Play Bald!

Probably the next to last post (penultimate, if you will)

2009-04-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, the activity level of playbald.com is slightly down these last couple of days. I think I am going to try to explain why I am not blogging.

The main issue here is that I don't play much poker anymore. When I played, I would eventually run into a winning streak, and I would have to brag about it somewhere. The blog usually came up. So not playing is basically the one reason the well has run so dry. The fact is, I don't much like the total sum of being a poker player. There are so many other things that I enjoy more. Spearfishing for example. Playing PS3. Working a day job, I shit you not. Making babies. One of those showing up any day now.

Obviously, there are some parts of being a pro poker player that are very attractive: Winning stunning amounts of money is as fun and exciting as any activity can be. Not because of the money itself, but because of the opportunities and freedom than come right along. Talking and thinking about how you will use all your money is also fun of course. And finally, talking and thinking about how great you are that you can win all this money in fierce competition with others who would also like to do so, are also enjoyable activities.

Other than that, it pretty much sucks big time.

Poker is a game of exploitation. I've always enjoyed strategy games, sometimes to the point of obsession. Once the game is in front of me, I have to know how it works, and how to win. I take it personally if I can't. But professional poker is not a strategy game. It is a game of finding the weakest points of the weakest opponents and exploiting it.

Poker is a game of uncertainty. I am a fan of logic. To every action, there is a consequence, to every question there is an answer. Everytime I see something surprising happen, I think about why it happened, and I try to find the reason. In poker, there is no reason. Some times the flush draw hits. Some times it doesn't. You win a yearly salary in November, lose it in December. Kings beat aces. Amateurs beat pros. Idiots are interviewed as experts. Luck. It's chaos.

Poker is lonely. I am a socially minded person. I like friendly competition. I like to hang out with friends. The best way to win money in poker is to sit by yourself in front of your computer. The best part of your day is when you break someone, and he calls you a retard and expresses his desire that you die painfully. For the last 4 years I've had to deal with frustrating loses alone on a regular basis.

So why is this just the next to last post, and not in fact, the last? I don't know exactly. Maybe it's a dream of going back to the happy days of big money flowing in. I really enjoyed all that milk and honey. The fact is I just can't pull the plug on this chapter of my life just yet.

After all, the next winning streak is always just around the corner...

Fade to grey.

2008-12-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

I am amazed that people still drop by here so regularly despite a lack of updates. Things have been difficult lately, for a number of reasons. First of all, I have been down for a while with a back dislocation, preventing me from spending significant time doing anything really. Only this week have I been a allowed a normal level of activity again. Poker work hours especially have been sacrificed, and not just because of health issues.

After a dissapointing September, October proved to be more of the same unfortunately. While rakeback and bonuses is a nice addition, it is not enough to compensate for all the stress of playing break even poker. It's like I am having my own private financial crisis of poker to go along with the world wide one (which has also been nasty for me).

Since October I have played maybe 15 hours of cash games and a couple of tournaments, so these days poker hasn't been a lot on my mind. Basically, I am bored with it. I am uncomfortably aware that I probably wouldn't have been bored if I had maintained a good income rate. It somehow seems wrong to enjoy an activity only when the pay is good. But poker is the ultimate capitalistic game, and income is so directly related to success that it is hard to enjoy the game during such a long break even period.

Would I regain the excitement and joy of the game with just a nice upswing? Start believing in and enjoying the life of a poker pro again? Maybe. But the fact is that for a while now I just haven't had the energy and motivation to handle the downswings, the bad beats and the break even stretches. Whatever else may happen, you know that those are always just around the corner, and being a successful poker player largely depends on your ability to handle them.

So these are going to be some of the last words from this full time poker pro. I am not leaving or anything, I just won't be playing full time poker for a while. I honestly don't know how much I will play going forward, but I intend to remain playing as a hobby, the income is just too good put it aside completely. Hopefully that will be enough to regain the motivation that is missing right now. Where this blog is going, I can't really tell, but I promise to deliver an entry whenever I have something on my mind.

It's been a while

2008-10-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

It is high time for a report from this blogger, who has seen some tough times at the tables lately. This is a graph of September:

September turned out to be a break even month for me. Combined with questionable results stretching back all the way through the summer, that was enough to make me thoroughly sick of multitabling 6-max poker for a while. In the beginning of the year up until the middle of May, I had a very healthy win rate playing 6-10 tables of NL1000-NL2000 over more than 150k hands. That history taken into consideration, I am simply not willing to concede defeat just yet. But the fact that I have only won very modestly since then is no longer something I can ignore, and I clearly need to focus more on quality, not least in terms of game selection. I could also consider playing fewer than 8 tables of course, like a wuss.

To add to my frustrations, I am unable to find a functioning keyboard tool with attention queue to work with Partypoker. Their new software includes keyboard functionality, but it just sucks to use in its current form in my opinion.

So in a purely defensive measure, I am currently doing something completely different. Heads up cash games is my new 'job', until I find the motivation to get the old money machine back in gear. It has been going fairly well so far, and it is a nice change of pace from the 6-max grind. Other than that I am just doing a little bit of coaching here and there, and enjoying a lot of free time. I still find it fun to coach, and if you need some new input from a proven 6-max warrior, read this.

September gaining steam.

2008-09-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

Entertaining online screen name of the week: IfukedAnurse

September has been a rough ride so far. I started the month Monday with a bad taste of August in my mouth, having lost 19k in the last week. So I sat down Monday, happy to be starting on a fresh month, and BAM BAM BAM BAM lost four times in a row with AK vs QQ or QQ vs AK. Another couple of buy-ins went, and one hour into the month I am down $6k. Nice.

Luck is a funny thing. After such a session I often think about how many hours it will take to earn that back. At an expected $400/hr, thats 15 hours of work I just lost in one hour, and of course I was pissed. But somehow, yesterday evening I had a great day and made it all back plus $800 in just four hours. How am I supposed to make sense of that?

Today was just another trip down into the gutter of bad results. I was down 5 buy-ins not having a single spot of luck, but just this last hour everything turned around, and I come out of the day about $500 ahead. Not a flashy result, but sometimes a small win feels like a world championship. A small world championship, granted.

I was amazed today when one of the regulars played this hand against me. You know you have a rotten table image when someone does that with a pair of sevens. Or he was just on monkey tilt, I dunno:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $1107
UTG+1: $2808
CO: $1334
Hero: $1409
SB: $1248
BB: $1559

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is Button with :qc :ac
UTG raises to $30, UTG+1 folds, CO calls, Hero raises to $130, 2 folds, UTG raises to $285, CO folds, Hero calls.

Flop: :jd :qs :6c ($615, 2 players)
UTG bets $275, Hero raises all-in $1124, UTG calls all-in $547.
Uncalled bets: $302 returned to Hero.

Turn: :as ($2259, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $2259)

River: :th ($2259, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $2259)

Results:
Final pot: $2259
UTG shows 7s 7c (one pair)
Hero shows Qc Ac (two pair)

Would you have folded that AQ preflop? You probably should most of the time. I kind of had a feeling he was going a little insane. That's what happens sometimes in the 3-betting war, don't let it happen to you.

August is broken...

2008-09-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

...and it happened on the 24th or thereabouts. Apparently advertising your own competence in the game of poker through coaching adds is enough to piss off Lady Luck. I know that I am probably not generating a lot of sympathy with a $20k month, so to compensate I will have to feel extra sorry for myself. No seriously I am happy with the end result, I just had my expectations set a lot higher after a terrific first half.

In terms of BB/100 I have also had a satisfactory month (2.7BB/100), but it just so happened that I ran very bad at 2000NL and very well at 600NL, not a recipe for success. My hourly rate is about $200/hr which of course is a disgrace to myself and poker players everywhere.

