November 30th – Q&A.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $3.816

I got some question in an email and thought it would be a good idea to answer them here.

Do you use any software to track your opponents and which ones do you find most usefull?

Yes, I use Poker Tracker and PokerAce Hud. I have purchased and tried other products, but I only use these two.

Does Full Tilt allow you to grab hand history as an observer?

Yeah they do. I like to grab and review hands that I see Phil Ivey, Spirit Rock and others play. I don't however datamine the Full Tilt tables, I don't think the effort is worth it.

Do you use any of the rakeback sites and do you have a recommendation for that?

I have used multiple rakeback sites and have never had any bad experience. If you would like a recommendation, I can refer people if I have their emails and get a reward for referring them.

November 28th – Friends won.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $3.546

If you read my last entry I was undecided about whether or not to play some serious poker or hang out with friends this last weekend. Well...

...friends won. That is me in the middle and Jan on the right. I can't remember the name of the girl on the left. Tróndur is taking the picture.

I have been playing a bit since then, but any plans of getting back to even this month pretty much rode on this weekend gone by.

Looking through the hands from these last couple of days, I found that almost all the hands where I lost the most were bad beats, usually featuring me with the better kicker and my opponent making two pair after all the money goes in.

JJ in the Small Blind: I am not so sure I am happy with the way I played this hand. I know that re-raising pre-flop would make it a lot less difficult to play.
Perhaps the best play would be to call the turn and call almost any river bet, evaluating if a bad card fell.

I think it will be good starting a new month. I would have liked to end this month on the positive side, but perhaps a fresh slate will help my game.

November 24th – Poker or friends?Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.769

I have this friend that works on a passenger ship. Every two weeks or so he is out sailing and the other two weeks he is on shore leave. Well he has been here this last week or so and I've been out doing stuff every day. Since I technically don't have a job either, I am up for doing stuff in the middle of the day and out into the night.

I have been able to sneak in some hands of poker since my last post. I've done well in NL Hold 'Em, but I lost my profits back and then some playing PL Omaha.

ATo on the Button: If there is anything I don't wan't with ATo, it's playing a big pot against multiple opponents. When the action is on me I know I want to raise, but I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how much I should make it, although my raise is weirdly small I think it was the right choice.

I am still in a dilemma if I should hang out with my friends this weekend or if I should get some serious poker playing done.

November 22th – Lazyness.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.196

I havn't played poker for two days now. It seems bad runs arn't my only enemy this month, lazyness is taking it's toll aswell.

I have been playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and hanging out with friends playing board games and watching good movies. Whenever I am finished doing something I seem to have something else lined up that is more interesting and fun than poker.

Hopefully I can pull myself together in the near future and get some discipline back into my life.

November 20th – Low limits.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.196

Yesterday was mostly dedicated to Neverwinter Nights 2. I did play some poker and lost a couple of hundred dollars, but not much interesting happened.

A good friend of mine has been crushing $200 NL lately. He usually watches TV while he plays, so I guess he is beating the game without much effort.
My concentration as of late has been a bit bad. When going from playing Neverwinter Nights to playing poker, it is hard to keep focus. So I got this idea of why don't I just 8 table $200 NL instead of playing poorly on the $1000 tables. Well it turned out to be a great idea, I won almost 6 buy-ins in less than 1000 hands.

Not caring about the money is a problem, when I'm used to playing with 5 times the buy-in, I did three-barrel bluff a buy-in away early on. But when 8 tables started running, I kind of forgot about the amount of money, and just focus on playing poker.

JJ from Under the Gun: Players at smaller levels slowplay a lot more than on higher levels. Therefore it might not always be correct making thin value bets like this one. I don't have too much of a problem laying hands like this down, but if I constantly start getting check/raised on the river like this I might start making bad calls.

I don't know if playing low limits as a change will become a habit. But when the games are this soft it's stupid not to play.

November 18th – A quiet weekend.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.954

I didn't play much yesterday. Just logged on to Party Poker to see how the games were like.
It feels good to take a break like this. I find myself thinking about other things than poker in my spare time.
I dug through some old hands and found this one:

ATs in the Big Blind: I re-raise with hands like this pre-flop against opponents who seem to be stealing too liberally. After the flop I misplay the hand badly. My opponent is decent he won't call a flop bet from me unless he has me beat, so if I would have just bet I could have gotten away from the hand cheaply.
Instead I check and proceed to call away all my money.

Re-raising decent opponents from the Blinds is often a better play than calling, but it sometimes leaves me on unknown grounds. I learn from repetition, so I don't have more skill than others when I get into situations I havn't been in before. I think that is why I play the above hand so slowly, recognizing my inexperience in this kind of situation, I decide to try to keep the pot small, it just doesn't have the desired effect.

