I have 3 hands for you. Put your answer in the comments if the bluff worked or not. You can do a simple yes/no or expand on why and I’ll comment. If you guess right…. well, you win a slight ego boost.

Relevant reads: I’m playing relatively aggressive but really have not followed through that much. I have overbet a similar amount in hand 1 over pot three times and he called once when he rivered two pair and folded the other two times. I have not raised his barrels in position after c/c the flop on the turn or river at all. I have not raised his bets past the flop period. I have been c/ring the flop a ton but have not followed through onto the river much at all.

Hand 1:
PokerStars Game #60389910251: Hold’em No Limit ($2/$4 USD) – 2011/04/05 14:54:28 PT [2011/04/05 17:54:28 ET]
Table ‘Guisan VIII’ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: BlackMojos ($1375.75 in chips)
Seat 2: heybude ($844.50 in chips)
heybude: posts small blind $2
BlackMojos: posts big blind $4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [Th 3s]
heybude: raises $4 to $8
BlackMojos: calls $4
*** FLOP *** [6c Ah 9h]
BlackMojos: checks
heybude: bets $12
BlackMojos: calls $12
*** TURN *** [6c Ah 9h] [7c]
BlackMojos: checks
heybude: bets $32
BlackMojos: calls $32
*** RIVER *** [6c Ah 9h 7c] [2d]
BlackMojos: checks
heybude: bets $184 (pots a little over 100)

Hand 2:
PokerStars Game #60387373810: Hold’em No Limit ($2/$4 USD) – 2011/04/05 14:07:35 PT [2011/04/05 17:07:35 ET]
Table ‘Vinifera VII’ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: BlackMojos ($785.50 in chips)
Seat 2: heybude ($917.50 in chips)
BlackMojos: posts small blind $2
heybude: posts big blind $4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [Td 4d]
BlackMojos: raises $8 to $12
heybude: calls $8
*** FLOP *** [4c Qh 2d]
heybude: checks
BlackMojos: bets $18
heybude: calls $18
*** TURN *** [4c Qh 2d] [8s]
heybude: checks
BlackMojos: bets $48
heybude: calls $48
*** RIVER *** [4c Qh 2d 8s] [3d]
heybude: checks
BlackMojos: bets $142
heybude: raises $302 to $444

Hand 3:
PokerStars Game #60389830548: Hold’em No Limit ($2/$4 USD) – 2011/04/05 14:52:56 PT [2011/04/05 17:52:56 ET]
Table ‘Cohnia XII’ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: BlackMojos ($954.50 in chips)
Seat 2: heybude ($546.50 in chips)
BlackMojos: posts small blind $2
heybude: posts big blind $4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [4c 6h]
BlackMojos: raises $8 to $12
heybude: calls $8
*** FLOP *** [8h Ts 2d]
heybude: checks
BlackMojos: bets $18
heybude: raises $38 to $56
BlackMojos: calls $38
*** TURN *** [8h Ts 2d] [5c]
heybude: bets $108
BlackMojos: calls $108
*** RIVER *** [8h Ts 2d 5c] [6s]
heybude: bets $370.50 and is all-in

I was playing the other day when my girlfriend Gwen came over. She asked me how the day was going, and I said pretty bad. I had lost probably 5-6k in the last 25 minutes and it was definitely affecting me, I was tilting. She said, “Why don’t you stop playing for the day?” I thought for a bit and said, “Actually I should do the Exact Opposite of that!”

My goal in poker for this year is to make the most money I possibly can. There are many elements to doing this, but the most important one is to play as many hours of poker as I can. I’m going to have many sessions throughout this year where I have losing streaks like the one that day. If I quit every time they happen and when I feel like I’m tilting, I will shorten the amount of total time I play poker this year. Furthermore, if I quit when I tilt, it will not help me learn to deal with tilt, which is important in situations where I can’t quit playing (i.e. a tournament or an online game with a whale).

I had one of those tilting sessions last night, losing a lot in a short period of time playing 1k sngs against a fish. Today I woke up and didn’t feel like playing, still feeling tilted from the other night. Because of this, I’m going to do the opposite. I’m going to play 400 hu sngs from the 100-1k level, no matter what my results are.

My goals for today are this:

1) Play 400 SNGs on Full Tilt. These will be a mix of turbos and superturbos.

2) Journal on every break (This will count as my first journal).

3) If I feel like I’m tilting, I must play for 1 hour more from the moment I become aware of it.

I’ll update throughout the day on twitter, @suitedAAces.

Despite overall having a relatively solid year, I had a very frustrating end of the month. I had a couple of big negative days, and overall I’m down a lot since the 28th of March. It’s been mostly at 25/50 HU, and mostly against relatively solid players who I believe against I have a solid edge.