I managed my 100 hour goal for the month, and I am quite happy with that. For September I will try and exceed that by playing 120 hours. That would be a monthly record for me.

Coaching.

2008-08-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

As I've previously mentioned, I've had the opportunity to get my feet wet in the business of poker coaching. The results have been so good, that I am confident I can offer a valuable product to any aspiring poker player up to and including mid stakes 6 max NL Hold'em cash games. Since I also seem to enjoy teaching, I have decided to make myself available as a coach.

Coaching process.
I preferably offer live and in person coaching in the Copenhagen area only, and the price is $200/hr. Once the coaching process is well underway, I am going to be more flexible on these terms.

It is a challenge for many poker players to evaluate and develop their game by themselves, due to the solitary nature of the game. There is naturally no qualified debate or discussion of strategy when playing poker, and while participation in online forums can be a big help, it is always a time consuming process and often a frustrating one as well ("I cant blieve u fold that u fkn retard, LOL!!1").

The strength of coaching in person is the amount of two-way communication possible. It gives me the opportunity to watch you play while you explain your thought process. Afterwards we will discuss strategic issues that I notice during play, and obviously also situations that you currently find to be frustrating or difficult. While poker strategy is the primary area of focus, I will also be able to evaluate your whole approach to the game, including mind set, bank roll management, multi-tabling and technical aids, and alert you if I spot potential conflicts with the life of a professional player or areas with room for improvement (wife control problems is an area of expertise :)). As the coaching process continues we can mix in theoretical discussions and improve on already working strategies. This would be my suggestion for a valuable coaching process, but your ideas and needs are obviously the deciding factors.

References.
As this blog documents I am a winning player on 6-max cash games up until 2000NL. My main source of income this year has been 1000NL typically played at 7-10 tables. My hourly rate this year over more than 200k hands has been about $500/hr, so this coaching offer is of course dirt cheap. I play at the poker office in Copenhagen, and this gives me the opportunity to discuss strategy with 11 other professional players on a daily basis, giving me an excellent overview of the online poker scene.

If you are interested, drop me a line at poker@hasloev.dk. I expect us to exchange a couple of emails and/or have a conversation before we decide if there is reason to continue.

Back in the game.

2008-08-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

Online screen name of the week: OMGCAPSLOCK

Its been two weeks since my return to the tables, and things have mostly been going very well. The first week I played only $600NL tables, in order to ease back into the grind without getting too rattled by the beats, and also simply as a reaction to my bankroll being slightly smaller than I like. After winning the first 10 buy-ins, I started mixing in $1000NL tables, and now I am mostly playing those, although frequently I think the games are much better at $600. When the difference in opponent skills is too noticable, I don't feel too proud to ditch the $1000 games. Mostly it is my opinion that you should try not to get too hung up on playing at a specific level if the games are better elsewhere.

I am up a little over $20k since my return, even though I dropped $7k of all-in results through bad luck yesterday in a break even session. When you can run that much below expected results and still break even, things are pretty good. I am also about half way through my 100 hour goal, which could have been better I suppose. I will get there though, no question about it.

I have had some interesting battles with other regulars around the 3-betting game pre-flop. I punish players who steal too often, and some won't back off. If they steal too often, and fold to 3-bets too seldom, the result is lots of big pots with mediocre holdings on both our parts. If you don't know what is going on, it can seem like a stupid game of chicken between two bullies. In fact, it is just a logical consequence of players trying to exploit a particular leak, namely playing too loose preflop. If you often 3-bet someone who often steals and then often calls your 3-bets, you would be losing a lot of money if you didn't adjust your post flop play accordingly. And suddenly I have a situation where I can't fold a pair of eights out of position on a jack high board with 250 in the pot and 875 behind. A logical consequence of the 3-betting arms race, or a macho pissing contest? Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.

Chase for 100 hours.

2008-08-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

Here I am, back home again from holiday. I spent a couple of weeks in Italy, enjoying the mountains, the sea, the ice cream, the pasta and of course the wine. Italy is a nation of aesthetics. They love beauty in all forms, buildings, people, cars, and they spend more energy enhancing and celebrating it than any other people I have visited. When a 200 year old building is considered new, you know they must spend a bit of money on building maintenance here and there. This is very enjoyable when you are on a holiday, but I think for every day life it might become too much for a dull scandinavian like myself. On the other hand, the fine art of taking a break for a perfectly brewed espresso is definetely something to be inspired by, even up north of the wine countries.

It has been an expensive summer, and while vacationing is more or less supposed to be so, I have also been losing a nice pile of money on teh poker since beginning of May. I have booked about 100k hands of poker with a net loss to show for it. I will give you a minute to think about how long it would take you to play 100k hands.

...

The question that everyone asks is of course: Have you played bad, or have you just been unlucky? Of course it is more or less implied that it would be impossible to be unlucky for such a long stretch. Well, that is obviously up for debate, but I will maintain that yes, I have more or less been running bad while playing well. It may sound like I am ignoring obvious warning signs, but I simply haven't played significantly different from the previous 100k hands in which I basically cleaned up the tables. It is hard to believe when you haven't experienced it, but the amount of variance in poker results is just mind numbing, and I have received a heavy dose of the worst of it the last 3 months.

All that is going to change now, and I have promised myself 100 hours of solid poker in August. To start with I have dropped down to 600NL to try and gain some momentum, confidence and hard currency before I return to my beloved 1000NL that have treated me so harshly lately. I have already booked 20 hours with earnings of a little over $200/hour this week, so it has been a pretty good start. Yesterday was a roller coaster. I played 6 hours, and I was down 6 buy-ins at one point. I finished strongly though, and brought it back to even before it was over.

I will update a bit more frequently now and hopefully it will be all reports of happy days and big $$$.

Royal flush!

2008-07-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

I don't remember getting a royal flush before, but tonight I got one. Not that it's a very interesting piece of news, but these are slow times. I started with a horrible run after coming home from Vegas, but I am back to green now, although not by much. My plans for the coming week includes some spear fishing and poker playing, and then I go on vacation with the wife on Thursday.

I have been coaching a friend of mine a little bit lately, and I have found that very enjoyable. I show up live at his place, and we discuss the game as he is playing, and I pin point whatever general weaknesses I see. I could definitely see myself doing that some more. If you live around Copenhagen and feel like getting some new input, let me know. I don't come cheap though. I think $200/hr is about right for what I can offer, considering that I make more than that playing poker myself. It has to be live though. I think a verbal discussion gets the points across much quicker than emails, and besides I sit in front of my computer enough as it is. When I get back from vacation, I will write down something properly about how I can help people improve their game.

Congratulations are in order for Spain with a spectacular Euro Cup win. I don't remember such a huge skill difference between two teams in one of the big finals. Spain was just completely outplaying Germany 75 out of 90 minutes.

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
Hero: $1000
UTG+1: $1121.30
CO: $1419.14
Button: $1223
SB: $1129
BB: $1137.24

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is UTG with :jc :tc
Hero raises to $40, UTG+1 folds, CO calls, Button calls, SB folds, BB calls.

Flop: :kc :qc :kd ($165, 4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $100, CO calls, 2 folds.

Turn: :6h ($365, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $200, Hero calls.

River: :ac ($765, 2 players)
Hero raises all-in $660, CO folds.
Uncalled bets: $660 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: $765

Snap back to reality.

2008-06-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

This post just to let you know I haven't fallen off the earth and that my brain is not completely melted from my stay in the Nevada desert sun. I am slowly getting used to a world where things make a little sense. No pink stretched hummers and the inside temperature correlates roughly with the outside temperature. Looks like I am getting rid of that cold I picked up out in the desert. I have had some annoying hardware problems, so I have only just today gotten back to the grind of online poker. It is almost a relief to get back where bet sizes are sensible.

