Quick life update. Did anyone see Shutter Island? I saw it a few nights ago and i thought it was fantastic. May be one of my favorite thrillers of all-time. The cinematography was amazing, the storyline was interesting, and the acting was damn good. I want to get into it more but it would definitely spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

I’m also going to Vegas on Thursday, again. This time for my cousin’s 21st b-day which should be an absolute blast. His family is pretty wealthy so I’m curious as to see how much money is gonna go into this weekend. I’ll update after i come back.

For the past months I’ve been working on my 6-max game. Playing mostly 5/10 6max on Full Tilt, but some 3/6 and some one stars. I’m really focused on learning and i think that I’m progressing quickly. Recently, i realized i needed to work on something i don’t think a lot of players think about working on. I always felt that for some reason when i play headsup i get extraordinary feels for my opponents but in 6max i almost never got that same feel. It’s incredibly important to be able to get this feel because than i can make the proper adjustments to my opponents and it allows me to maker tighter folds, better calls, and bigger bluffs. A few days ago, it occurred to me that I’m just not skilled at getting a feel for multiple players at once, especially over 8-9 tables. So now I’ve started to work on it. At the start of every session I will play 4 tables for 1-2 hours, because if i focus enough it is easy to see every hand that’s going on and assimilate what’s happening. Then i transition to 8 and try and keep that same focus that i have with 4. So far it’s been working well and I’ve been playing better than ever, but i still have a long way to go.

I’m hoping by the end of the year I’ll feel like i can beat 25/50 6max and start crushing it. The regs move down to 5/10 every so often and they are very beatable, I may already be a winner at 25/50 6max but I want to feel like I’m really ready.

Danny and I have both been doing pretty well lately, so maybe in the coming weeks you’ll see some shot taking. I may take a shot at the 100/200 games that have been running on stars, i think there’s a couple of soft spots in there ). More likely you’ll see Danny on the high stakes HU on full tilt so keep look out for redgrape on stars (me) or Mirttinur or full ilt (Danny).

So thank you everyone for the responses to the Soso hand. The comments brought up a lot of interesting factors to the hand.

The tipping point was that he would likely not bet this size with a nut hand ever, since he couldn’t possibly think I was going to call this huge overbet since I haven’t called an overbet he’s made in the past ever. So I called and he showed Kc8, total air, and I took down the pot.

I feel like I’ve been running terribly at sit and gos, but I have been running hot as hell at HU Cash. I’m surprised at how well I have been able to play after taking such a long hiatus. I have played some good players but have felt like I have gotten the best of them. There was one player, however, that I felt like got the best of me even though I ended up winning a lot from him. That player was Observer84 on FTP. He certainly was able to put a ton of pressure on me in position, which proved to be tough to handle. He also balanced his ranges very well, which made it impossible for me to make a big call down against him. On the other side of the coin, I was able to make some very good bluffs against him.

Full Tilt Poker Game #19550133163: Table Maddux (heads up) – $25/$50 – No Limit Hold’em – 13:38:19 ET – 2010/03/25
Seat 1: Observer84 ($16,916.50)
Seat 2: Mirttinur ($15,709.50)
Mirttinur posts the small blind of $25
Observer84 posts the big blind of $50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mirttinur [Jc 7d]
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur raises to $150
Observer84 calls $100
*** FLOP *** [9s 5c 8c]
Observer84 checks
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur bets $250
Observer84 raises to $800
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur calls $550
*** TURN *** [9s 5c 8c] [Jh]
Observer84 has 15 seconds left to act
Observer84 bets $1,450
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur raises to $4,450
Observer84 has 15 seconds left to act
Observer84 has requested TIME
Observer84 folds
Uncalled bet of $3,000 returned to Mirttinur
Mirttinur shows [Jc 7d] a pair of Jacks
Mirttinur wins the pot ($4,799.50)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $4,800 | Rake $0.50
Board: [9s 5c 8c Jh]
Seat 1: Observer84 (big blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 2: Mirttinur (small blind) collected ($4,799.50)

In this hand you should note that Observer had been check raising me on the flop a lot $800 exactly. You should also note that we are 300bbs deep.  Now for most it should be obvious this is a pure bluff, not value. My reasoning was because he was good at folding and because I had hands like 55, JJ, T7, and QT in my range that it was more than enough to be credible here. But the real reason behind this bluff is how I thought he’d react to the raise. My assumption was if he had 76, T7, 99/88 or QT, he would 3bet over my turn raise, as he’d almost never think I’d be bluffing here, so it would be pointless to call. So that means any range he called my turn raise with would not want to call a shove on the river. Honestly, given how good he was at folding I would guess that he would fold 98 here to a river shove, and could possibly even fold 55. Of course, any bluffs he was making here would also fold, but that is somewhat irrelevant since I’m beating bluffs.