November 17th – Taking a day off.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.776

I haven't played any poker today. Neverwinter Nights 2 is taking it's toll, as I suspected it would. Weekends are by far the best time to earn some money, I just hope I can discipline myself to play enough hands this weekend.
I dug up this hand from yesterdays session:

AA on the Button: I remember the villain bet the turn very fast, as if the turn card hadn't changed anything about the hand. I know some people play sets the way this hand played out, but many people don't limp with 44 or 22 Under the Gun.
I know he would stop and think about the hand on the turn if he had a Jack, especially since the turn is a spade. I guess a flush is possible, but I suspect he would rather just call the flop with a flush and hope to keep the third guy in the hand.
Looking back I can't say I regret folding, but I would like to know what my opponent held.

The month is moving along fast and I am still in the red. Emotionally I have somewhat gotten over my bad run, but I don't want to start pushing myself before I have had a good day or two, at the tables. I can afford to relax a bit, I just hope my game can afford the same luxury.

November 16th – Giving Party Poker a try.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.776

I played a long session of $2/$4 NL Hold 'Em at Party today. I misjudged a couple of players and lost 2 buy-ins early on. I was tinkering with getting my software to work with Party Poker, but I didn't get it up and running.
Rest of the session I played well and managed to earn back one of the buy-ins.

Atleast I can't blame today on bad luck and it feels good now with a couple of days gone by without facing several gross suckouts.

I am in the process of buying a new computer. I am still waiting for some parts to arrive, but I have gotten it home and have installed Neverwinter Nights 2. It will probably take alot of time away from poker these comming days.

November 15th – The Iron Man Challenge.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.306

Hold 'Em Cash

I didn't play much today, just enough to keep my standing in the Iron Man Challenge. This challenge is starting to bug me. There are a number of days I don't play the required amount and I end up playing a poor game just before I go to sleep, just to reach the points I need.
I think I lost about $500 to poor play just to keep this challenge running today and a ticket for the freeroll isn't worth anything close to that.

JTs from Under Gun: This is one of the last hands I played. I was getting tired and obviously loosing my focus. My stack is on the short side when limping in early position with a hand like this.
I also missed out on two good steal chances.

November 14th – Still alot to learn in Omaha.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.657

Hold 'Em Cash

I did well today in Hold 'Em. I always try to find an excuse to play Omaha these days it seems, so every time the games seem a bit tight in the Hold 'Em section I jump on the Omaha games.
I shouldn't forget that Hold 'Em is my best game.

A9s in the Small Blind: This hand is very similar to the hand I featured yesterday. I remembered the previous hand and almost folded to the river bet. Instinct made me call in the last second, I noticed the size of the river bet seemed like a bet that wanted me to fold, where yesterdays bet was a bet that wanted a call.

Omaha Cash

I can't blame all of my loss on luck. Today I made a couple of expensive mistakes in Omaha. I still have alot to learn about the game.
Learning goes fast though and my opponents make gross mistakes aswell.

KQ99ss in Middle Position: I flop a warp and a King high flushdraw, so I am not to unhappy about getting my money in on the flop here. Raising pre-flop with this kind of hand from Under the Gun or Middle Position is a mistake though, I think.

November 13th – Working my way back up.Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.569

Hold 'Em Cash

There were plenty of good $5/$10 tables today, so I opened up 4 tables. I am quite happy about my play and I got my money in the middle as a strong favorite about five times during the 100 hands or so of play. Keeping in style with my bad run of late, I lost four of the all-ins. Luckily in three of them I was short-stacked so the whole session only left me down about a buy-in.

KTs in the Big Blind: Top pair with a weak kicker is a tough hand to play out of position against an aggressive opponent. Other than not raising pre-flop, I like the way my opponent played this hand. His bets are just the size to keep me in. If he had a bit looser image he could have tried for a pot sized bet on the river, faking a bluff.

Omaha High Cash

I felt a bit sick of Hold'Em after taking a number of beats from my earlier session, so later on I gave Omaha a try.
I found a couple of good $2/$4 tables and managed to win in my loss from Hold'Em and end the day with a small profit.

AK55s in the Big Blind: I think I should have been able to find a fold on this flop. I have no straight draws and no flush draws. A possible straight is already out there and by the actions of the two first players and the fact that I hold the Ace of Spades, I can be pretty sure I am already facing the straight or a higher set.

Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or so the saying goes. I don't know if a run like this improves my game, or my tolerance for bad beats. But I know it is part of the game and this will probably not be the last month I'll have to dig myself out of a hole.
I still don't doubt that I am able to beat the games I am in, I just need to hang tough and wait for clearer skies.

