…I’ve been here for years, etc etc 😉

After poker has been kicking me in the junk over at both PokerStars and FullTilt – the latter kicking me in the junk rush style, quick and all the more painful – i had decided that I needed a break from poker.

Indeed I did take a break (June – August), time to reflect, figure out if I really wanted to continue this “hobby” at all. Sure enough, as you can see in this post, I came to the conclusion that, indeed, I wanted to continue, despite all the (small) highs and (big) lows.

This time I decided to go another route though. Bye bye Full Tilt, bye bye Stars, let’s see what else is out there. In the end I came across an interesting offer over at pokersavvy. A rakeback deal for cake poker, handing me back 33% of the rake. Cake, a site where traffic is not all that high (I’ve yet to see more than 5k ppl at any given time I played), but also a site without the PT3-HUD, etc.

All in all, I’m please with the results so far. Results? Why should they even matter? Well, because even if you don’t play “results oriented”, you gotta have some results or you’ll be busto. So far, I’ve managed to find my rhythm again, posting more winning than losing sessions, running “good” for once, etc. So I’m currently in my zone (NL20, 10$ SnGs, etc), where I enjoy the game and play every now and then – no pressure.

That’s all for now, now to the major pic dump. Part #1 is the “worst of” since my last post and (for now) the final chapter in FTP/Stars rants. Part #2 is for the new chapter “cake” so far (end of August until now). Enjoy…

Part #1:

Part #2:

Hehe, indeed I’m still around, but as you’ve probably already noticed via the post title or the lack of updates, I’m not really playing poker…or at least not much.

After my pretty sick run at FTP, falling victim to the crack errm rush poker, I took a beating a stars as well. So I did the sensible thing and stepped away for a bit. After a while I had to get back into action though, and as the pitty of a bankroll dictated it, I made my way down to the depths of donkeyland. To make a long story short, they had a field-day squashing the remainder of my roll and I’m officially busto at stars as well.

I will spare you all the details, but let me say this much: play wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t logical and it sure as hell wasn’t correct strategically or mathematically, but it was “right” in the sense that they got the best of me. Who cares if they’re just 5-20% to win in 95% of the cases? Usually that would be me, at least if I would win 95% of those cases or even anywhere close to that, hell I’ll take 50%…but as you already know that wasn’t the case…the curse of the real bad run, when you know you’re fucked even though you push it in leaving your opponent 4 outs or less…

In related news there was a home-game a few weeks back and with my abstinence from online donkin, I was more than happy to play some live poker. The end result was close to the online results, hell, it was the same shit tbh. I could get some hands together, playing my heart out, but once the big pots came around, I couldn’t catch a break. I can honestly say that I didn’t have one hand hold up in a crucial pot.

Let me give you a few examples: I started the evening coming out of the gates firing. Raise, raise, raise, raise. I win a few small pots in a row. My reasoning is simple: I’ve got a crowd of gamblers at the table and they don’t mind making incorrect plays (e.g. calling big raises preflop, chasing with incorrect odds, etc), there’s only one player that plays really sound strategy and I’ve got position on him. My strategy works out beautifully as I look down at QQ after raising and winning the last 5 pots. I raise again big preflop in LP and get one caller. Once the flop comes down ten high, I push all-in as my opponent only has got 1.5x the pot left. I get instacalled by jackAce off. Before I can say shit the Aceball hits the turn and I take a hit. On the next hand I raise big again, holding AQs. I get the same caller again. The flop comes Axx and after it’s checked to me I push all-in again. I get snap-called by KK. Turn blank…river king. Fuck me. I bow out once my next AQs can’t connect against JJ and I’m busto. Fucking A++.

So, to make a long story short, I guess you won’t be hearing any online poker news from me in the upcoming weeks as I’m taking a real break this time…I wish you better luck than me…good luck at the tables and peace out…

I think I need a real break from the grind.

Reason 1: I can’t get any traction what so ever, well, if you don’t count accelerating faster and faster downwards into a bottom-less pit.

Reason 2: Poker used to be fun, win or lose, didn’t bother me all that much either way (obv not at all while winning)…nowadays I’m frustrated either way as it’s either a “break even” or slim result (thanks rake) or a devastating loss.

