as it took to get there from fucking Milan....or Turin....wherever it was built, it's one of them anyway. There better not have been a body in the boot...blood's murder to clean out |
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| Lousy Busto Mouse |
[Mar. 18th, 2009|06:51 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
Well it looks like my mouse has decided to pack it in :(
It's now gone into "No-Sell or Double-Click or Left-Click = Middle Click" mode....very annoying and not-condusive to multi-tabling. So new mouse ordered from dabs...I think 6 buttons is excessive but hey it'll be I can click a mouse to do shit in L4D when I get back on it :)
been poorly sick the past week so lost all track of being able to hit my hand volume goals although I think I may go back to 3-tabling at least as an experiment. Star's software is good enough for me to do it, I do get a time bank just in case and also I think it may help my focus, wierdly enough.
4-tabling's still some way off though. Although should the need to play 30,000 hands a month suddenly appear I'm sure I can teach myself....not that I'm worried or anything...No sir.
Went on the range earlier, it seemed Mr. Byrne liked the R7 CGB-Max as he blasted it almost out of the driving range after just a couple of swings with it...sure made me feel rubbish.
DC Microlimit meeting tomorrow, be good to chat to the guys (and gal) again. Been too long and I need a lift.
Laters guys |
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| Weird |
[Mar. 17th, 2009|07:24 am] |
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| A couple of days off |
[Mar. 6th, 2009|07:45 pm] |
I've taken the last day or two off poker for the simple reason that I've been feeling pretty awful recently and I really haven't been in the mood. Yes it's set me back a little but I can easily play 500-1000 hands or so over the weekend to get me back on track.
So far the month's started off fairly well with me up 100BB from the last down slump but complacency is something I'm not going to let happen while the specter of that downswing still hovers fresh in memory.
What I will say is that I find the players on Stars a hell of a lot more readable and predictable than the players on IPoker. Now this is NOT me saying that they are worse and, in fact, it may be an indictation they are playing slightly more "correctly". I would say that on Stars I've found at least as many if not more guys trying to play correctly than there were on Ipoker but this doesn't tell the whole story.
The thing is that over the past year or two one of the areas I've tried to improve a lot is hand-reading and weak TAGs are one of the easiest class of players to read, becasue I used to play in that mode and a lot of material has been released on how that style plays so now anyone who's familiar with the slightly looser TAG style has an edge over these guys becasue they can simply exploit the narrower ranges they're up agaisnt if they play correctly (big ask).
This came up in my most recent vid release where on at least 2 occasions I was able to put a Tight player on the exact (or close enough) hand he had and play accordingly with virtually no risk. (I did the same in the parallel vid). It's not rocket science. And as for how bad they are at trying to adapt when you bring a 32/23 or whatever game to the table...yeesh. I've got some hands I'll post up which will demonstrate soon.
However these aren't the guys I'm LOOKING to always play against but I find now the tables tend to be maybe a couple of fish, a couple of predictable TAGS and A N Other, whereas on Ipoker a lot of the time it was 1 fish, 1 lunatic, 1 middle LAG (like 40/15-20), 2 RB Grinders. Both good tables but one is much higher variance than the other and Ipoker's rake doesn't help either.
So overall I'm liking it on Stars. This weekend after a nice long sleep I'm going to get as many hands in as I can Saturday and then play Sunday "morning" then go and play some golf with the old man and finally pick up that TaylorMade R7 CGB Max driver I bought recently.....I like it imo. It was so good even I was hitting drives in teh same area off the launch monitor pretty consistently...let's hope. Only got 1 more card left to submit before I can officially say I'm crap and get my handicap :)
Sorry BBB, yes sir, I'll play hands sir :) |
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| My Car's Been built!!! |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|09:31 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  excited | ] |
It's intact....made...solid....ready!!!
It's assigned for transport!!! This means one of two things.
1) The Tunnel - In that case it'll be here, in the UK, in a week.
2) On a F***ing Boat - In that case it'll be April
Please be tunnel......want want want!! |
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| Guest Grinder |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|01:01 pm] |
Well I said I would so I decided to share some thoughts on my Real Life Microlimit Grinder appearance.
First of all, as to how this came about.
PygmyHero (Mike) announced that he and Entity (Rob) wanted Members to submit a video for review and they would have an opportunity to be a part of the final episode of Season 3 of Real life Microlimit Grinder (Which is a bit of a misnomer now as PygmyHero is now a 5/T regular…hardly micros but he’s done damn well) and put forward their point of view while Rob and Mike offered theirs.
It took me three attempts to get a video ready for approval mainly because tables kept breaking on me in one attempt and in the other it was a complete beat-fest so wouldn’t really have done anyone any could except maybe for comedy value.