Otherwise the last couple of nights have been spent with the Euro Cup of Football. It has been a couple of decent semi finals, although the Russian performance tonight was dissapointing. Hard to understand what happened to the team that destroyed the dutch. I guess a final of Germany vs Spain is pretty good, considering that it could have been Turkey vs Russia. That would have been a bit of an anti climax. Anyway, I am just happy that Italy is out. Their match against Spain is one of the most disgraceful I've seen, bad even for Italy. It is just a shame that Donadoni orders 11 guys, many of whom can do great things with a football, to just stand and defend for 120 minutes.

It is nice to be home, even though I miss my Porsche. That is one nice ride, and a cabriolet is made for the Vegas heat. When you accelerate quickly from 50 to 90 mph past a roaring truck on the freeway, you know you are alive. It cost me $500 for a day, it was worth every cent and it is not close. A+.

Short stories from Vegas.

2008-06-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

I played in a tournament at Bellagio early in the trip. An old rock to my right started out loudly declaring how he would never raise an ace and a face card, "never!". Another player questioned his truthfullness, and he repeated "NEVER!", clearly agitated. First hand I remember him playing he was betting flop and turn of a semi large pot on a QJxx board with two spades. When the river came a non spade king, instead of considering his action he just started mumbling "You motherfucking...", and checked it down. He showed an ace high flush draw, and the other guy took it down with KT for a rivered one pair. Clearly the old guy thought the world was against him. 20 minutes later we had the most brutal of suckouts on the table as some guy was sent out of the tournament with 33 against AJ on a JT3 board. Turn, T, River: J. Just a sick beat that pretty much left the table shell shocked. The old guy commented "well, what about me with that king on the river, talk about being unlucky". Half an hour later, he flopped a flush from the big blind against another guys set. A set against a flush is not in horrible shape with 7 outs on the turn and 10 on the river, and he hit one of those. That was too much for old guy who stood up and yelled "Did you ever see shit like that in your life?!?!?". My answer would be, well, yeah, once or twice. He also got in a few choice words about the WSOP management who wouldn't let him play in an event when he was only half an hour late. Some people just have no luck at all.

In the $5k event, I played at a table with both TJ Cloutier and Allen Cunningham. The only table chatter I overheard there was TJ telling how he had once seen Doyle get away from quad tens "years and years ago". As he himself has documented in his book 'Championship NL Hold'em', TJ is the very definition of a solid rock, who has made his living at the poker tables folding a lot, and then soul reading people in big pots. He displayed both in a hand where he 3-bet from the button. The first raiser then said "why so little?", and then 4 bet it. That sent TJ into the tank. After a while he said "Another raise...". Then "...with a speech...", and then he folded queens.

Most places in the world, driving a Hummer will be a powerful statement in itself. But in Vegas, some people can't handle the thought of someone not noticing how much money they have. So they stretch the Hummer. A lot. And then they paint it pink...

Thomas from the office had Gus Hansen at his table in Mondays event. Obviously, the first time Thomas raised his blind, Gus instantly moves all in for a full stack early in the tournament. Thomas folds and Gus says to him: "I only do that when I think I have the best hand". And then smiling: "...but I always think I have the best hand."

Same Thomas busted Phil Helmuth in an earlier event with aces against Helmuth kings. Helmuth took it gracefully, shaking his hand saying "That's the only way they beat me".

Event #31.

2008-06-16T16:49:00.001-07:00

Event 31, $2500 short handed was a bust. Everything is back to normal, as I lost with a set against a flush draw all in on the flop. Biggest dissapointment was not busting Jamie Gold as he was all in preflop against me earlier in the day. I had 88 against his 22, but he spiked the deuce. His words were: "Everybody tells me I am the luckiest man in the world, I might as well run with it". He busted later though, so I guess he wasn't that lucky.

No. 30 out of 2706.

2008-06-16T02:03:00.000-07:00

Not a bad result when you look at it that way, but of course it would have been a bit nicer to see the final table. For 30th place I took down $13,666, enough to keep my tournament gaming in Vegas close to break even.

There have been a lot of big hands today, and I don't really have the energy to recount them all. At one point I had 270k chips, which is 90 times starting stack. Things went downhill from there though, and the last hour I was severely short stacked most of the time after losing a 170k pot with AK vs 99 preflop. I survived one all-in with JTs against A3o, but I finally busted with T7o called by AQo. I shoved 75k from CO, 6k/12k blinds, and 1k antes. Good shove IMO, considering each orbit cost 26k.

Early in the day, I would have been in the top 10, if my pocket aces had held up against queens. Overall though, there is no question I was lucky to go so far. But of course, I wish my luck could have held a few hours longer. Such is the life of a tournament player.

WSOP cash.

2008-06-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

I played my fourth event of the series yesterday, or I should say, I am still playing it! I have made it to day two of event 27 ($1500 NL) with a little over average chips, and we are in the money.

It was a great day 1, in which everything suddenly worked out, in sharp contrast to earlier events this year, when nothing worked out. I played two different tables, both of which was among the best I have ever played. On the first table, two thirds of all hands went unraised preflop, and on both tables the level of passivity was at times almost mind numbing. It was very cozy though, with an 80 year old geezer to my left who couldn't really see the board, and a middle aged woman across taking the 'friendly game' prize. They went very deep with the method of call preflop, call flop, call or check turn, call or check river and show down a set, trips or a straight for the winning hand. They combined for a total of 2 preflop raises in five hours, and on one of those the lady put in 2200 chips from the button when the blinds were 600/1200. I will never know if it was actually meant to be a call as well. On the other raise, the lady knocked out the short stacked geezer with kings against queens. She is still in it with a decent stack.

There are just 224 players left, and first prize is $628k and of course a bracelet, so that is where I am going.

I gotta run, I am playing in an hour and a half. Wish me luck.

Vegas update

2008-06-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

As I am sporting the mother of all hang overs, this will just be a brief report of our doings in Vegas. Pretty much every one of us is losing at the tables, so there is not much profit yet.

I played event 21 yesterday, a regular $5k NL tournament. I doubled up early with aces against eights all-in preflop, but went totally card dead after that. I also made a semi bad bluff that cost me a chunk. I finally bust with 30 BBs about 5 hours in with a flush draw and over cards against aces.

It turned out to be a good day anyway, as I saw the cirque de soleis show 'Ka', which is an awesome production. Other prime activities include a long drive in the desert. We started out by Hoover Dam, drove by Lake Mead to the Valley of Fire, and then home. Day before that we visited the gun range, where I shot Saddam Hussein in both eyes with a Desert eagle in two shots total. I also tried an AK-47, an M16 and a .45 hand gun. Much fun. Our internet is basically not functioning, so sadly I can't spoil you with updates as much as I would like.

Now, sleep.

Event #13.

2008-06-09T10:53:00.001-07:00

Event #13 Saturday went much better than #9. I lasted over twice as long, and lost as a much bigger favourite. About 100 minutes in I raised from UTG+1 with 97s, and get 3 callers. I flop a flush draw, and BB bets about half pot. I call, and so does the button. We are 3-way, the pot is growing big and on the turn I make my flush. BB checks, I bet 2/3 pot, Button raises, BB folds, and we go all-in. He shows a flopped slow-played set (not a good play imo). He obviously rivers a full house, and I am gone.

The beats you take playing live poker are somewhat harder to bear than online. Everything is much more in your face, it takes longer to play the next hands, and the emotions of yourself and your opponents are an important part of the game much more so than online. This recent beat is not exceptional at all, but it took its toll on me emotionally. It more or less ruined my day actually. But I am nothing if not stubborn, so I will keep plugging of course. Yesterday was a vast improvement, we hung out at the mansion for most of the day, and then went for a good meal and some cash game. I watched game 2 of the NBA finals, played 10/20NL at the Bellagio for a few hours and won $1100 in only small pots. A good solid evening that I think I needed.

