Software ideas and no poker today!

Hi everyone!

Yes, you read that right. I will not be playing poker today.

There's not any harm to take a day off, but I feel I didn't deserve that day off. In terms of profit I haven't lost anything because simply I didn't play...I will explain why.

After work, I joined some workmates for a late lunch/early dinner and a pint. I only stayed for 2hours and had 2 beers. Then the guys went to the casino to play a tournament. I didn't join them as I don't like tournaments (specially the daily live ones!) and also because I drunk beer.
I know, it was only two drinks and I wasn't drunk at all but I simply I can't play poker when I have a drink. I am in a more relaxing mode and I make mistakes!
I have experimented with that a couple of times and it's not profitable for me to play when I drink. I play homegames with friends but never for serious money.
Poker is about discipline after all and being able to identify your "leaks" and prevent them from happening is very important.

So no poker for me today :( As I am not drunk I feel a bit guilty for wasting the few precious spare hours that I got. I don't mean, not going out with friends and enjoying life. Given that I only got 4 days till my next coaching session, I shouldn't have skipped one of them. Next time, only drinking J2O strictly!!
Confession: Back in my head I was thinking to skip today from online grind and go to the casino for some live action. Mondays, are really good and busy days in my local casino. But, NO.

As I have done my review for the past sessions, watched the new poker videos from the people I follow and made all my graphs there's not much to do. I was checking some new poker software though that I am thinking to buy anytime soon.

First one I am thinking to buy is Note Caddy. From the HEM website, it seems that it creates a lot of useful notes but I guess you will need to have a large number of hands on the villain to make profitable decisions.  

The other one, I might buy is Flopzilla. It looks good with a lot of interesting things about ranges. Villain's range is an endless topic for discussion and having stats on how often he hits a certain combo of his range makes Flopzilla a software I definitely need to have.

Both software cost $60 + $35 respectively. I am not thinking about the cost but more of how much useful these tools are in the low stakes as 25NL. I already overanalyse some spots and overthinking that I am worried that I will do more often if I have a software to confirm for me that villain does this or that.

I am still debating what to do. Is any of you using them or started using them while playing my stakes? I am really looking for some feedback on that topic. :)

PS. Any thoughts on table scanner?

gl at the tables ;)

Micromillions and sick cash games

Hello,

I would like to make a post with my Micromillions "adventures" and deep runs....but I don't have any!

I am not a tournament person...at all! Everytime i enter a tournament and I lose I say to myself " i will never play tournaments again" but there is so much value in them that sometimes it's hard to resist.
There are a few things that I don't like in tournaments but I better analyse them on a separate post.

From the Micromillions I only played the main event (and another $5 tourney but I can hardly remember it). It is  really nice to see that Pokerstars smashed the guarantee $1,150m prizepool is huge :D

As a cash player, I have to admit that it does affect me as well when these big tournaments take place. The cash games are good. And by good I mean tooooo gooooood!!!!
I have decided that I will always be around during these tournaments. (and promise not to play the tournaments!!)

I had my coaching session on Friday. During the session I am always more than 100% concentrated. As a result I can hardly do anything after the coaching. I have started making graphs with my ranges against different type of opponents and situations. It has proven to be very helpful but I have been told to reduce the number of my tables until I am super comfortable with every position/ spot. So I have dropped from 6-8 to 4-6 tables.

I managed to squeeze a little session on Friday where I won a stack, but shortly after that I was tired and couldn't play my best so I stopped.
I didn't have the time to grind as much as I would like to during the weekend but my sessions were more than good. I was running above 50bb/100. I was only playing small sessions so I am not a millionaire from 25NL.

Here are some interesting hands where I wasn't expecting to get max value:

In both spots I couldn't believe that they called with these hands. 

I had my unlucky spots too but sometimes I don't mind. See the hand below first :

After some raises I managed to get the short stack to put his money in on the flop with AJo vs my flopped nuts with a straight flush redraw too! Oh well, it's one of these spots where you don't mind losing. The guy lost his (half) stack a few hands later anyway.

I opened to 2.5x, the guy with the 97 calls with a stack of $2.35 and the AK guy 3bet to $2 and had $12 behind. Given their stats and stacks I am not folding 1010s on that spot! Yeh, another spot where I didn't win but it's not the end of the world.

I can't think of any other funny spots but you can see it was a gg ;)

I am going to rail my friend who's deep in the MM main event, casually has 3x the average during the whole tournament.  Hopefully, next time I see him he will be buying the drinks (hint hint).

Guys, best of luck at the tables. :)   

Happy swingy weekend

Hello everyone,

the title describes exactly how my weekend was.

I had a losing session on Saturday but turned to be a nice opportunity.
On Saturday i woke up early and was in a pretty "grindy" mood. I was playing for less than 30 minutes when the following 3 hands happened almost at the same time:

• AA vs QQ (he flopped quads)
• 1010s vs QQ (same guy), I turned a set, he rivered a set
• 77s vs 1010s we both flopped a set on a 10K7r flop

Lost 3 stacks in 4 minutes and I was... :(

I know all hands were sort of coolers but I was worried that this can affect my mood and I could lose way much more $$$. So I closed all my tables and start browsing random things. And the good things happened!!!