The third attempt, however, was fine aside from the first table threatening to break early and I got 45 minutes of pretty interesting action recorded, threw the camrec file at Rob and Mike and waited to see if I’d be selected.
Now Deucescracked has a policy in place that members who are active in the forum and particularly in the Member Video and Secret HQ areas are given preferential priority over those who aren’t and in this case it worked in my favour having been fairly active recently and also having posted a couple of member vids already. (By the way my 3rd for DC is up, it’s a double sweat session with Isac, another member of the micro-group and, personally, I think it’s one of the best vids I’ve managed to do….I think I’m up to 15 now which are spread all over the place so I have high standards for these now)
A few days later I was PM’d by Rob saying they’d like to work with the video and I obviously missed the boat by saying I already had a headset but can’t have everything. (Rookie mistake imo then again my fairly busto Platronics jobby Ribbo gave me still more than does the job and I think £70 for a headset is extortionate. )
Now I speak to Mike on a regular-ish basis on Skype so he was excited to work with the vid and did a bit of quizzing with me beforehand including one absolute stonker (YES THAT’S A WORD!!!) of a hand which I think we went for about 20 minutes just in text chat about.
Come the day I have to admit I was pacing around my little study like a caged tiger. I’d obviously watched the video again myself and I’d come up with some, what I thought were, clear mistakes so was it going to be a “take apart” job however I was pleasantly surprised.
After we got the intro out of the way and all the technical setup done it was on to the video. Most of the starting hands were standard but we generally focused on one particular player and eventually as I relaxed into it my usual motormouth tendencies came out.
Rob hadn’t yet seen the video and so Mike and I sprung the surprise on him with the following hand:
Reads: UTG = TAG, SB = Bad, BB = Spazz
Party Poker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BTN with K K
UTG raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, SB calls, BB caps!, UTG calls, Hero calls, SB calls
Flop: (16 SB) 7 A J (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB raises, UTG calls, Hero calls, SB calls
Turn: (12 BB) T (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets, UTG calls, Hero folds, SB folds
River: (14 BB) 2 (2 players)
BB bets, UTG calls
Final Pot: 16 BB
BB shows Q Q
UTG shows J K
BB wins 15.2 BB
(Rake: $0.80)
Rob’s analysis when the turn was paused was that we were certainly behind but we had enough to make a call on the turn and fold the river UI. At the time my line was that the Kh and Qh are pretty much 0 out and that the aggressor almost certainly has us screwed. Plus the fact he’s unlikely to check the river due to being a LAGTard led me to fold. We went back and forth for 5 minutes or so and then wound forward the tape with Mike and I fully aware of what was going to happen and when the hands were turned over there were more than a few giggles with Rob trying and failing to professionally analyse the hand without laughing which only made it worse. But that really helped me feel a lot more confident enough to put my point across and that I was getting a ton out of this.
Now, strangely, Rob and I have something in common. When we get on a subject we can’t let it go and will discuss it until the universe goes dark. And one hand in particular a few minutes later bought that out when I decided to get in the face of a LAG on the turn:
Party Poker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BB with K 6
3 folds, BTN raises, 1 fold, Hero calls
Flop: (4.5 SB) 2 6 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero calls
Turn: (3.25 BB) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, Hero calls
River: (9.25 BB) J (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero calls
Final Pot: 11.25 BB
BTN shows 6 4
Hero wins 10.7 BB
(Rake: $0.55)
I felt that since the guy had bet every turn in the past and was extremely aggressive I could wait for the turn even with a hand as weak as this. Rob’s counterpoint was that there were a lot of turn cards which may be a problem and that it’s unlikely I’m doing this with anything other than a pair which allows a good playing opponent to play perfectly. As it turned out the guy was a “One-pair Lunatic” and I took it down.
The very next hand I was presented with T9s on the button with the LAG opening and Rob hitting the pause button saying “Gah, I’m finding everything interesting at the moment”. Mike at this point piped up saying how he liked my decision to, once again, get in the LAGs face and not let him get away with trying to run the table over and that I may now be able to get control over him. Plus when the flop came down Qh 7h 8x Rob’s “well if you’re going to flop like THAT 3-bet this anytime” bought another chuckle out of me.
We covered a great deal in this video such as adapting to rake, adapting ranges to bad players, value-betting, alternate lines, facing donk-bets and with it being 2 hours already that’s a hell of a lot to get through, but it I got every response I wanted out of it and it was well worth the time invested.