WSOP Event #9 and other failures.

2008-06-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

Event 9 had the look of a great tournament for myself and a couple of the guys: Short handed, which is our normal game and a large weak field to take advantage of. Things didn't work out though, I busted with aces against a flush draw on the flop only 45 minutes in. I succeeded to some degree with my plan of establishing a loose aggressive image, and I suppose that prompted my opponent in the final hand to make a large overbet all-in on the flop with the flush draw. But when you can't win a hand as a 68% favourite you are not going to get far in any tournament.

I played in a $1080 tournament at Bellagio afterwards, and busted in that one about half way in after folding a lot. 6 hours of tournament poker took a harder toll on me than expected, so I called it a day after that. I haven't really had any cards to play with so far, so I have yet to see if my aggressive strategy will work.

Back home Mathias sucked out on me in a 4-way pool tournament that I had practically clinched. Everything is so rigged. Today we go shopping.

Reporting from Vegas (baby).

2008-06-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Las Vegas Monday, and the guys joined up yesterday, so the 'Pokerkontoret Mansion' is up and running. I managed to sleep until 7AM today, so hopefully the jet lag is not going to bother me much. The house is cool, the car is cool, and it looks like it will be a great trip.

A few of us will play in WSOP Event 9 today, it is a $1500 6-max event, and I am really looking forward to that. I hope to really attack the table and build that crucial early big stack, that could allow me to dominate the table the first few levels. Of course it is a risky strategy that will often quickly cost your tournament life, but I think it can be very profitable to play a lot of big pots against bad players who are more afraid to bust out early than you are. We will see how it works out. Of course the most important thing is always to adjust well to the other players.

And the beat goes on.

2008-05-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

I played in the weekly Thursday tournament in Casino Copenhagen this evening, and lasted about 40 minutes. Things went as planned early, as I attacked the blinds and weak limpers of whom there were plenty (the limpers that is, the number of blinds was standard). There was about 4 weak calling stations at the table.

Then one of them 3-bet me preflop when I had AK. I called, hit an ace on the flop while he hit a set of nines, and I was crippled. Ten minutes later I lose a preflop all-in with ATo against a calling station with 65s. He called a raise from CO, and then called my shove from SB as well, for about 15 BBs. nh, wp.

Since my last post, I have had two losing cash game sessions. The last one I was just about to get away with a $2k win, which would have been huge this month, but then as I was going home I sat at two very juicy 2000NL tables for an hour and promtly lost 4 buy-ins.

I am now at break even for the month, and feeling some poker sadness.

Looking forward.

2008-05-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

Lately it has been all about cash games, and that is about to change. This month I have played a load of cash game hands, and I am sorry to say things have not been too smooth. Since my last post I had another bad session, so I my monthly result, while still positive, is absolutely dismal compared to the amount of time I put in.

Fortunately, I don't worry too much about that, since in about two weeks I am going to Vegas with a few of the boys from the office. It will be good times, liberal gambling and booze policies, and of course: Tournaments. I am looking forward to playing about 5 WSOP events this year, and this time I will not be jet lagged during most of them. While tournaments are not my speciality, I am not too bad at it, and I hope I will catch a bit of luck and win a bracelet or just some money. The plan is to spend the next couple of weeks playing lots of tournaments, including a few live ones if I can find any in this by gambling forsaken country.

Sadly, tournaments are rigged. I was reminded tonight when I crashed and burned in all but one, and then I crashed and burned in that one too. My tournament account books show a deficit this year for sure, with no sign of things turning around. Considering that I also have to pay tax of my Las Vegas winnings, the trip is money out the window from a short term economical view point. But whatever, I have a right to dream of bracelets and suitcases full of money, so I am going. If the trip does nothing else, it will reinforce my conviction that tournaments are rigged so I can focus better on the cash games. If all else fails I will get to drive a few very fast cars. I checked, and you are eligible for jail if you just drive 30 mph above the legal limit. I have never been to jail before...

Anyway, the blog is about to change gears for the next month, going from the never ending grind of the cash games to reports of fast tournaments eternally full of bad beats. Then it will get worse with all the fast cars, fast money and hot sun of the Vegas desert. You have been warned.

Like night and day.

2008-05-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

I have always thought it more or less established fact that the games were better late at night (Danish time, GMT+1). The logic is that at around midnight everyone in the western world will NOT be at work, and that sleeping schedules is less of a hindrance for poker playing than work schedules. Also the European players who are on roughly the same local time as me will supposedly play worse late at night for various reasons.

What is lacking is some hard proof that this is actually fact, and not just an example of the standard human mindset that the grass is always greener on the other side, or in this case, that money flows more freely when I can't play 'cause wifey wants me in bed.

During my marathon, I did not have the feeling that the games were much better at night time, and surely my results are an indication of the opposite. My day time sessions (before dinner break) produced a win rate of 3.6 BB/100, while my night time sessions produced a win rate of 0.22 BB/100. Obviously those results are not proof of anything, for example a break even session on Sunday night instead of a -17k session would have made the two win rates roughly equal.

If you have some solid evidence one way or the other, I would be pleased to hear of it. Unfortunately Poker Tracker 2 was not much help in this regard. Right now I am working with PT3 to see if there is functionality there to help me (I am pretty sure there is, but I am having some techical problems and am in contact with support).

Fellow blogger Joxum asked for showdown statistics during the marathon. I went to showdown on 26.4% of the hands were I saw the flop, and I won 56% of those showdowns.

Last week...

2008-05-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

I played 70,034 hands of poker in 71.5 hours.

I won $23,476.

I paid $7,572 in rake.

I played 979.5 hands per hour.

I played 348 table sessions.

My longest single table session was 818 hands. That was a 7.5 hour session Sunday. I should have left that one out, because it cost me $5,550.

I paid $100,804 in blinds.

I made a total of 421 cold calls preflop (calls where I had not previously put money in the pot. A call from the blinds is not a cold call). This is about 0.6% of my hands. Over half of that was from the button.

I was dealt pocket aces 331 times, and I won $114 with it on average. I won $78/hand with kings, $24/hand with AKs and only $11.6/hand with queens.

I had quads every day. 19 times total.

I did not have a single straight flush.

I raised preflop 17.76% of my hands, and voluntarily put money in the pot 19.94%. My total aggression factor was 5.39.

I 3-bet preflop 8.35% of the times I had the opportunity.

I hit the bottom of a 30 buy-in downswing (middle of Tuesday), which started earlier in the month.

I had two $19k downswings, and I am still at the bottom of the last one.

I played three different buy-in levels:

2000NL:
5,185 hands
$1,856 won
0.89 BB/100

1000NL:
62,822 hands
$19,991 won
1.59 BB/100

600NL:
2,027 hands
$1,630 won
6.7 BB/100

If you have any burning questions concerning the numbers from last week, now would be a good time to post them, since I am already up to my elbows in number grease.

A little perspective, please.

2008-05-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

Last post was a nice reminder of why it is important to balance your life, especially so if you spend a significant portion of it playing poker. The highs and lows of poker are so extreme that if it is all you ever do, you will end up with manio depressive tendencies.

I played 71 hours of poker last week. During a run of eight hours Tuesday, I won $23k, almost exactly corresponding with my entire weekly profit. During five hours yesterday, I lost $17k, nearly cutting the entire weekly result in half. It is a wonder I am not a raving lunatic. Like they say, poker is a hard way to make an easy living.

Now I have had a chance to sleep on it, I am still a little bit pissed off actually, but I am capable of other feelings as well. For example, I am glad it's over, and I can do stuff again. Furthermore, I can give you three thoughts on the project as a whole.