Reason 3: I’m fed up posting bs hand after bs hand, no matter if I put it in 4:1, 3:1, 2:1, 1:1, preflop, postflop, on the turn, on the river…doesn’t matter…if it’s a small or totally irrelevant pot, sure I win here and there, but come crunch time I get my nuts crunched like they’re walnuts.

Reason 4: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nuff said…

So, I’m outta here, once again telling myself that I should take a break, let’s see if I can stick to it this time…we’ll see…

After today’s reload I tried to get back right into the thick of things, but I couldn’t get much going early on. In the end I was able to recoup a little bit, but I finished the day down nontheless. Not too excited about it, but not much I could have done, I made two clearly bad plays that cost me two matches, but in the other ones…no chance. Anyway, I’m happy with the way I played.

Before I leave you with the usualy pic dump, let me introduce my newest idea: a while back I invested a little money and bought me both TourneyManager and PokerTracker3…around the “christmas break” I thought it was time that I put them to use, especially PT3. So I got myself all the tournament summaries and what-not and started to analyze a little. Now I know which are my most profitable games (in terms of net won) and I think I’ll keep hitting them hard. Now to my idea: with all the lovely analytical functions and stuff of PT3, one thing stands out in terms of blogging (IMHO)…and that is a simple graph displaying a few infos about a usual day at “the office”…so I’ll try to add one of those to my posts in the future…enjoy.

…it’s hard to show a profit when you:

1. Can’t win a flip
2. Can’t win an uneven flip either (no matter if you’re 60/40 or 40/60)
…especially if you’re playing turbo SnGs where you’re force to play soon enough…

That being said, I’m done for the year with NL Hold’em…fed up, done and almost busto. Time to regroup. To do that I decided – if I play at all – I’ll play some limit games that most ppl aren’t all that experienced in…so with that in mind I hit the 2-7 Triple Draw cash tables (.5/1) and crushed it, almost recouping my NL Hold’em losses for the day…let’s see how this plan works out…for now I’m outta here…

…as I’m not sure if I get around to posting again until the new year, I’m taking the chance to wish all of my loyal readers, fellow degenerates and poker broggers a very happy new year! May all your poker (and other) plans work out…cya on the other side…I’m all-out!

Finally came around to play a little bit more and find a lot of screencaps left unpublished on my desktop…I will spare you the sum of junk-kicks and bad plays of the last few days, let’s just say that I wasn’t on the good side of variance and frustration ensued…anyways…enjoy the random pic dump and cya at the virtual green felt soonish…

No, I’m not dead…hehe…and while I didn’t play all that much recently, I’ve got a post lined up…just too lazy to post all the stuff tonight….wrap up coming soonish. Just wanted to drop in and report that I finally got some new poker reading material today. Two books that I was looking forward to, not poker theory stuff this time…but two poker books that should be interesting to read….Doyle Brunson’s new godfather of poker book and Mike Matusow’s book….I guess I’ll start to read Mike’s book now…

I’m outta here…good luck at the (virtual) felt…

Well, I’ve been playing a little bit here and there, but no major sessions either way. Today I’m going into poker mode though, I plan on playing a little online today and tonight is another installment of the home game, yay. For the first part I decided to upgrade my arsenal of poker software. After buying Tourney Manger a while back, I decided to get me my license for PokerTracker 3…and because I’m a low limit grinder and I’m cheap like that I got the MicroStakes edition which is reasonably priced a 44.99$.

Let’s see how it goes…I’ll keep you posted…

Can you believe that it’s been three years since Poker-tastic.com saw the light of day? Wow…and I almost missed this blog-birthday too, just had a look at my spreadsheet (one of the “tools” I use to keep track of my poker scores) and thought “hmm…november…hmm…is there something I’m missing?!?”…and sure enough…3 years baby! Here’s to the next years of poker (misery / joy / stories / books / dvds / shows / …)… 🙂

Dr. Pauly’s poker blog, the famous Tao of Poker turns 5 in August! Woohoo! To celebrate the fact, the good doctor pulled something out of his head: A special celebration tourney running at PokerStars on August 5th 9pm ET…all readers of Tao of Poker welcome. Read all about: here.

Congrats to the good doctor for kicking butt for 5 years!!! All the best…rock on man!