All this happened in about 75-80 seconds of gameplay, from the KK hands to the T9s, but I think we managed to spend something like 25 minutes on those 3 hands and eventually, once we’d finished, the video was done after almost 2 hours of discussion including a 20 minute chat after the end of the action where Rob was kind enough to say that I played well and believed I could follow Pygmy’s path up to 5/T in the future which is the aim.
Overall a fantastic experience for me and I got some pretty nice feedback in the forum as well for it so all-in-all an experience I’d recommend to anyone from DC.
On that note good luck to Adrienne’s Revenge as the new RLMG and catch you all soon
Boomer |
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| Review of Deucescracked Series for Small Stakes FL Players |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|12:10 pm] |
As part of a challenge on Deucescracked we've been asked to do a review on a series/episode/concept of the site so in my normal overly-verbose way I've gone way over the top on these things....enjoy:
Website: Deucescracked
Series: The Price is Right and Can’t Shouldn’t Fold
Series Author: Danzasmack
Guest Authors: Entity and Joe Tall
Release Dates: Jan – April 2008
Game: Shorthanded Fixed Limit Holdem
Limits: The Price is Right - 0.5/1 and 1/2
Can’t Shouldn’t Fold – 2/4 and 3/6
Format: Powerpoint Tutorial and Live Play
The one thing you’ll often hear from Microstakes and Low Stakes players regarding poker coaching sites is that there is little to no content on the site for players at these limits. Occasionally one of the pros, usually a 15/30+ player, will drop down to 2/4 or such for an episode or two, blow the living crap out of the players there, mention something about the rake making them play a little tighter than usual and how the players at this level are less likely to adapt to their highly aggressive style and then a few days later will return to 10/20 or such and continue the higher thought processes which got him or her there. As nice as it is to see someone like Mike Schnieder or Stox strut their stuff at lower limits and a lot can be learned from just one video from these guys it is just that, one video.
Deucescracked broke the mould in a way before the 3-bet merger in late 2007 when Founder Entity (Rob) embarked upon his “Road to Robusto” project where he started off with a 300BB bankroll at 0.5/1 on Full Tilt Poker and throughout 10 episodes he brought the viewer with him all the way up to 3/6 where the project ended with the merger. It has subsequentially been reborn through the “Real Life: Microlimit Grinder” series where PygmyHero has followed the same path at Entity did and even I made a cameo appearance in the last episode of the series. While it would probably appear more natural for me to review that, for one thing I’ve not watched all over Season 3 yet and for another the fact I’ve been on it means objectivity may not be something I can maintain. I will blog about appearing on the series at some point in the future, however.
Following the 3-bet merger it was announced that Deuces would follow a series format from now on and the first series for Fixed Limit would be a dedicated series on 0.5/1 and 1/2 Short-handed Fixed Limit Holdem specifically for beginners or people struggling at this level by Danzasmack (Chuck). Having never seen Danza play or heard him speak I was curious as to what would come out of this series. I knew he was a prominent poster on 2+2 with a rather disturbing dancing avatar at one point but that was about it. I was pleasantly surprised.
The Price is Right
The first 4 episodes of the 8 episode series were based in Powerpoint and highlight differences in opening ranges, 3-bet ranges and philosophies from each position. While rather basic, I imagine, for those used to Shorthanded Holdem or who have read the Stox book it served as a welcome refresher and Chuck’s delivery was strong and while covering what could be conceived as a very dry subject by some he was able to fill in the moments with his unique brand of humour which allows him to grab your attention back should it begin to fade. One area which was well focused on in the Powerpoint presentation was the different types of players you will encounter at 0.5/1 from the Calling Station to the Maniac and finally the “standard” 0.5/1 player who Chuck believed to probably be around the 35/10 range which, in all honesty is pretty much correct in my experiences.
2 Full Episodes were dedicated to Blind Play and adapting to certain players with example hands being replayed and discussed at length.
In Episode 5 Chuck moves into live play and we are introduced to Chuck’s now legendary screen-name mispronunciation skills in which the table’s resident fish “BigRoland” was epically pronounced as “Bag-Row-Land” and throughout the series this would develop with such classics as “Enig-Mallet” (Enigmalet) and “Gomer’s Robot” (GomezRobert) Given how there is now a Micro-Limit Group named after Chuck’s creations I’d say that these mishaps didn’t take anything away from the series and, if anything, kept people glued in. Once again his mischievous side comes to the surface on a couple of occasions especially when asked by one of the players at the table “How can you cap KJs?” (A hand which Chuck won) to which his audio reply was “It’s fairly easy, you click “Raise” after there’s been a 3-bet” which, with addition to Chuck’s “High-Fiving” of the audience does bring the audience more into the action. Due to the fact Chuck is as good as he is at explaining his actions these occasional jabs don’t break the flow and don’t serve to annoy as some attempts at humour, especially on poker videos, can.