This is particularly frustrating because both my theoretical knowledge and my gameplay level while in a match has been fantastic. I feel unbeatable, despite being badly beaten this past week. So I suppose that’s good; despite getting unlucky I still have a lot of confidence that it will turn around. EV wise I’m running very badly, and objectively I feel like my strategies against the players I’ve been playing and my level of play translates into a lot of cash.

I’ve also been going through a staking controversy, which has been a hot topic on 2p2. You can read about it here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/harrahs-rincon-10k-1001130/

The gist of this is I bought a piece of a respected mtt pro… or so I thought. On day 2 of the tournament he informs me that he already had all the action bought and that he’d send me back my money. Of course, I don’t find it agreeable to allow him to cancel action in the middle of the tournament. Naturally, he gets 2nd, I’m owed around 17k, and a shit storm ensues. I’ll keep you guys updated on what happens, but right now I believe I am owed 17k and I am trying my hardest to get my deserved money.

I guess I should be a tourney pro cause I’m complaining about running bad after making a nice score ). Well this isn’t really complaining, just in the form of complaining. I’m just pretty astounded at the variance in supers (This is a 100 buyin difference in EV, which in 1ks is 100k). I’m also posting this in part to reassure myself that I am a nice winner in 1ks and that to maximize my profitability I need to keep playing them.

The red line is EV and the green line is actual winnings.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Hand 1

Full Tilt Poker Game #29426340091: Table Wet (heads up) – $25/$50 – No Limit Hold’em – 17:17:24 ET – 2011/03/28
Seat 1: jfriedmanaa ($12,604)
Seat 2: Mirttinur ($8,645.50)
jfriedmanaa posts the small blind of $25
Mirttinur posts the big blind of $50
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mirttinur [Kh 8h]
jfriedmanaa raises to $125
Mirttinur raises to $450
jfriedmanaa has 15 seconds left to act
jfriedmanaa raises to $1,250
Mirttinur calls $800
*** FLOP *** [5s 6c Th]
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur bets $1,350
jfriedmanaa has 15 seconds left to act
jfriedmanaa raises to $2,700
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur has requested TIME
Mirttinur raises to $7,395.50, and is all in
jfriedmanaa folds
Uncalled bet of $4,695.50 returned to Mirttinur
Mirttinur mucks
Mirttinur wins the pot ($7,899.50)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $7,900 | Rake $0.50
Board: [5s 6c Th]
Seat 1: jfriedmanaa (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: Mirttinur (big blind) collected ($7,899.50), mucked

Hand 2

Full Tilt Poker Game #29426516852: Table Wet (heads up) – $25/$50 – No Limit Hold’em – 17:22:56 ET – 2011/03/28
Seat 1: jfriedmanaa ($7,728.50)
Seat 2: Mirttinur ($13,519)
Mirttinur posts the small blind of $25
jfriedmanaa posts the big blind of $50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mirttinur [Ah 8d]
Mirttinur raises to $100
jfriedmanaa raises to $400
Mirttinur calls $300
*** FLOP *** [7d Jc 9c]
jfriedmanaa checks
Mirttinur bets $500
jfriedmanaa has 15 seconds left to act
jfriedmanaa raises to $1,575
Mirttinur has 15 seconds left to act
Mirttinur raises to $2,650
jfriedmanaa folds
Uncalled bet of $1,075 returned to Mirttinur
Mirttinur mucks
Mirttinur wins the pot ($3,949.50)

“You can do anything with $10 million. Like, you can buy a house and still have around $5 million left over.”

-Daniel “jungleman12″ Cates, NYT article.

As you know, I made the final table of the Wynn Classic Main Event, which played out last night. I felt like I played very good poker to get there, but was also pretty clearly fortunate, winning a 3 flips and AQ vs QQ allin pre (The hand itself was very standard) on the final table bubble on my way to the final 9.
Read the rest of this entry

“The only thing that matters when deciding whether to bluff is whether your opponent thinks you would not be bluffing in this situation. All factors, such as strength of your range or his range, all funnel into this concept.”

-Haseeb Qureshi in the most recent “Leakfinder” video on Cardrunners (paraphrased)

Let me say two things before explaining this quote. One, Haseeb Qureshi is far and away the best video marker you will find. He is not only extremely intelligent but articulate, explaining concepts with such elegance it’s hard not to understand his words without feeling a light bulb turning on in your brain. If you haven’t watched his videos, it’s worth getting a Cardrunners subscription just for this purpose. Two, to be fair, Rich “nutsinho” Lyndaker actually said almost the same thing before Haseeb did in a Leggopoker video. I think both of them are geniuses so I’ll give them equal credit.

P.S. Tried to write an elegant explanation, but couldn’t. Maybe I’ll try to find Haseeb and see — Since I gave him such a big compliment — if he’ll write an explanation I can post on this blog.