One: When you have a load of playing time laid out before you, it takes a lot of focus from your immediate results. This was especially usefull to me in the beginning of the week, since I ran very bad the first day and a half. I think this experience can motivate me to try and fit my play into a larger plan in the future. For example, I could have a specific plan to play 40k hands in a month, and cash out whatever profit is there at the end of it. That way the first couple of sessions will automatically be put into the perspective of the whole month, and hopefully at the end of the month there will be a large surplus, so that the swings of a few hours won't seem so significant. And then I'll try not to lose half the monthly profit in the last damn session.

Two: Holy crap, I can play a lot of hands when I want to! Both in number of tables and number of hours I surprised myself with how well I managed with relatively little effort. I did not think it would be possible to play 1000 hands an hour, but it was. It gives me some satisfaction that I can sit down and grind it out like that, and expect a profit. The problem for any poker player capable of self critisism is that you never know for sure if and by how much you are a winning player. You just never get in enough hands to prove anything, and even if you did, it would take you so long that the games will have changed along with your own playing style. Although 70k hands is still not enough to prove anything concerning poker results, I think that along with my other results this year, there is now very strong statistical evidence that I am able to solidly beat 1000NL while playing a large number of tables. Those 70k hands last week now sit as a sort of documentation, or at least they would have if I hadn't lost half the profit in the last damn session.

Three: As I understand it, if you've been brain washed you are not going to be aware of it. I think it is not too far fetched to compare a 71 hour 10-table work week as a sort of extended brain wash of your poker senses. I should spend some time figuring out how my play has been affected. I can see in my stats that I have actually played slightly less hands and raised slightly less hands this week than I normally do. I believe that I am able to make good subconscious adjustments to my game, and do so continually, but I should try to make myself aware of the changes at some point to make sure they are constructive. For example, if I run bad over an extended period of time, I may make defensive changes that are in fact going to cost me money in the long run. It is about time I took a look at my game, if nothing else by running through a few hands.

I hope you are all now convinced that I haven't grown totally bitter, just slightly annoyed at the unfairness of it all, as ever. I will return with a run down of my stats from last week tomorrow. As you may know, pokertracker 3 is now shipping, so I am in the process of importing my entire hand history two years back into that program right now. Teaser: In my next post I will reveal how large a percentage of my hands that i 3-bet preflop!

I hate everything.

2008-05-18T17:07:00.000-07:00

Total
71.4 hours, 70,029 hands, $23,877, MT Ratio: 8.78, 1.64PTBB/100 (e.a.:2.5), $7,503 rake paid.

Today:
10.25 hours, 10,993 hands, -$13,860, MT Ratio: 9.49, -3.78PTBB/100.

"I must admit it was a relief to finally crack $30k, hopefully for good. As the graph shows, I have been grinding the same money up and down forever, and I was getting fairly sick of always returning to $23k. I know you are probably not feeling very sorry for me about being stuck at 'only' $23k, but imagine working 25 hours on something, getting no result and then having to pay for it in the end. But a little before midnight, I finally, finally, FINALLY got rewarded for all the lost coin flips and setups over the last two day. Makes me feel like river dancing."

-Quote playbald yesterday

"$25,031"

-Quote playbald Wedensday.

"Crap day, crap week, crap project."

-Quote playbald right fucking now.

End in sight

2008-05-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

Total
65.4 hours, 63,876 hands, $40,584, MT Ratio: 8.74, 2.72PTBB/100

Today:
4.25 hours, 4,840 hands, $2,847, MT Ratio: 9.96, 3.45PTBB/100.

Last marathon dinner break ever. I just want to share with you the sickest suckout ever:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
5 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $2305.05
Hero: $2965.80
Button: $830
SB: $1092
BB: $2460

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is CO with :9h :9c
UTG folds, Hero raises to $35, 2 folds, BB raises to $125, Hero calls.

Flop: :9d :js :5d ($255, 2 players)
BB bets $199, Hero raises to $500, BB calls.

Turn: :as ($1255, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $700, BB raises to $1400, Hero raises all-in $1640.8, BB calls all-in $435.
Uncalled bets: $505.8 returned to Hero.

River: :9s ($4925, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $4925)

Results:
Final pot: $4925
BB shows Ah Ac (three of a kind, aces)
Hero shows 9h 9c (quads, nines)

Yes ladys and gents, a one-outer on one try for 5 buy-ins. Of course this sucks royally for me, since it completely ruins my hard earned image as a notoriously unkucky player who succeeds despite horrible circumstances.

Dinner break.

End of days.

2008-05-18T05:24:00.000-07:00

Damn marathon runners cloggin' up the whole city like they own the place. Bastards should get a hobby or something. And they had to pick this exact day.

Anyway, one day of misery left, 11k hands to be played and then: FREEDOOOOM!!! (Gibson version, entrails hanging out and everything). Well then, let us gogogogogogo!!!

Finally.

2008-05-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

Total
61.1 hours, 59,036 hands, $37,737, MT Ratio: 8.66, 2.65PTBB/100 (e.a.: 3.5), $6,419 rake paid.

Today:
10.4 hours, 9,932 hands, $13,562, MT Ratio: 8.6, 3.32PTBB/100.

My supernatural powers of prediction have triumphed yet again. If I overlook the fact that I didn't exactly have my best day ever, I did go over 35k, so thats a pretty good success rate for a fortune teller. I am now going to set up shop and predict everyones future on the internets at a very modest rate. Death and marriage predictions free on Thursdays.

I must admit it was a relief to finally crack $30k, hopefully for good. As the graph shows, I have been grinding the same money up and down forever, and I was getting fairly sick of always returning to $23k. I know you are probably not feeling very sorry for me about being stuck at 'only' $23k, but imagine working 25 hours on something, getting no result and then having to pay for it in the end. But a little before midnight, I finally, finally, FINALLY got rewarded for all the lost coin flips and setups over the last two day. Makes me feel like river dancing.

One more day and 11k hands to go, and I will be ready to do some serious relaxing.

Day 6 dinner break.

2008-05-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

Total
53.6 hours, 51,988 hands, $25,860, MT Ratio: 8.66, 2.56PTBB/100

Today:
2.92 hours, 2,884 hands, $1,685, MT Ratio: 8.57, 3.21PTBB/100.

More of the same. I started the day by getting stacked no less than five times with AK preflop. Since then it has worked out alright, but it definetely has not been my week when it comes to all-ins.

Someone asked for a rake count. Until now, I have paid $5,662 in rake this week.

Dinner break.

Day 6.

2008-05-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

As I drove through town on my way to the office, I noticed that a bunch of guys have ripped off my concept, and are going to run a ridiculous amount of clicks tomorrow. I am of course talking about the original Copenhagen Marathon. Hopefully I will be fast asleep when the first guys cross the finish line, and hopefully I won't have any problems crossing town to get in here.

But of course the most important event tomorrow will be me playing my 70,000th hand of the week, probably somewhere around 4am monday morning (remember that my work week splits at 6am).

Another late start today, my sleeping rythm is getting pushed forward, and I also had to get some excercise today. I hope I will actually make some money today, unlike the previous two. For the next to last time: Gogogogogo!!!

Day 5, wall version.

2008-05-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

Total
50.68 hours, 49,104 hands, $24,175, MT Ratio: 8.67, 2.52PTBB/100 (e.a.: 3.6)

Today:
10.1 hours, 9,796 hands, $3,484, MT Ratio: 8.9, 2.1PTBB/100.

This must be that wall marathon runners always talk about. I should have listened more closely. As predicted two days ago, the last couple of days have been tough times. I feel like I have been over the same ground fifty times now, but I always seem to be dragged bag to the starting point.
Since my predictive powers are so keen, I am now going to predict that I have my best day yet tomorrow, wich will put me over $35k for the week. Something to look forward to.