Chuck plays according to his principles, toning down the LAG side of his game, even if it does peep through the surface occasionally, targeting certain players and playing according to his reads, including 4 betting every street post-flop with the 2nd nut straight on a paired board due to the read he had on the now legendary BigRoland. Chuck thoroughly dissects each play he makes explaining it well which is not easy to do when looking at live play rather than looking back on a session. This format continues for the next 3 episodes.
The Final Episode of the series is more of a wrap up and ends with the slide “You are Ready”. Chuck is highly confident that anyone who has been watching for the 8 week series will be capable of defeating 0.5/1 and 1/2 game without mental breakdown by finding and isolating fish, value-betting well and using well defined and good ranges and hand-reading. This serves also as a primer for Can’t Shouldn’t Fold where Chuck promises to open up the more aggressive side of his game and show how to deal with the TAGs you are more likely to expect at 2/4 and 3/6.
Can’t Shouldn’t Fold
Can’t Shouldn’t Fold begins where The Price is Right left off with Chuck explaining what he hopes to accomplish in the coming series. He intends to sit down in “bad” games at 2/4 and 3/6 on Pokerstars in order to be able to tangle with the more standard TAGs which are found at this level. In order to combat these better players Chuck intends to ramp up the aggression to a point where the TAGs will find it uncomfortable and Chuck will be able to use his superior hand-reading abilities in order to put them on very tight ranges. He also intends to double barrel a lot in order to dissuade TAGs to peel him hoping for free cards on the turn.
This series certainly carries a slightly more serious tone than The Price is Right and Chuck is extremely focused and is quick to attack some of the more “standard theories” about LAG play he’s heard such as “He’s good enough to play 76o from the button” replying sharply “What are you talking about? I can click raise like anyone else. I did it. Cost me some money. It’s not about that. It’s about recognising the situation where opening this hand on the button has positive expected value given the current circumstances and opposition”. This isn’t to say the series is devoid of the light-hearted side of Chuck but it simply conveys the increased focus necessary in order to take on the TAG players in these games.
A focus is placed in one episode on how to read a TAG’s hand by being able to place yourself in their shoes and be able to narrow their range to just a small handful of hands which allows you to exploit them perfectly which is an extremely enlightening piece for someone who may be having trouble with their hand-reading. The same can be said for reading Loose-Passives and Weak-Tight players but it’s harder in a way to put yourself in their shoes as I imagine Deucescracked members don’t aspire to be Loose Passive or Weak-Tight fish.
Chuck also bounces into our friend variance in this series where a LAGGY fish beats the crap out of him and ONLY him at a table due to Chuck making a run of 2nd best hands and acting upon his reads which actually serve to hinder him a little. The way Chucks handles this situation is excellent and manages to convey how he’s thinking his way through and that this is a short-term setback and nothing more.
In Episode 6 Mr. “Road to Robusto” himself, Entity drops in on the series as a guest of Chuck’s and this is where the series starts to light up. You get the impression from listening to these two talk that you could lock them up in a cell for 3 days and they’d still be talking poker, probably the same hand or topic they’d started on, when you let them out. (Incidentally you get the same impression from Entity and Deathdonkey so there may be a common denominator here or it could just be DC Coaches). They go back and forth on a large number of topics from 3-betting the Big Blind vs steals to how Chuck somehow got 4 players, including dbeckham who had become a regular opponent in the series (not surprisingly since he plays pretty much all 3/6 tables) to fold for 1 bet in a 17BB pot on a Jc3c3x board on the flop. (Chuck Capped with 99 preflop).
As opposed to The Price is Right this series feels much faster paced with a vast amounts of complex topics being discussed and in my opinion in order to get the most out of this series multiple viewings are necessary. I certainly caught a few things second time around which I missed first time.
The Final Episode sees Entity and Joe Tall return to offer their insights as the series draws to a close. The series, like the first, ends on a Powerpoint presentation with a recap on what has been discussed and a very poignant discussion between the 3 on the 2 final topics which plague all Low Limit players. Rake and Moving up. Joe Tall, being Mr Tiltless himself (short of Tommy Angelo but hey we can’t all be perfect) shines in this part explaining what an impact the take truly has and how to negotiate moving up and down without giving in to fear or the variance which you will encounter when you start hitting more aggressive games. Downswings are discussed as a possibility, not an inevitability and it is extremely enlightening to see these 3 coaches who’ve all got different styles and techniques to do with play and approach come together for this conversation and I get the impression this last video could have gone 3 hours if they’d have wanted. Chuck finishes by wishing all the Deucescracked players luck and to watch out for his future series.
