On the ski slopes. And then on the lift.

Deal with it.

In  the middle of July I am on the ski slopes. Going down very fast. In the past few days everything just goes wrong on the poker tables. It's something like bad beat after setup after mistake. And again and
again. I want to get out of this vicious circle. The only thing that I have to do to achieve is just to continue playing and not to give up. I found the picture in 2+2 forum and for it's fits perfectly in this post. Maybe a it needs a little correction: DEAL WITH THE VARIATION. Yes, this way it looks much more accurate to be posted in poker blog :)

There's one more problem during bad poker periods. You are losing your motivation. This is really serious obstacle and you have to find you own way to deal with it. Doing some sport for me is the best way to keep the sharpness of your mind and avoid motivation lost. Also I enjoy watching some videos. Let me show you one really motivating video for me.

There's no easy way out!

I hope you liked the video. I have no idea what else to write so let's show you some interesting hands.

Folding JJ?

It's 5 handed game at the moment. Blind 1.5k/3k/430. I am on UTG with JJ.  My stack is 92547. (30.8bb) My open is 2.5x and I receive 2 call - from BTN and SB. They both cover my stack. The flop is: 87A. Pot - 27650. I decide to cbet 1/2 pot. BTN calls, SB folds. Turn: 5. Pot - 55.3k. No I really don't know what to do. With 71.2k behind do I have a 2nd barrel?

Something happened during writing this post. What is it? Let me explain. I started writing this post 3-4 hours ago. I had to go out for about an hour and saved it as a draft. Now I am finishing it. Check out this screenshot :)

5 euro Kill the Fish - 3rd place.

This was really important tourney for me. It was the prove that consistency is the most important thing. Now I am motivated more than ever to achieve much better results. 

A few words about the tournament. As you can guess it was running good for me. During the whole tournament I was in top 5. This time there were 2 suchkouts for me - my 99 busted AA preflop for about 13bb(I had about 30bb) and on the final table my A4o killed 88 for about 10bb (25bb for me). My last hand was 44 vs ATo for the tournament winner which is actually a total fish but never mind. I am kind of satisfied from this result but at the same time I am hungry for much more. :) 

Good luck at the tables and let the river be with you :D

Day off + hand review.

Day off from poker for me.

I decided to have a break today for two reasons: tomorrow is my exam at the university and in addition I have to think about my game and how to improve it.

No time for wasting. Let's get right to some interesting hands which bother me a little bit.

AKs for 118bb?

I am in MP with AK. Blinds are 75/150. UTG raise to 450 and I 3bet to 1275. Everyone is fold to him. After 10 seconds of thinking he shoves. What to do now? The key thing here is that this guy lost 50% of his chips on a crazy bluff in the previous hand. I think that this fact makes any statistics unnecessary. I snap called and for my surprise he showed QQ. 46% to 54% lead for him preflop. I am pretty sure that this is the absolute top of his range in this situation. Let's see the flop: 5QA. I still have chance to win - 31%. Turn: 3. No help for me - 18%. River: K. I am out :) What do you think about this hand?

3 barrel bluff with JTs.

3 barrel like a boss.

I know that it is not a good idea to make this kind moves in micro stakes tournaments but I had a feeling that it will work out well. I hold JT on the CO. Blind 400/800/75. No action to me and I devide to 37. He check/calls my 2100 cbet. Turn: 4. I think this is blank turn because I can't imagine that he will call with 56,84,74 kind of hands. Maybe just 44 is possible. I continue the story - bet 4200 and he calls. The pot is 16800. River: A. All draws are missing and a overcard showed up. He checks and I shove after a short period of thinking. He insta folds and I win the hand. Nice. Do you think that he could fold 8x here?
minraise. Button and SB fold and BB just calls. My stack is about 26.5bb, his - 49.5bb. Pot is 4200. Here comes the flop: 8

Any comments will be appreciated. Good luck at the tables.

Good day for studying, not for poker.

Such a rainy day.

Today was the perfect day for studying for my exams. The weather was rainy and cold. Usually these conditions are good also for poker but not today. A littble bit of setups, a little bit of bad play and a few bad beats were enough to cease my poker day early (it's 8:30p.m.).

I discovered that I get some kind of impatient on the deepstack tourneys just before the ITM phase. Why I think so? During this period I start to open some marginal hands trying to steal but it looks like I am not doing it very well. My opinion is that this is a serious problem and I gotta work hard to fix it. How I will do that? Well, start picking up the good spots is the first step.

Multitabling protects you from the boredom.

One more thing. Maybe I should start multitabling more. Why? Because sometimes I involve myself in marginal spots because I'm tired of folding and try to accumulate some chips in the hard way. Not cool at all I think.

This post will be short because I want to go to relax as soon as possible. Good luck at the tables.

One of those days...

There are days which are not good poker. Today is a very good example. I feel very impatient and distracted. The combination of "these two" can bust you from every tournament. As you can see from the picture below my losing streak started yesterday's evening.

A little losing streak for me. Nothing serious.

I know that this is pretty standard variation and there aren't any disturbing thoughts in my mind. I have seen people not cash in 200 consecutive tournaments. Maybe this will cause some discomfort to me and my mental game but that's variation. The only to handle it is to be patient and constant in your game. These words easily could be applied for almost everything in life. For now I will try to play my "A game" as much time as I can and hopefully the results will be good.

