Poker Outlook

Starting a blog means I have some plans for the new year. Poker-wise, I'm taking the steady approach. For starters, below is my reply to veneer's 13 Ideas/Tips for moving up in 2008 on CardRunners.

Yumm...

My personal takes:

2: I definitely want to shove more with my big draws. I went ALL IN with huge draws on flop in reraised pot (2 overs + nut FD + nut gut shot, 51% equity) twice in the last 3 days, lost both, but feels alright, it's variance. It's definitely +EV in the Long run.

10 HU, definitely want to get some hands in, pros like CTS, GP, put in huge time in HU before they sky rocket.

12 Gotta start one as my new year's resolution, keeps me on track, great for goal setting, collaborate with others.

13 Play more sites, more variety, extra bonuses and adapting to different types of players.


It's been around 2 months I played poker online, or played poker seriously ever in my entire life! I've paid my lessons, lost my initial deposits, probably 3-4 times on Pokerstars and Party. I had no idea how to play!

Then for 3 weeks between November and December 2007, I cashed in big tournaments on Mansion, with small investments everytime. Start with $1, winning my way through two qualifiers, getting a $100 ticket for $150K. On the weekend, ended up 89th, cashing $330. In the following week, came third in a $5 freeze out, winning $300. And lastly, turning $10 into a $50 ticket to the $50K, went to finish within top 20, made $500. So it appears I should just play tournaments, don't really know if these are all 1st timer's luck or I have real edge on skill. However, I really want to improve my cash game. Because it's income any time of the day, much lower variance than tournament play. I'll give tournaments a shot once in a while. Right now I still have a $50 ticket for $50K sitting idly for 3 weeks.

I don't think I've won big in cash games. I'm up a bit if rakeback and bonuses are taken into account. For the most time, I play on FullTilt. Started from $0.10, I jumped about $0.25, $0.50. 3 days ago, my bankroll was $230. Now, it's $520. I spent some good time seriously watching CR pro's videos, taylor, cts just before the new year. On New Year's Day, I played like 4K hands, ran the best day ever, finished up $150. At some stage, I was up 10BI, $200, then dropped a couple of BIs in the end.

Jan 02, I broke $600. Then the game got dry, I really felt the tables were much tougher than the previous day. I went down 3BI back, finished 1BI up over 3.5K hands, BR at $550. Right now I'm still honing my play. There were many occasions I made calls to read my opponent. I'll post up analysis soon. I could defnitely finish up $100 on that day.

Jan 03, today. I started well, up 4BI, broke $600. Then I made crying/stupid/learning calls many times over, plus the helpless coolers vs fish. I ended up down 1BI. So BR is at $520 again, standing at 48H now, I should be playing more hands, but Maram's birthday is today, she's many times more important than poker ;)

Anyway, while looking over my hands, I laughed at myself. I dropped 2 BI due to coolers, fish flopping nut flush vs my flopped set, turned nut flush vs my top trips just two hands down. My left eye had been itching the whole time. I made the blunder of thinking I had a straight and dropped a BI to a TAG's set. AJs first hand ALL IN vs a TAG's AA, the 4th BI. Making a move on a dry board with my TT and lost another BI vs TAG's top set Jacks. I must have won a lot to just end the day with 1BI down.

So I'm confident in my game and I definitely can be up $100 in my daily plays if I keep on playing the number of hands I've putting in over the last two days. A weekly income of over $700 on a Full Time schedule is definitely good enough for me now, for playing at $0.25NL. It's been a very beneficial day in terms of learning.

Stay tuned for upcoming hand posts :D

NOTE: My PT stats are in ET time, my discussion on my days are my actual time in Perth.