The Verdict
We’ll start with The Price is Right. If you are a hardened 0.5/1 or 1/2 player who’s been a 1-2BB/100 winner for a while very little said in The Price is Right is going to cause an epiphany. It will serve as an appropriate refresher and allow you to examine your thought processes to make sure you keep on the right lines and will occasionally be useful if you want to get a handle on tight ranges.
However, for where this series is aimed, at either struggling, new or very micro stakes players looking to make a move to the first “Small Stakes” I personally think this series ranks as a “must see”. The pre-flop ranges are solid and unlikely to get you into trouble, the presentation is excellent and keeps your attention and the advice is as good as you could hope for these levels as you get the feeling Danzasmack has dropped into the trenches with you and is giving you the lift to get you out rather than the standard “Drop a nuke” strategy which one session videos give.
Target Audience: Struggling 0.5/1 players, Micro Players looking to move up, Beginners.
Opinion for Target Audience: Ranks up with SSHE and other such books as must see and since a picture is worth 1000 words. I’d recommend this higher in today’s games.
Moving on to Shouldn’t Fold this one is very much for the 1/2 player looking to move up and the 2/4 or 3/6 player who is a little stuck. Chuck mentions during the series that 2/4 is a level a lot of player get stuck at, usually on some sites due to the fact the rake increase to a $3 cap (for example on Ipoker 2/4 FL has an absurd 4.48BB/100 rake which no-one is yet to prove to me is beatable long term) and the competition gets stiffer.
Chuck is frequently put in difficult spots and talks his way through it calmly and with precision. He acknowledges the difficulties that can happen at these stakes but gives the viewer a blueprint to work off and the material he produces with Entity and Joe Tall towards the end of the series is golden.
Target Audience: 1/2 players looking to move up. Struggling 2/4 – 3/6 players. Players looking to be more aggressive in their overall game
Opinion: Awesome series. Several potential epiphanies for tighter players and those feeling like they’re being run over. A thorough examination of the stakes and another “Must See” series
Additional Bonus Both of these series are available in Ipod format. DC was the first to introduce this format for Poker vids and the fact that these can be carried and watched anywhere simply adds to the usefulness of the series. The only downside is that it limits Chuck to 1-tabling but that only allows him to say everything he needs to so it's hardly a burden
Hope you enjoyed the review those who made it, I'll blog again soon on appearing on RLMG.
Later
Boomer |
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| Goal Setting |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|02:39 pm] |
I have a problem getting any amount of hands in per month at the moment. This month it's mainly been due to external influences, like cars/work/finance/etc etc etc but a lot of the time it's due to sheer laziness really.
So I'm gonna set myself a little goal now I'm back on Stars:
0.5/1Sh - Silverstar. This will requre 1500 VPPS and thus around 7500 hands a month.
1/2SH - Gold Star. This is 4000 VPPs a month but since I will earn them twice as fast roughly should only take about 10000 hands.
Tbh I don't think I'd be hitting Plat Star until at least 3/6 and probably 5/T if i ever got there. But they seem achievable for now.
It's about 10hrs a week play imo. These may change should Stars introduyce partial VPPs as this would make things a lot easier |
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| For those of you interested in what can cause a 350BB downswing..... |
[Feb. 22nd, 2009|09:24 pm] |
....for someone who has been labelled as someone who could beat limits much higher
Observe:
Yeah that 40/46 at SD MAAAAAAY have something to do with it. That and things like tonight's buggering where I got FH over Straight and turned or rivered a "Showdown" hand vs the nuts about 6 times.
It's a bit of a reminder as to how small of an edge you have to work with in FL. The variance swings you 5-10% in the wrong direction for 5k hands, it's a massive downswing and you hate life, you get the right end of it and you're wondering if you should turn pro.
Oh btw...last 37 sessions since this swing started
9 out of 37...good shit imo :) |
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| Poker Matters |
[Feb. 22nd, 2009|06:40 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | poker | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
I thought I'd post a couple of hands since apparently people actually read this....shocking I know.
I'm going to try and come up with things that I think some players get wrong when "trying" to play well:
1) Sometimes it is OK to fold A-high...
Two examples of this:
Hand 1
Party Poker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is UTG with Q Q
Hero raises, 1 fold, CO 3-bets, BTN caps!, 1 fold, BB calls, Hero calls, CO calls
Flop: (16.5 SB) 4 9 T (4 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, BB calls, Hero raises, CO folds, BTN calls, BB calls
Turn: (11.25 BB) 4 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BTN calls, BB folds
River: (13.25 BB) J (2 players)
Hero bets, BTN calls
Villian shows AhKh and I scoop
Hand 2
Party Poker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is SB with Q K
2 folds, CO raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, CO calls
Flop: (7 SB) J 4 4 (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls
Turn: (4.5 BB) T (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls
River: (6.5 BB) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls
Villain Shows As3h and I scoop
Let's come to case on this one shall we?