ABC poker is the key.

Now I want to talk about the players and the game in Winamax. Let's start with the players - really weak. I tried to make some moves but they do a lot light calls so it's completely unnecessarily. What about the game? Very easy. Referring to these 2 facts I came out with a conclusion. What is it? It's very simple - straight forward tight play or ABC poker. It's stupid to bluff and make complicated moves versus weak players because they just think on a lower level. That's it.

Good luck at the tables :)

The bright side is that the bankroll is almost doubled up :)

I am showing my optimistic side again. Maybe that wasn't clear enough for to understand what I mean so take a look at the results from the 3 tournaments.

Ambivalent results.

According to my bankroll size these profits look good but if we compare them with the maximum potential winning - they look silly. Well there's something that I want to confess :D The registration for the 2nd tournament (on the picture above) was a complete missclick. I hold some flips and when the final table came my stack was above the average. (average stack - 8bb :D) My last hand was KK vs AJo. Ace on the flop and I was out in 6th place. Just when the anger started creeping in my mind I realised that the 1st tournament from the picture above won't finish well if my mental condition is something like "tilt" :D

KILL THE FISH, BABY :D

So my tournament night continued with the 1st one in the ITM phase. There about 240 people left and I was in top 10 by chips. For the next hour or so I was completely card dead. My stack dropped to 8bb - the beginning of push or fold phase for me. A6o for me and time to push... JJ called me, no help and I was out. Pretty standard I think. I was not disappointed for this one at all. Just variance :)

Hm. what to say about the third tournament... It was 5 euro knockout tournament (a.k.a KILL THE FISH in Winamax). With really tight play I was about the average stack during the whole tournament. When we were 2 tables left I lost 2 flips and...that was it :D Again the late phase was a big problem for me. Maybe should do something about my game in this phase. Good point to think about.

Oh, almost forgot. Collected bounties for these tournaments was about 20 euro. Not bad at all. So good luck at the tables everyone :)

Continue playing with verified account.

Great news. Today I receive my account activation letter. It came really quick - for about 4 working days. Now my account is fully activated and everything is fine.

Now with verified account :)

Now let's write a few words about my development in the world of tournament poker :) Nothing substancionally happened yesterday and today so far. I finished 12th at the same tournament from yesterday. It was pretty disappointing. I don't know what's going on but during all tournaments in Winamax something just goes wrong right at the end of the tourney, in the most important phase according to my opinion. But this is not that important. I fell that my game is good. Just waiting for the moment when I will be the winner :) 

By the way I am motivating myself with this great video. For me it is really inspiring. Stronly recommend watching it :)

I'm planning to continue playing whenever I feel concentrated and motivated. That's the very important. Good results come with good expectations. Oh, almost forgot to share something :)

The players in these tournaments are really weak. They do some really strange things that are inexplicable for me. Sometimes when I see their cards during the showdown I start to laugh :D This fact is making me even more confident that soon I will achieve first place. Definately that's the first target :)

You can check my progress here or just take a look at the graph :)

My graph - 6p.m. 03.07.2013

Very disappointing 6th place in 10 euro knockout tournament.

This story doesn't have "happy end". Maybe the most relevant word that describes the end of this story (tournament) is "tilt".

I was really mad about the end of this tourney.

So here we go. I woke up early yesterday morning. Got some breakfast and started studiyng for the exams in university (oops, just delated my age :D). I decided that one tournament won't ruin the learning process and registered for 10 euro knockout tournament at 12:15pm. It was a bit high entry for my bankroll but we know that this tourney format reduces variation and at a pinch I can deposit more funds. (I don't really like the second scenario :D) 

I had a great start and double up in the first 30 minutes plus 2 bounties in my pocket. Blinds were increasing every 6 minutes so it wasn't a good idea just to wait for some good cards. I picked some good spots where I was about 50/50 versus some shortstacks and won a few - additional 3 bounties for me. The late phase of the tourney was reached. There were about 35 players left. I was on table with chip leader. The exact chip count was something like 120k for him and 50k for me. Luckily I busted him in 2 consecutive hands (I am too lazy to find and share these hands :D). The first one was setup for me and the second was tilt for him. :) I became the chipleader and those fact made me very bad guy. I started stealing and harassing the table. During this period a few shortstacks were busted by me but also 1-2 of them doubled up. It's standart for me. Can't remember something else which is important so let's skip to the final table.

I was still the chipleader. Exact chipcount was something like:

Me:260k                       Player6:80k

Player1:165k                 Player7:70k

Player2:130k                 Player8:55k

Player3:120k          

Player4:105k                 Blinds: 6k/12k with ante

Player5:100k

As you can see it was kind of "turbo final table". For 10-15minutes I busted the two shortstacks and became even bigger chipleader. The everything just went wrong. I lose 5 flips for 10 hands and the tournament was over for me. I was really angry but "that's poker". Later I will try to find some mistakes in my game during the tournament but I think that variance was the key factor. 

So, I finished 6th for 39.65 euro. For the whole tournament I was collected 12 bounties which is equal to 24 euro. Total winning - 63.65 euro. 

If you have missed the link above here's a screenshot:

gettinback - 6th place