I found Celeste's blog which can be found here. She plays cash games too and I was really really happy not only to find a cash blog but also from a girl around my age! How nice is that?
To many of you this might not sound so interesting but being a girl it kinda makes it difficult to find other girls who play poker and are interested in the game.  I am not going to analyse more the pros and cons of being a girl in this men dominated community as this is really loooong story.

I also found a lot of interesting blogs from cash players and that means I have to do a lot of reading, but I am excited about it.  24h on a day seem not to be enough to do all the things I want to!

My Sunday was much better in terms of profit. Here's my graph from the day:

I do not have the time to play as much as I would like to due to my job, but I recently started playing more tables and I like the results.
I used to play 4tables and I was making a lot of loose moves, which I found them correct at the time.
I realised that I was overanalysing the stats from HEM. When I went to facebook and twitter while I was playing I said to myself that I HAVE to add more tables.

So now, I am playing 6 & 7 tables comfortably, and without feeling for a second under pressure or being too loose.

I can't explain it, but I am feeling so motivated to put some extra work and effort in my game.
All day i am in a super good mood ( you can tell too?) and looking forward to play more, study more and everything else that is necessary to become better.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to review my hands from the weekend (but will do soon) so I won't be posting any hands for the moment.

Best of luck at the tables :)

Morning sessions

Helloooo,

I have few interesting hands to post and new things to write about. I started doing some review and homework, but I couldn't concentrate 100%, probably not even 50%, so there was no point to continue studying. I am pushing myself a little a bit to stay awake as I have to finish this post but I also want to wake up early tomorrow.

I was a little fed up with my sleeping patterns but I have improved a lot during my holidays, so I want to carry on like that. It makes me feel better after all.

The target would be to wake up around 8:30-9:00 and have at least 2 hours sessions during the day (i am leaving some room to oversleep)

Today's session was only for an hour as i had some other things to do. The traffic during the daytime is a bit different to what I am used to. There were more solid players and the bad players were...not there. Alright, it wasn't that bad as it sounds, I only find harder to table select. The tables with the shorties were full and the empty seats were having big stacks on their left. No thanks, I 'd rather wait a little a bit.

The biggest pot I won  was with 76o (on a blind v blind spot). I 've turned a full house and on a relatively small pot the other guy leads out the river for almost 2.5x pot. Happy days :)

Biggest pot I lost was on a HU spot (I love playing HU btw). It is quite rare to play HU with an opponent for more than 10 hands on a 6max table. But for some reason nobody was joining our game and we had a nice HU session with that guy. He is a reg and made me feel more comfortable to play with him as I was certain he won't hit and run me.

I am not happy with my play even if it looks as a standard cooler. He wasn't play crazy or making too many out of order moves and that hand he played so straight forward that i think i should have folded the river. But on the other hand oh well....I am not sure if it is +ev spot to call there with 1010s.

I was searching for any poker blogs from cash players. I know blogging it it becoming a bit old school but seriously? Nothing? There must be some people who play cash games and write about it. All the decent blogs that I have found so far are from MTT/SNG players. However, I enjoy reading them too, just i skip the icm comments.

Time for me to have some rest now and be fresh for the weekend grind.
Good luck at the tables.

Back from holidays!!

Hello everyone,

I am back!!! I was off for almost 3 weeks, I had a great time but to be to honest I missed poker a little a bit.

I went on holidays in Greece and Italy. The weather was really hot, almost too hot for my taste.
Before I go I had loaded my ipad with a ton of poker books and training videos.
As you remember I was doing a lot of studying before I go on holidays, so my first days in Athens i was still studying and reading my books.
However, it was impossible to carry on studying when I had so many thing to do, friends to catch up and places to go to. I am not going to take that as a failure to study just I need now to dust off my poker knowledge a little.

Back to the grind

I came back home on Tuesday afternoon, i had planned to do all the little jobs at home on Tuesday and start playing on Wednesday.  

I watched a few videos as a warm-up and booked my coaching session for next week ( I need to put some volume otherwise we ll have nothing to review). 

I put in plan the 1h sessions and started playing earlier on today. So far, I had 2 small sessions.I am down, just under a stack, but I feel good about it. 

I started with 2 tables to see how I can respond to that but very shortly after I found my-self very distracted from other things so I added 2 more tables and played really comfortably.

After reviewing my hands, the only play I made and I didn't like was when I stacked off a shorty when I had AAs. To many people this might sound standard but I think I could have saved me $5-7 on that pot. 

I bet $1.75 on the turn and he min raised me to $3.50.Obviously, this shouts "2 pairs" and I know I shouldn't have raised him. Even if I called his raise on the turn I could x/f the river. Oh well, at least he didn't have a full stack.

Another small pot I lost is this : 

I was the initial raiser, bet the flop, check the turn and bet /call river. Another hand where I beat nothing. 

I don't think he ever min raises the river as a bluff or he does that with a hand that I beat. 

Both hands are not that big of pots but I cannot do that type of mistakes all the time unless I want to go broke (which is not the case). 

This was meant to be my hour off the tables to have lunch but I ll probably have to take another hour off. 

I hope to manage to add another 2 sessions before I meet my friend later on tonight. 

Good luck at the tables :)