Anyways, I feel like I’m playing some of my best HU cash I’ve ever played. I’m going to challenge a lot of good players in the next few weeks so be on the look out!

This was generously submitted by a high stakes friend of ours. For the sake of anonymity we changed his name in this hand to Hero.

The Villain is this hand is a high stakes heads-up regular, who plays as high as 200/400 NL.

Full Tilt Poker Game #19419380087: Table Toast (heads up) – $25/$50 – No Limit Hold’em – 16:31:27 ET – 2010/03/20
Seat 1: Hero ($7,199.50)
Seat 2: Solid Reg ($18,812.75)
Solid Reg posts the small blind of $25
Hero posts the big blind of $50 Read the rest of this entry

So yesterday i bought a new car, a 2010 fully loaded black on black Nissan Maxima. I’m going to sell my “ballin” SUV (Danny’s words not mine) just because i don’t need a big car and wanted something sportier. The whole process of buying the car was really entertaining so i thought I’d tell you about it.

Read the rest of this entry

I’m inspired by Max’s rating the regulars on FTP that I wanted to stir the pot more and write my own list. I have played pretty much every regular that exists at HU SNGs on Stars. I am certainly more than qualified to comment on who the best players are, and why they are the best. (Click the bottom right!)

Who made the top 5?

Just for pure entertainment purposes, i thought i’d rank who i thought we’re the best regs at 5/10 6max. Some people consider online 5/10 6max one of the toughest games in the world because it’s a) The highest game that runs 8+ tables regularly 24/7) The players put in tons of hours and have really perfected their game. For now, i’m just going to rank the players on Fulltiltpoker.com. Maybe later i’ll do stars and/or a combined rankings.

So for your reading pleasure, here ya go (in reverse order):

Read the rest of this entry

Yesterday, I wanted to put in a lot of SNG volume but ended up playing a bad player at heads up cash instead. I felt very good about my play during the match; I made some great adjustments, got a good feel for how my opponent was playing, and made some very good calls and bluffs. I was particularly proud of the following bluff.

Full Tilt Poker Game #19334728391: Table Cotton (heads up) – $25/$50 – No Limit Hold’em – 12:46:54 ET – 2010/03/17
Seat 1: Triko ($4,771.50)
Seat 2: Mirttinur ($17,662)
Mirttinur posts the small blind of $25
Triko posts the big blind of $50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mirttinur [Jc Ks]
Mirttinur raises to $150
Triko raises to $450
Mirttinur calls $300
*** FLOP *** [Qc 9d 2s]
Triko bets $600
Mirttinur calls $600
*** TURN *** [Qc 9d 2s] [2h]
Triko bets $1,550
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur raises to $16,612, and is all in
Triko has 15 seconds left to act
Triko folds
Triko adds $2,828.50
Uncalled bet of $15,062 returned to Mirttinur
Mirttinur mucks
Mirttinur wins the pot ($5,199.50)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $5,200 | Rake $0.50
Board: [Qc 9d 2s 2h]
Seat 1: Triko (big blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 2: Mirttinur (small blind) collected ($5,199.50), mucked

But that wasn’t the interesting hand of that day, just a brag hand .

I ended up playing a single 5500 sng against a player named Soso. Soso is well known throughout the HU SNG community. Most people think he’s terrible… I personally think he is underrated and plays very strong in a lot of areas. He is willing to bluff in big pots, and take advantage of situations where your range is weak. Interesting to this hand is the fact I initially asked him if he wanted to multi table 2250′s, which he rebutted with an offer of multi 5500′s. I declined initially because I did not feel like I was in the right state of mind to play that high. But I took a short break to prepare myself and decided to sit. This may have given the impression to Soso that I was scared money.