November 12th – A return to bloggingMonthly goal $15.000 @ - $2.910

I want to give blogging each day a try again, although I plan on changing some of the things that have slowly made blogging seem like a chore to me.

I notice people don't think three buy-ins down over three weeks is anything to complain about. For me it is a very big deal.
Please don't misunderstand me, the money isn't the issue. It wouldn't make that much difference to me if I was down $6.000 or $1.000 over this last three week span.
The issue is that I have been extremely unlucky these last three weeks. Imagine a player sitting down at a table with $1.000. After some time he has won 1 billion dollars and then he looses it all to a one outer. The guy comes home feeling down about it and explains it to his wife and she says, well that isn't so bad you are only down $1.000.

If this month would have gone well or even just been fair to me, I could have made a down payment on a new house with the money I have lost to bad luck. Working hard each day and seeing all my efforts turn to nothing is tough. That is why I am upset about these last weeks of poker.
Enough rambling, I hope people get my point.

Yesterday I played in the Iron Man $30.000 tourney. I am happy with my play, but I lost my chips in this hand:

99 on the Button: Preflop I think both calling and pushing are options to consider, I decided to just call.
The flop call was quite a tough decision for me, but considering the pot size and the tourney structure, I am pretty sure it was the correct play.

Today I have played mostly $5/$10 PL Omaha and it has gone pretty well.
There is alot of money to be won playing Omaha, so whenever I don't find a decent NL Hold'Em table I take a shot at it. I have moved up limits fast and I dread I am making a fair amount of mistakes in Omaha. But as long as the competition is making more mistakes I'll gladly keep playing.

Update on the bad run - Still on break for a couple of days more

I have been running very bad these last two weeks. Mostly I have played well, but the cards haven't been cooperating.

Running badly in poker is very though and there isn't really a way to explain how it feels.
Matt Damon did a better job of acting it out in Rounders after he lost $30.000 to Teddy KGB, than I could do of writing about it. His character suffered his loss in one hand, where my losses have cumulated slowly each day over two weeks.

Matt Damon's character also reacts differently to loosing than I do, he focuses mostly on the money and seeks comfort from fellow poker players that understand to a point what he is going through.
I focus mostly on mistakes I make and the futility luck makes of the effort I put into poker each day. In the past I would write about it and try to talk to people about what I was going through, but unlike in the movies people don't understand how you feel and more importantly they don't care.

Each time I hang out with my friends or do something with my family, I get asked how poker is going. People really aren't looking for a bad beat tale, they just want to small talk and asking about poker is a good subject for small talk.
It does however remind me of my loss. And each loosing hand and each drawout again weigh heavy on my mind. Before I go to bed I usually watch some TV and the reason I am on a break from blogging, is because I don't want to stir up the memory of the days loss again before I go to sleep.

What I am hoping for is a good session or two that will bring me back to even. It will feel much better writing again, if the numbers can be in green. The best cure for a bad run, is without any doubt a good win.

At this point of writing I am down about $3.000 for the month.

Short break in bloggingOn hold for about a week

I need a break from blogging.

Hopefully I can come back with some renewed inspiration and start writing again each day.
Poker just hasn't gone very well these past few days and I don't really feel like writing about it after each loosing session.

I'd rather take a break, than write poorly each day just for the sake of updating on a regular basis.

Day 1 - hands 347 - $638Monthly goal $15.000 @ - $638

I played some PL Omaha yesterday and did well, then I played some NL Hold 'Em and didn't do so well. Today I am not feeling so well, so perhaps I'll take a short break from poker.

Doing these monthly goals does put some pressure on. It feels like I just went from + $15.000 to - $15.000 in one day, because that is what I have set myself up to make these coming 30 days.

Hopefully I can put these bad thoughts behind me and keep my focus on playing my best.

ATo in the Cut Off: I find myself in this awkward position time and again, should I continuation bet against a short stack? Before I know it I have priced myself in to loose a good chunk of my money.
I think the correct play is to check on this particular flop, but I have to put some more thought into what I'll do in general.

End of month result $15.734

Here are my pokertracker stats for the month:


I also won some money playing Omaha and some playing tourneys. Add to that a bit from bonuses and rakeback and I finished the month up just shy of $16.000.

After I made the $12.000 monthly goal I didn't set myself a new one. Although I kind of hoped to reach $17.000, because that translates into DKR 100.000. I made close enough though, so I am happy.

Per request here is a graph of my October result:


The real challenge will be in repeating the success. I do think that some of this months results are due to luck. So I don't want to set myself up for a let down next month. My November goal is going to be $15.000.