In the poker world, there are tons of different ways you could be a professional player. You can grind live tournaments, play hu sngs, play omaha, etc. But with so many different fields to choose from, how are you supposed to know which one will fit you best? I’m here to help. If you find that you match up with any of the personality types below, you’ve probably found your new niche.

Live Tourney Player:

- 85% of your life is depressing.
- You enjoy wearing hooded sweatshirts and complaining about things.
- You aren’t a friendly person.
- Your favorite sport is football but your favorite team is the Detroit Lions.
- You have a nickname that your friends gave you when you were younger and it makes no sense.

Online Cash Player:

- You are mediocre at everything you do, but think you’re awesome.
- You’re a strange looking person.
- You own a cat with a quirky personality.
- You love sports and even though you’re somewhat uncoordinated you are a decent basketball player.
- Your kitchen is covered with dirty dishes, pots, and utensils yet you don’t remember every using it.

HU SNG Player:

- You’ve been into at least two fights, but they were all against people smaller than you and they didn’t last more than 30 seconds.
- Whenever you play poker and you’re the big blind, no matter what the action is preceding you, you call.
- You have ADD.
- You have a lot of friends, but they all think you suck.
- You especially like South Park episodes that revolve around Randy Marsh.
- When a little kid passes you on the street, and he makes a face at you, you get extremely angry.

Live Cash Player:

- You used to go to frat parties in college (although you weren’t in the fraternity) and you hung out with the most drunk people there.
- You are a bitter person.
- When you were younger, your Mom would clean your room every day and make you a delicious dinner every night and you still found her annoying.
- You think college football is more exciting than the NFL.
- You think reraising AK is ridiculous.

Online MTT player:

- You aren’t intelligent.
- You are capable of feeling unlucky the day after winning a 20000 person tournament for 250k.
- You think you’re good at omaha, but you’re not.
- Your favorite movie is Belly starring DMX, Nas and a Jamaican guy who’s accent is so thick that no one can understand one word he says, but he’s your favorite character anyway.
- You smoke a lot of weed.

HU Cash Player:

- Your idea of a good night is getting into a 3 hour argument with someone over politics or philosophy.
- You’re totally inept in one normal social skill that all your friends are above average in.
- You’re unconfrontational.
- You possibly don’t enjoy sports, but if you do you like baseball.
- You tried cocaine once, and loved it. But you haven’t done it since.
- You’re an overachiever.

I hope the CA or US Government never makes online poker illegal. I hope that online poker never becomes so fish-less that its almost impossible to beat. A year ago, I was worried about this, but now I’m not. And the reason is live satellites.

I was introduced to live satellites in vegas last spring. There was a tournament series going on at the Wynn, probably the Wynn classic, and my friend asked me if I wanted to play a satellite. “You mean like online?”

“No the Wynn runs single table satellites to tournaments every day.”

“But won’t I have to play the tournament if I win?”

“No, they just give you “tournament chips” If you win, and you can sell them to people really easily.”
(I’ve been to several other tournaments since then, and almost all of them have the same system with Satellites. You don’t win a seat, you win tournament chips)

I sat down at a $535 one which started 15 minutes after I sat. I started out tight, assuming that the late game strategies of most of these players were going to be bad. As I folded and observed as time went by, I realized that besides my friend and I, the table was filled with fish. And I’m not talking about the kind of fish that plays like 40/5 but knows what he’s doing postflop, these players were making mistakes every hand. When it got to end game, they got incomprehensibly worse. Player’s routinely called hands like 88 to my raise with only 8bb, even with 5 players left and two getting paid. There was no adjustment to stacksizes, even when those stacksizes were minuscule compared to the blinds and antes.

I ended up winning this satellite, but I assumed after that I would have to go to vegas to play tournaments like these. It turns out that single table and multitable satellites like these, go on at every live tournament, and most of them reward you with a tourney chips and not a seat. And even if they do reward you with a seat, if it’s a tournament your already playing in, it’s basically the same thing.

Just this morning I went down to San Jose to play in a 1k Satellite to the WPT Bay 101 ME. I mostly went down there to get some live experience, since I hadn’t played at a casino for over two months. I assumed that since this was a $1000 tournament, the play couldn’t have been that poor. I was wrong again, it was even worse than my first experience at the Wynn and way worse than the Satellites that run during the WSOP. I sat down at my table and there was no one under 30 around me. A player to my right limp/called T5 for 1/8 of effective stacks. No one was even remotely decent. And although I didn’t end up winning a seat, I am 90% sure that my roi was at least 60% and 75% sure that it was around 100%. Making 1k for a mornings worth of work isn’t bad at all.

So if online poker ever dies, and you want to find me, look for me grinding live sattys at major tournaments. I’ll probably have some chips to sell.