PokerStars Game #41293613842: Tournament #253611886, $5500+$100 USD Hold’em No Limit – Match Round I, Level I (10/20) – 2010/03/17 11:37:14 ET
Table ’253611886 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: heybude (1530 in chips)
Seat 2: soso9200 (1470 in chips)
heybude: posts small blind 10
soso9200: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [Jc Ah]
heybude: raises 40 to 60
soso9200: calls 40
*** FLOP *** [Ac 9c 7c]
soso9200: checks
heybude: bets 80
soso9200: raises 120 to 200

Everything up to this point is clearly standard. When he raises, my first thought is to fold. I know I have a pretty hand, but I figure if someone was to bluff on this board they would take it 3 streets, and that a solid player may never c/r anything worse on the flop. Therefore, I have to decide if I want to put my stack in and hope that he is bluffing enough to justify it. I can’t be positive his range is strictly nut hands and bluffs though, since Soso and many HU SNG players do surprising things, so I decide to call and reevaluate my options. Considering I would likely 3bet the flop with my nut hands, I think this is a decent spot to throw in a small 3bet with a club or some sort of straight draw as a bluff. When I do this, my prediction would be that he would 4bet shove all his nut hands, fold all his bluffs, flat call hands like weakish draws and random top pair and midpair hands he decided to c/r. Therefore, his flop-3bet-calling range would contain hands that would likely fold to a turn shove. Doing this sort of bluff may seem ballsy, but I think it would actually be a solid play.

heybude: calls 120
*** TURN *** [Ac 9c 7c] [5d]
soso9200: checks

At this point I’m not that happy. As I said earlier, I really thought he would go two more barrels with a bluff. So I figure he is either going for the turn c/r with the nuts or had something with weak showdown value. Although, it still possible he c/r the flop as a bluff. Easy check behind.

heybude: checks
*** RIVER *** [Ac 9c 7c 5d] [2s]
soso9200: bets 1210 and is all-in

Now he overbets for more than twice the pot. On one hand, it is totally credible that he could get to the river with a nut hand (ones that were planning to c/r the turn all in). On the other hand, there’s a lot of other factors in favor of him having nothing. One, he may not overbet with his nut hands here. Two, there’s incredibly compelling reasons for someone to overbet here: The 2 of spades surely didn’t improve my range on the river, I don’t have a nut hand in my range, and because I previously declined playing a 5k sng, he may think I’m scared money.

I won’t give the results yet, I’m interested to here your thoughts.

So what do you guys think, call or fold?

People normally have places they regularly go when surfing the net. For me, I tend to go to the big poker forums, check up on sports, and read some poker blogs. Of all the blogs I read, Tommy Angelo’s blog is the only one I truly frequent.

For those unfamiliar with him, Tommy has an incredibly unique perspective on life. He’ll take a topic which you would normally see a blogger bitch and moan about and turn it around. For me, it makes me rethink my perspectives; beliefs I thought I was sure were true, but then later realize they were not.

This post by Angelo is both hilarious and thought provoking. It is bar-none the best blog post I’ve ever read. Enjoy.

I had spring break last week that I just got back from yesterday. I have done so much traveling the past 5 days I’m surprised I am not falling asleep in class. I went to San Fran to see my brothers, one which you know, the other my older brother Aaron who turned 24 on the 12th. We decided to rent a house in Tahoe to party and have a great time. Snowboarding was a possibility but it ended up being too much of an effort.

We took off in Max’s gigantic Infiniti SUV. This thing is the most baller car I have ever seen. White body, 20 inch rims, DVD player, tank-like. All seven seats were filled; Me, Aaron and Max, their girlfriends, and two guys who coincidentally named Willy C. Unfortunately, the trip started off on a bad foot. I can’t tell you how shitty it feels when you think a trip is going to take 3 and a half hours and it takes 7 hours. Not only did we leave on Friday, which would probably have the most traffic out of any day of the week, it was also blizzarding in Tahoe. In case you didn’t know the equation, epically bad drivers + snow = 10 miles per hour on average.