In both hands I had an extremely aggressive image. Now the standard way you'll see most players adapting to that is to head straight for the call button with any Ace or any pair and blindly head to showdown. However I'm going to use that term "Blindly".
In hand one he doesn't beat a single hand I play like that. I've raised under the gun and he has cold-capped a 3-bet from the button with AKs. So far so standard. In fact this whole hand is standard until we get to the river.
On the river he is getting 14-1 to call. BUT he has to think how I play in these circumstances.
Vs my UTG range exclusively he has about 14% equity on the river and thus would feel justified making a call but that assumes that I will check-raise an A-High with no draw.
If I, in fact, rule out a retarded flop check-rasie with AQo/AKo his equity vs my UTG range on the river is 0. Yup, he needs me to check-raise AQo or AKo and barrell it off 7% of the time (more since AKo is a chop) for this call to be profitable and yet it's one you'll see constanly.
So we move on to hand 2.
Again I think the turn peel is thin but ok. My 3-betting range there is something like top 21% of hands so I imagine he's got decent equity with his overcard, A-high and backdoor flush draw, I think 40% is about right.
His equity plummets on the turn to about 20%, his BDFD now won't come in and the T hits my range pretty hard, at least I'll have a draw now. And then.....
That river is a diasater for his hand...even if we just run equities he has....8.5% equity on the river and he's getting 7.5-1. He NEEDs to fold here even vs an aggressive player. He's hoping that I've 3-bet what? K5s? Well I may do sometimes but that's a VERY small part of my range. He chops with all A-highs pretty much unless I'm value-towning him with AK/AQ and loses to all pairs and draws. Just another example of failure to read the board costs bets.
My guess is his thought process was something like "Paired board, Flush draw missed. Aggro Opponent. I's got A-high - Call". If he'd have gone 1 step further and thought "But even so I don't beat anything" he may have saved a bet.
2) Not capping OOP?
This is a touchy subject really but it can work in your favour. Even 0.5/1 opponents will balk when they see that 4th bet go in preflop, especailly if you're OOP, and you won't get the action you're looking for, or worse you'll end up with AK unpaired OOP and not know what to do with it now the ppot's huge.
A couple of nice examples:
Party Poker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is UTG with Q Q
Hero raises, CO 3-bets, 3 folds, Hero calls
Flop: (7.5 SB) 8 3 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises, CO 3-bets, Hero caps!, CO calls
Turn: (7.75 BB) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, CO calls
River: (13.75 BB) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls
Villain shows TT. I scoop
This is one where I think if I'd have capped it pre-flop I may very well have gotten less action. The flop still would have been a B3B but I doubt I'd have got the turn B3B in as well. Once I don't cap I imagine he wrote AKs and JJ+ out of my range until it was too late. Or he may have just been going "I's GOT OVERPAIR MASH MASH MASH". Who can say?
Party Poker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is CO with A K
1 fold, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, Hero calls
Flop: (7.5 SB) 4 6 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, Hero calls
Turn: (6.75 BB) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero calls
River: (8.75 BB) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero calls
Villain shows AdQd for the backdoor flush and scoops
Of course when you do give up the 4th bet pre-flop you've got to take it back sometimes and here's a nice example vs an opponent who I felt was overly aggressive and would spew if i didn't 4-bet pre-flop. Turns out I was right....I just caught a whole load of wrong on the turn and river.
And here's on where I felt I was probably wrong but may be a nice one to discuss:
Party Poker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is SB with K A
2 folds, CO raises, BTN 3-bets, Hero calls, BB calls, CO calls
Flop: (12 SB) A J 8 (4 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, BB calls, CO folds, BTN calls
Turn: (9 BB) 6 (3 players)
Hero bets, BB calls, BTN calls
River: (12 BB) T (3 players)
Hero bets, BB raises, BTN calls, Hero calls
BB shows fucking Tc8c and scoops. Button had AQo
The focal point here is the Big Blind. He's a terrible 60/2 type. If I 4-bet now I leave myself OOP with initiative vs 2 strong players whereas if I just flat the 3-bets I'm still out of position but the BB is more likely to call leaving us 4-way, with a hand which doesn't mind being 4-way, and leaving me in excellent relative position on the preflop 3-bettor. I can also disguise this my calling 3 with hands like T9s, JTs and 66 so I'm not toally readable. In fact I may flat KK and AA here too. When the BB is terrible and the hand is more than likely going to SD anyway you don't lose much letting him in, especailly if you get the relative position advantage and/or get a guy to spew post-flop due to mis-reading you.