Of course I have a few more hands to discuss than I care to, setups, suckouts and donkish moves abound. Worst setup today at a 2000NL table I was all in with AK against aces AND kings. Tough to suck out of that one. Most donkish move I believe I have ever seen occured just a couple of hours ago. It is a case of the rarely used but very efficient bluff call:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $976.75
UTG+1: $1516.75
CO: $5343.50
Button: $1066
Hero: $1238.75
BB: $1094

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is SB with :jd :qd
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $35, CO calls, Button calls, Hero raises to $170, 2 folds, CO calls, Button folds.

Flop: :6h :5s :2d ($420, 2 players)
Hero bets $300, CO calls.

Turn: :6d ($1020, 2 players)
Hero raises all-in $768.75, CO calls.

River: :7d ($2557.5, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $2557.5)

Results:
Final pot: $2557.5
Hero shows Jd Qd (flush)
CO shows Jc 7c (one pair, sevens)

I would not have guessed I was actually shoving for value. Should I have slow played my queen high monster?

Just your average day 5.

2008-05-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

Total
44.8 hours, 43,506 hands, $24,482, MT Ratio: 8.62, 2.82PTBB/100

Today:
4.2 hours, 4,198 hands, $3,791, MT Ratio: 8.67, 4.66PTBB/100.

Today is not too shabby I guess, except that I was up twice as much for the day two hours ago, and I still have less money than I did yesterday morning. Name of the game.

Dinner break.

Day 5 starting.

2008-05-16T05:59:00.001-07:00

I would very much like to do better today than yesterday, both in terms of $$$ and number of hands. With the new goal of SEVENTY THOUSAND HANDS, there is no reason to be lazy. Here we go then: Gogogogogo!!!

A bad day even.

2008-05-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

Total
40.6 hours, 39,308 hands, $20,691, MT Ratio: 8.61, 2.62PTBB/100 (4.2 equity adjusted).

Today:
8.9 hours, 8,130 hands, -$4,340, MT Ratio: 8.5, -2.9PTBB/100.

So I am down $16k in all-in luck this week. That's basically all I have to say about that. I am now including my equity adjusted BB/100 in my daily report card. No, I probably wouldn't have done that if I had been ahead.

Aside from a modest daily result things are going well. I am playing well, not having any physical problems, and people are showing some interest in the project which is all good. So I am now UPGRADING MY GOAL! 50k hands is just a short weeks work, to be a real bad-ass I gotta do 70k. I always thought 10k a day had a nice ring to it, I just didn't quite believe myself capable of that many. The new goal should keep me from growing all fat and happy with myself the next couple of days.

Until tomorrow...

A slow day.

2008-05-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

Total
35.2 hours, 34,288 hands, $26,955, MT Ratio: 8.6, 3.8PTBB/100.

Today:
3.4 hours, 3,110 hands, $1,924, MT Ratio: 8.18, 1.16PTBB/100.

I got a late start to the day because of not being able to get out of bed, and then excercise. On top of that there was a poker lecture at the office, and many people about. All good times, but not helpful towards the marathon.

Things have settled down now, so I am counting on 5 solid hours now.

Btw ace magazine have linked to me (in danish).

Day 4 starting.

2008-05-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

Starting late, but starting NOW!!! Gogogogo.

Soaring.

2008-05-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

Total
31.8 hours, 31,178 hands, $25,031, MT Ratio: 8.64, 4.06PTBB/100.

Today:
10.8 hours, 10,417 hands, $14,713, MT Ratio: 8.58, 6.60PTBB/100.

Yesterday a few hours into day 2, I was down $13k for the week, and at the bottom of a 30 buy-in downswing. What a difference a day makes. Now I am sitting pretty on my mountain of gold snickering arrogantly at the poor bastards whose aces I crack with my kings.

When you are on top things like now, of course everything seems like cotton candy. But yesterday I really think the marathon concept did wonders for me. I would have quit 10 times during my monster day yesterday if I hadn't put up this challenge for myself, and I probably would have played worse when the results really went against me. I am not usually prone to tilt, but I am sure my game deteriorates a bit during the really ugly periods when nothing goes right. When you know that the results have no immidiate effect on you (you are still going to have a crappy week sitting bent over your keyboard no matter what) they become less of strain on you when they suck.

Physically I feel the strain now, I have a bit of pain and tension in back and shoulders, and I suspect that won't go away for long this week. Will get some more excercise tomorrow before playing, hopefully that will work out some kinks.

The great results of the last day and a half have been a nice companion, so I haven't really had a problem staying motivated and focused. But I foresee tough times if I hit a bad streak the next couple of days, since I am now getting a bit sick of playing poker, and still not exactly near the end. I have four days to go, and I am counting on my natural stubbornness to get me through.

Donks aplenty.

2008-05-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Total
26.0 hours, 25,807 hands, $15,816, MT Ratio: 8.63, 3.21PTBB/100.

Today:
5.1 hours, 5,046 hands, $5,499, MT Ratio: 4.92, 4.92PTBB/100.

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
5 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $195
CO: $1311.63
Hero: $1415
SB: $1154
BB: $1120

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is Button with :3s :3d
UTG folds, CO raises to $100, Hero calls, 2 folds.

Flop: :8d :9s :3c ($215, 2 players)
CO bets $250, Hero calls.

Turn: :9h ($715, 2 players)
CO bets $400, Hero raises to $1000, CO calls all-in $561.63.
Uncalled bets: $38.37 returned to Hero.

River: :4c ($2638.26, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $2638.26)

Results:
Final pot: $2638.26
Hero shows 3s 3d (full house)
CO doesn't show As Qc (one pair)

'Nuff said.

Day 3 taking off.

2008-05-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

This is it. This is me. Gogogogogo!

(Amazing how little you have to write about when all you do is sleep, eat, **** and play poker)

End of day 2.

2008-05-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

And what a day it was.

Total
21.0 hours, 20,761 hands, $10,318, MT Ratio: 8.67, 2.79PTBB/100.

Today:
10.6 hours, 10,698 hands, $18,636, MT Ratio: 8.88, 10.16PTBB/100.

That went a long way towards redeeming all of the ill luck I went through yesterday. However, I am still owed $6k on that account, so my equity adjusted BB/100 is actually 4.2 instead of the measly 2.8 I am stuck with now. Well, at least I am not stuck under a brick wall somewhere in China.

See you tomorrow.

It had to get worse...

2008-05-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

...before it got better.

Total
14.7 hours, 14,425 hands, +$191, MT Ratio: 8.5, 0.44PTBB/100.

Today:
4.3 hours, 4,362 hands, $8,509, MT Ratio: 8.72, 10.1PTBB/100.

The day started as yesterday ended: Rigged beyond belief. I had kings vs aces twice, and aces over trips and two pair twice, and lost a coin flip on top. I was down over $13k total at one point. But suddenly things started going my way, and I ripped home 10k in one and a half hour. That is the kind of streaks we have been waiting for!

Now dinner break.

Day 2.

2008-05-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

After some sleep, excercise and food, I am ready for day two. I am gunning for 10k non-rigged hands. Gogogogogo!!!

End of day 1.

2008-05-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

10.4 hours, 10,063 hands, -$8318, MT Ratio: 8.5, -3.76PTBB/100.

Dedicated readers might notice that the graph is currently pointing in the wrong direction. I am not going to pretend that is completely according to plan, but money comes and goes, look at all the hands I played, that's nice isn't it?