Nonetheless the trip was well worth it. It was crazy fun with two consecutive nights of legendary games of hot tub truth or dare . I also had many meaningful conversations while sipping cognac by the fireplace. On the last day, we went to this great brunch place on the west lake called “Fire Sign Cafe.” If your ever in Tahoe its worth the drive. It all looked so good I actually ordered two dishes.

I had to take the red eye back to DC and ended up having my good friend Adam pick me up at 5:45 AM. We got home at 7:00 AM and I immediately slept some more. I wanted to sleep forever but unfortunately I had to go to class in 5 hours. Thank god school is almost over.

I think most poker players await that eureka moment. A moment where you’re minding your own business and then something just clicks. This key turns in your head, a door flies open and suddenly you are Phil Ivey. There is a secret to making more money playing poker then you ever have in your life and I’m going to unveil it in this post. But first let’s speculate together.

Could it be becoming more aggressive? I bet some of you have thought that in your poker career, that if you became fearlessly aggressive you could become a great poker player. This may help some players, but this is not the secret. Is it playing hands like K4 and 96s, hands that will hit hard when they hit and no one will suspect you have them? Although you may have seen great players play these hands on poker TV shows, this is not the secret. Well if it’s not playing loose with crazy aggression, it must be that if I play tight and passive everyone will just bet into me and I will win! Sorry, not what I was looking for.

Ok I’ll stop teasing you, here’s the secret to winning lots of money at poker:

1)                          Work a long, long time. Work longer than you’ve ever worked before, 8 or 9 hours a day playing actual poker and more time after that studying the game. I know what you’re thinking, “Thanks Max, real helpful. Tell me something I didn’t know.” But the fact of the matter is that although most poker players subconsciously know this idea, they do not follow this advice. I’ve seen countless players complain to me about how they’re not making as much money as they’d like, and I find out they’re playing 2-3 hours a day. This is pathetic, if you’re a professional poker player and you are playing a few hours a day, and you are complaining that you don’t make a lot of money, you are a sad human being.

The key to making money in poker is optimizing chance, just like when you’re trying to calculate whether your pot odds are good enough to call with that flush draw, or whether you can bluff against a certain range. In this case, we’re optimizing our chance by giving ourselves the most opportunities to make money, significantly improve our game, and maybe have that big tourney score. Trying to get around playing a lot to make money means you are giving yourself up to chance, and letting it determine how poker will work out for you. Personally I’d rather not let that asshole control my career.

2)                          Work more efficiently. Set up a pregame routine. If you feel like you need to learn, play 4 tables instead of your usual 10, and don’t play 4 tables for one day play it for a month. Talk to the right people about the game, and talk constructively. Join the right poker forum (I go to flopturnriver.com, which has a smaller player base than 2 plus 2 but has a solid group of great players). Figure out the optimal amount of tables you should play to make the most money. Find your optimal game. Find a workspace that will allow you to play as efficiently as you can. Uninstall chat rooms and don’t go on the internet. All of these things and anything else you can do to improve your efficiency while playing will significantly increase the money you make.

One year ago I was one of the pathetic, idiotic poker players I highlighted in the above paragraphs.  I was doing well in poker, I had moved up to the highest stakes I’d ever played, 25/50 nl headsup, and I was crushing. I felt in February that I could make a million dollars by the end of the year. But if I would have thought about what my winrate was, how the games may change through the year, and other things that could change over the course of the year, I would have realized that making a million dollars was unlikely to happen unless I played 8 hours a day. I ended up playing only a few hours a day over the next year, and I didn’t even sniff a quarter of a million even though I almost made that much by March.

Recently, with the help of some friends and a poker coach named Jared Tendler I realized something. If I wanted to make the money I wanted all I had to do is work harder. I started playing 6-8 hours a day. Then I thought about what more I could do. I realized that if I took a shower every morning I played better, so I started taking showers before my sessions. I realized that if I wrote down goals, day-to-day and long term, I could play with more focus. I discovered countless things that made me a more efficient poker player. This year, I understand what it’s going to take to make the money I want to make and I plan on following through.

I’m sorry if the title of this post is a little deceiving. There is no real secret to making more money than you ever had. The secret is that you knew all along but you didn’t want to face the reality. And the reality is you need to be working harder, you need to be playing efficient long hours or else you’re never going to make the money you want to make. And there is no way to circumvent it. Luckily, this is something everyone can accomplish.