As it turns out i win the pot...maybe if I 4-bet. On the other hand he may have called 4 anyway since he has a suited connector. Overall I think my reasoning behind this is ok but it's certianly worth discussing.
Well that's it for now....
Oh ya forgot, just played my first story on left 4 Dead.....yowsza!! Apart from teh fact i suck at it and shot ribbo a couple of times by accident I think it went pretty well. I even got 2 achievements and everybody loves them.
cya next time
Boomer |
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| Wooo 2009 |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|05:13 pm] |
Wow I haven't blogged in 2009.....I should get my lazy ass blogging, especailly since I take the liberty of reading my fellow DC member's blogs
Anyhooo let's see what's been happening. Well a lot really but there's not much of it that's I'd like to throw up on a public blog as it's pretty boring stuff, mostly financial so we'll steeeer waaaay clear of that.
So let's see what else can I look at??
Oh I downloaded Magic Online again recently just in morbid curiosity and the first thing i saw was a U/R deck peel all 4 Pyroclasms in the top 20 vs a weenie deck....Nice. I did like the Reilivark (is that how you spell that 4/3 sodomizing Elemental of Doom??) deck but tbh I'm still not really missing the £200-£300 every 3 months expense without taking into account Petrol tournament fees etc etc etc. I'll still tell people loudly and often (as is my way) that I came 3rd in England at the game, went to the Worlds in France where I got paid $1000 for turning up and still made a massive loss on the game over what was little more than 5 years playing semi-seriously. To be honest I think the last set I bought anything of was Ravnica and that was a year BEFORE I walked away. did have fun though definitely.
I see Triggers has qualified for 2 Pro Tours straight so good luck to him there. Go get 'em champ!!
Ah yes on the expense front....The Mito
Walked into the dealership yesterday to be greeted with "It's being built now and should be here in 6-8 weeks"...I guess they're crafting it from marble or something.
I did see the Fifth Gear review where it was compared to the Mini Cooper 1.6S which is it's most direct rival...it's other rivals either being blown into the weeds already completely or costing £3-4k more. And the verdict?
Top Speed: Alfa
0-60: Alfa
Price: Alfa!!!
Handling: Mini
Fun to Drive: Alfa
Equipment: Alfa
Looks: Alfa (obv)
Ok I guess that's fairly comprehensive. With it's small 1.4l engine I would be surprised if it's a lower insurance group and tax group as well which makes it pretty much a complete clean sweep except for the fact the Mini was slightly better retaining speed round the corners where the Alfa decided it wanted to dance a bit instead.
Tbh when i test drove the Mito I didn't have a HUGE amount on confidence chucking it into a bend until I did and realised I was doing 20mph faster than I thought and the car didn't flinch. In Dynamic mode it's superb although most of the time I'll have it in Normal to take advantage to that 44mpg it delivers....well times are a little tight. I'll stick it in Dynamic if I'm going over Woodhead or somewhere similar though as it would be rude not to.
Looks-wise the Alfa isn't exactly a Brera but rejecting a car becasue it doesn't look like a Brera or an 8C (well it DOES look like an 8C but it's not!!) is kind of like turing down a date becasue the girl isn't as good-looking as Cheryl Cole.
God knows what's going to happen when the GTA is released but if they can put 230bhp through the chassis and not have it pull your arms off, ala Alfa 147 GTA, then the Golf GTi and Co may be looking around a bit but knowing GTA's of the past it'll be an insane license loser best suited for track days.
So what else??
Oh yeah that poker thing....
I've cashed out of Ipoker and moved back to Stars for now. The downswing hit 350BB and I decided a change was probably for the best. Plus I like being able to re-size my tables...and not have a 5BB min buyin.....and pay 1BB/100 less in rake....and get a monkey for my FPPs.
And finally....
I'm on a diet again *punches wall*. So the only sandviches I'll be eating are on Team Fortress....assuming i have enough bandwidth left at Month end to download it :D
Take Care all |
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| Goodbye 2008.... |
[Dec. 31st, 2008|02:26 pm] |
Well it's been a pretty good year in the old personal life.
Combined 10k pay-rise in the house-hold has kept us afloat, somehow the financial crisis is actually helping us rather than hindering us at the moment and I even got a vid up on DC...bonus.
Sadly I've had to pay for it in poker terms by running absolutely frigid for the past 3000 hands and I'm currently on the worst downswing I've ever been on and it's getting bad by anyone's terms especailly when you see the incredible players I'm up against....take my table today for example.