It turns out the dreaded partypoker doom switch has come on for me big time, and pitted against that mighty force, all things good and righteous must fail. You may not believe me, but even playing 8-10 tables of poker for all those hours, I truly believe I have played extremely well. I was fairly sure of it even before I studied my all-in luck graph for today, but that turned out to be a somewhat reviving experience. For the day I am down no less than $13k in bad all-in luck. Meaning that if every pot had been split according to equity after the money went in, I would have had a surplus of $4600 instead of being stuck over $8k. An exceptional result that handily beats anything I have experienced. Closest thing I can recall is when I was down $11k in all-in luck one day in december, but that was at 2000NL, while this was almost exclusively 1000NL.

Anyway, first day of my marathon went pretty well, I am not physically exhausted or anything, just a little bit mentally bombed from all the nasty setups and suckouts. If I'd had a positive buttom line I probably would have gone on for an hour or two. Tomorrow I will probably go to the gym and shake up the old office body a little bit before putting in another day at the tables. Hopefully just like this one except for the riggedness.

Pit stop 1.

2008-05-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

5.8 hours, 5,790 hands, -$1540, MT Ratio: 8.4, -4.71PTBB/100.

So far so good. I think I am playing well, and the lousy results are mainly due to some nasty suckouts and setups. Interestingly enough, I feel much more detached from my results when I know I am still going to play 49,500 more hands this week. Somehow it is easier to consider the long run, at least that is my experience so far. But that doesn't help the fact that today and last week has been absolutely brutal. I am down about $25k during my last 4 or 5 sessions. I am glad I will win it all back this week :).

Now a well deserved dinner break.

50,000 hand week, gogogogo!!!

2008-05-12T04:16:00.000-07:00

Starting NOW!

Training for a marathon.

2008-04-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

I am still excited about my Copenhagen Poker Marathon experiment. The more I think about it the more I want to do it, and the more am I convinced that the experience will help me expand my capacity for playing fully focused long hours. Furthermore, I think it is quite possible I could be a better player at the end.

Like all other body parts, I believe that you can train your brain to perform at a higher level for longer periods of time. So, if I am to play poker for a whole week only interrupted by a bit of sleep here and there, I think it will be necessarry for me to practice at playing long sessions.

Yesterday I did my first marathon session experiment. I played for 9 hours and 45 minutes, the last 7 of those hours basically uninterrupted. That came out as 7744 hands of poker in a day. Quite an output considering a normal month for me is at 30k-40k hands. Results wise it was also a good day, with a 3.9PTBB/100 win rate.

I was pleasantly surprised that I suffered no ill effects during the long session. I was able to play well throughout, and I still feel sane today. Of course there is no guarantee that I would know it if I had actually lost my sanity... I alternated between sitting and standing a little bit, but still had a little back ache when it was over, so I foresee more of that when I am going to do it a whole week. I think I need to condition my back a little bit during the next month, or I could really hurt myself with an experiment like the one I am planning. Overall, being in good physical condition is absolutely necessarry if you are going to be sitting down a lot!

While I felt well throughout the entire session, the last hour was really a bore, and I felt very tired. Quite possibly my fatigue was only a result of knowing that I was close to the end, as I had planned ahead when to stop. If I had planned for two hours more, there is a chance I could have easily done that and still only been tired the last hour. But since I don't think I have ever played such a monster session before, I can't complain about being a little bombed in the head.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the whole project is what it will do to my poker game. In my opinion, the worst thing that could happen is nothing. You could point out that this is a likely result, since the main focus is on long hours and many open tables, so there is no time to really concentrate on quality. But I hope that simply burying myself in poker for a long time, and clearing my mind of every day items will have a positive effect, and allow me to get deeper into the game. All of the top cash game players have one thing in common: They have all played insane amounts of poker. Also, I have read several of the top players describe important steps in their carreers as periods of time where they focused solely on poker, without the hazzle of an every day life ruining the concentration. Additionally I hope that when I am in the middle of a +50k hand week, the imidiate results will seem more trivial, and allow me to focus more on decisions, less on results.

I look forward to reporting how things turn out.

Copenhagen Marathon

2008-04-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

The annual Copenhagen Marathon is May 18th this year. I have decided that this year, I will give it a go. I haven't really prepared for it or anything, but I figure sheer willpower should be enough...

Are you now thinking something along these lines: "Wow, he must be out of his mind if he thinks he can prepare for a 42km run in little over a month."?

Well, I can only reply: RUN?!?!? Are you kidding me? I can't run 5km without lying prone for 2 weeks afterwards with severely aggrevated achilles tendons. I couldn't run 20 if my life depended on it, much less 42.

No sir, the plan is to do a poker challenge that puts no unreasonable demands on my limited physical abilities, time it roughly around the time all those crazed lunatics run around Copenhagen for hours and hours, and then just steal their name! Brilliant if you ask me, and a good opportunity to test the limits of how much online poker it is possible to play in an extended period of time.

Copenhagen Poker Marathon starts for me Monday May 11th, and lasts the whole week through Sunday. How hard I should challenge myself is still undecided. I am wavering between 50-70,000 hands in a week. 70k sounds cool (10k/day), but I am not sure it is realistic. At least it would demand a fairly big sacrifice, about a hundred hours staring at 8 tables, which may be too much. I am fairly certain I could do 50k without going mad. An essential part of the challenge for me is that I should maintain a high level of play. I should not have to move down in buy-in levels to complete the challenge unless my normal level is unavailable in the number of tables required. That means maintaining a decent hourly rate at 8 tables of 1000NL for at least 10 hours a day, probably more.

In any case, it should be a rich opportunity for prop bets, let me know if you want action. I will keep you updated on this blog as the event comes further along.

Vegas, Baby!

2008-04-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

The plan for this years WSOP is becomming increasingly clear. Last year was a great experience, so this year it will basically be the same thing, except more of it, and better!

Along with 3 other poker players from the office, we are renting a big ass house with pool, pool table, BBQ and a fast internet connection. I am staying in Vegas from the 3rd to the 19th of June, and my wife is joining me for the first week. When she leaves, I will turn down the sight seeing, and get some serious gambling started.

Between the 10th and 17th, there are relevant NL Hold'em, WSOP events almost every day, so I should be able to play at least six events unless I go deep in some of them (hopefully that won't happen). Also, there should be a rich variety of regular poker tournaments in Vegas during the WSOP period, so I will be able to satisfy my cravings for live poker, have no fear.

With the impossibly devalued US$, another craving should be satisfied this year: The rental of very fast cars is not prohibitively expensive, so that will certainly be an item on the agenda. For example, I give you the Lambo Gellardo:

That one is a little expensive though, $1800 for one day, not including insurance, so I may have to make do with just a small Ferrari. Muhahahahaaaa!!!

1st Quarter review.

2008-04-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

I've joined my poker databases from my two work places, and for the first time in a while had a chance to look at my cash game results this year all together. The results are great looking as I expected them to be. While I have been extremely lucky in all-in situations this year so far, I have also been solidly beating the games otherwise.

Back in November and December I had a tumble with variance as I tried to move up from NL600 to NL1000, and promptly decided I might as well play NL2000. The end result was a small hit to my bank roll which was unfortunately followed by a long losing streak at NL600.

In January things started rolling again, and I booked a decent winning month. Since then I really have moved up, and I am now a solidly winning NL1000 player, with regular succesful exploits into NL2000. I am not ashamed to admit that statement gives me no little satisfaction. In my opinion, this is not just another step on the ladder, in some ways I feel I have passed the final examn of mid stakes cash games, and the major obstacle that stands between me and any high stakes game now is simply a lot of money. I may be kidding myself, and I may be influenced by my prolonged stay at NL600, but my feeling right now is that the difference between the play at NL200 and NL1000 is much greater than the difference between NL1000 and any high stakes cash game regularly played. I am confident I would get my ass wupped in the long run if I sat down in some of the big games, but I believe with some table selection and a substantially larger bank roll, I could do fine. That was certainly not how I felt about NL1000 back when i started on NL200.