Funny thing being that I've actually had a winning year according to HEM thanks to RB and bonuses but fuck me it's been much harder work than it should be and really after today's "session" which I had to quit due to the fact I just got the "No I actually am currently incapable of winning a hand" thoughts. I had serious thoughts about just walking away for a period of time, but as usual these thoughts disappear after 10 minutes or so to be replaced by "one day". FWIW this is what it looked like 3 days ago and another 50 or so BB have gone since then
Still it's a hobby not my income, thank-god...and I've got plenty of other stuff to be getting on with. Which leads me to......
Goals for 2009 (I'll revisit at the end of 2009):
[ ] - Golf at least once a week - Preferably one round and one trip to range. Handicap of 12 by 2010.
[ ] - Gym 3 times a week. I want to run a 5k before I'm 27 and a marathon before I'm 30.
[ ] - Start ACCA. I have support from both parents on this one. Gotta find the money from somewhere but I've got to start it.
[ ] - Get one of those Ipod Flat TV's for the room, they look pretty cool.
[ ] - Tilt Less at poker and life in general. It's been pretty good to me in 2008 really.
[ ] - Try and get into a routine. Work no longer has to swallow my life the way it did in 2007 so I can finally live a little.
Poker-Wise
[ ] - 10 hrs a week. 8-10k per month. Coaches orders. :)
Let's see what 2009 brings.
Happy New year everybody |
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| I don't know where to begin here..... |
[Dec. 20th, 2008|02:24 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
I really need to update my blog more often but this week I just never got the chance, what an absolute whirlwind.
Started on Monday (how original) where I was contacted by Entity on Deucescracked saying that they'd like to work with the video I produced, which we did towards the end of the week and was a really staggering experience. Just having the opportunity to go through even one session is as much details as that was fantastic. Now almost anyone who knows me knows that when I get fixated on a subject Empires fall waiting for me to finish and Entity can be quite similar as well so I recommend ordering Pizza and getting comfortable for watching it. Pygmyhero had some awesome things to say as well in the vid and overall I think it came out great.
Keeping in with poker I've also had a couple of coaching sessions with BigBadBabar from DC and it's been everything I'd hoped for and more so far. Again fantastically detailed analysis and yet another guy whom we can go on for hours about either one particular hand or just chat about football (yeah the ENGLISH version) when we're not on a session. Hopefully big things coming (One of them atm being a downswing but har har bankroll/rakeback etc)
For the first time in ages I'm really into the Xmas spirit. It's been a long time. It may have something to do with the fact that I'm no longer on the red line, Xmas bonus paid too yay, but I just feel totally different now as if a great deal of weight has lifted. 2009 may finally be the year we move on.
Of course as with everything there was a bit of a dark side when I had to deal with a particularly annoying phone call with a bank clerk...I don't mind admitting I'm wrong but speaking to the customer as though they're a child and then refunding a hidden double charge "as a one-off gesture of goodwill" is a really great way to lose customers.....which they did within 15 minutes of the call. Feels great not having to put up with that crap anymore.
Anyway, Merry Xmas to everyone who celebrates it, Happy Holidays if you don't. Have a safe and Happy New Year |
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| And it goes on and on and ariston... |
[Dec. 12th, 2008|08:40 pm] |
The one crumb of relief I have about the fact I'm now at a 300BB downswing is the fact that if my opponents were actually competent it'd be closer to 500BB.
Such as this genius, it was this hand which forced me to quit the session short as combined with 4 or 5 others happening in rapid succession I quickly lost focus...
Ipoker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is SB with J K
1 fold, CO calls, 1 fold, Hero raises, BB calls, CO calls
Flop: (6 SB) T J 8 (3 players)
Hero bets, BB calls, CO calls
Turn: (4.5 BB) A (3 players)
Hero bets, BB folds, CO calls
River: (6.5 BB) K (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls
Final Pot: 8.5 BB
CO shows Q 8
CO wins 8.1 BB
(Rake: $0.40)
Hard to raise with the nuts apparently.
They also spew and get there:
IPoker $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is CO with A K
1 fold, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, Hero calls
Flop: (7.5 SB) 4 6 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, Hero calls
Turn: (6.75 BB) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero calls
River: (8.75 BB) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero calls
Final Pot: 10.75 BB
BTN shows A Q
BTN wins 10.25 BB
(Rake: $0.50)
Plenty of ways to skin a cat.
On the plus side in the last session I played which I recorded for a potential appearance on DC I had some fun at a LAGs expense so obviously my pennance was to get the Jesus seat on the "BEST TABLE EVAAAAR" and lose every hand...seems fair. |
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