The plan for the next couple of months is to keep up the good work ethics and hopefully also the good run, pad my IRL roll, and take more shots at bigger games if things continue to go well. I had a firm reminder to keep my feet on the ground this Saturday, where I lost $11k. Still, March gave me about $32k, so I could afford it. But not too many of those please, losing 5 figure in a day regularly is not something my roll or my confidence is quite ready for yet. Actually I have not felt like playing much since Saturday, so the experience left it's mark. That must change though, as I will surely have more 5 figure days both ways in the months to come.

I have registered 86k hands this year, for a profit of $89,475, and an hourly rate of $567. That number has been inflated by some really mind boggling all-in luck. I am up $23k in that department, but I still think with this sample size I am not too optimistic to expect $300/hr at this point. A number that I think obligates me to get in a lot of those work hours, and stop sitting around not playing!

My multitabling ratio is at about 5.5, which is a little less than the ideal number of tables for me at this point. I really think I can play 6 tables and still maintain a high level of play. I regularly play 8, and even then I often have a very good feeling that I am in complete control of all tables, and don't really want to leave any of them. It was my plan a few months ago to cut down the number of tables, but that is no longer a set goal as long as the results and the quality of play is to my satisfaction. Only on really tough tables do I feel the need to play fewer than 6 tables, and in that case I would just as soon give up playing if I can't find better.

Freeroll revisited.

2008-03-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

There was a comment to my last post, about whether or not villain should call my push knowing that he was splitting the pot, or losing it to a possible flush. It seemed wrong to me to fold the nuts with these stack sizes, but it is a situation where it is easy to calculate the correct action.

Let's put ourselves in his position. We know we both have the ace high straight, and that we are losing to a made flush. Our equity in the pot is 39.8%. Pot size is 1220. Bet size is 1514. The expected value of calling the shove can simply be calculated as:

EV(call) = equity * (pot size + 2 * bet size) - bet size = $177.

So if we fold here, that is what we are costing ourselves.

I messed with the bet size to figure out how large a bet we can profitably call. It turns out the sweet spot is about $2380. So if the effective stacks had been $900 larger, our villain should have folded, unless he thought there was a chance I was bluffing, or that I didn't in fact have a flush draw. If these probabilities are estimated to be significant, the bet would have had to be much larger to correctly fold. I suppose it is somewhat reassuring that the theory tells us not to go about folding the nuts too often, even with redraws on the board.

Situations were you can actually precisely calculate the correct action come up rarely in poker, but this was one of those cases.

Pluggin' along.

2008-03-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a few weeks since last post. I went skiing for a week in France during that time, and haven't really had anything on my mind.

Overall I am running extremely well. I didn't destroy an ACL or break anything skiing, and to top it off, poker has been very good to me after my return. I am up over $15k in all-in luck this month, which is a ridiculous number. I am obviously very happy with the money sitting in my account, but it does feel a little awkward that I didn't really earn it. I suppose I will have to get over that somehow. It's not like I should have lost money or anything, I just shouldn't have been destroying the games nearly as hard as I did. I guess the main thing is to just enjoy it while it lasts, and try to maintain a realistic expectation of future results.

Compared to back in November when I had a streak of good results, I am much more focused on maintaining good work ethics. I may be getting a little bit more ambitious, as I am still happy with my results, but now I also want to get even better ones! Maybe it will pass, but at the moment I really feel like getting a lot of playing hours in, even though I am sitting on a comfortable pile of monthly income for March. It has been very motivating listening to the 2+2 pokercasts with interviews with some of the best poker players alive. Somehow listening to the radio show does not interfere at all with playing 6 tables of 1000NL-2000NL. Apparently I use two different parts of my brain for those two activities. Only when unusually tough decisions come up do I subconsciously tune out the pokercast. Anyway, I greatly recommend the shows, including the archived ones.

This may shock the hell out of all of you, but here is some strategy content. I recently had the opportunity to give myself a freeroll in a 2000NL hand:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (6 handed) Party Poker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Button ($515)
SB ($2124)
BB ($3892)
UTG ($2355)
MP ($2030)
Hero ($3467.50)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 2c, Ac.
2 folds, Hero raises to $70, 1 fold, SB calls $60, 1 fold.

Flop: ($160) Jd, Td, Kc (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $120, SB calls $120.

Turn: ($400) Qc (2 players)
SB bets $420, Hero shoves (All-In), SB calls.

River: ($5588) 8c (2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $5588
SB has Ts As (straight, ace high).
Hero has 2c Ac (flush, ace high).
Outcome: Hero cleans house.

Its an unusual situation that arises on the turn: I have the stone cold nuts, possibly tied with villain, but with a chance to improve! In this case it is very important to take advantage of your draw by getting some money in the middle. I am almost 100% certain that we are tied on the turn, but if I shove I give myself a 20% chance at taking his whole stack. Luckily, I run so well that of course I hit jackpot. Had I not shoved the hand on the turn, he may have gotten away from it, but you will never get a fold from an ace on the turn, even with much bigger stacks. Had the stacks in fact been much bigger, realizing the situation and shoving the full stack would have been even more important, and just calling or making a small raise would be a very expensive mistake.

End of February.

2008-02-29T05:14:00.001-08:00

We have come to the end of an eventful month. Despite spending a lot of time on tournaments, and a lot of money on the EPT, I still came out of February with a tidy profit from cash games. Ironically, my cash game earnings exploded when I started to focus more on tournaments. Possibly part of the explanation for that is that I played fewer tables and fewer hours, but I am sure most of it can be attributed to simple luck.

While it hasn't been a very profitable experience, playing tournaments has simply been a lot of fun, and I intend to continue for a while with those, still mixing it with cash games. The worst part of tournament poker is that the bad beats you take are really devastating, both in terms of money and hours spent. The second worst thing is how you feel you are slowly bleeding to death in the periods where you don't make that one big pay-out. On average you only make the money in roughly 15% of the tournaments you play. So on my tournament days, a typical scenario is that after 4-6 hours and playing as many as 10-12 tournaments, you are sitting with your whole investment gathered on just that one or two tables where you have gone deep. That's when you really appreciate aces in the hole, and that's when a suckout for your tournament life hurts the most. The value of those stacks deep in large tournaments is huge, and that is the curse and the charm of tournaments.

The main advantage of tournament poker is that you never lose more than your initial investment, so even after a completely failed tournament session, you are never down more money than you can win back with a decent cash game session. This provides some extra motivation, and takes away that special tournament pro feeling of bleeding to death.

In March, I have a bet with some guys at the office on who will play the most cash game table hours. I hope this will provide further motivation to put in a decent work effort. I am allowed to play a cash game or two table along with tournaments, so the tournament hobby should not interfere. Funny how a bet for a stake dinner provides more motivation than an expected hourly rate that is probably worth more than the dinner.

I wish us all a profitable month!

EPT Day 2.

2008-02-22T04:23:00.000-08:00

It's over. I finished in 60th place out of 460, prizes for 40. A harsh landing to be sure, but that is the way it usually is with tournaments.

The typical question after such a bust is: How do you feel? Are you just completely devastated? Actually I am not. I am quite at ease with the fact that sometimes the cards just aren't there for you to advance further. It would have really ruined my week if I busted out on a big mistake, but that wasn't the case. So yesterday I was fine with it, and hung out with the guys I know until the bubble burst. My friend Thomas Christiansen is still in it in 12th place, and I have 10% of him, so the EPT is not completely over for me yet. If he wins it all it will be my biggest poker win ever :). But after spending the last couple of days with green felt, colorfull chips, cameras rolling and 7-figured prize money, I must admit the day seems a bit grayer than usual today. It is a typical overcast danish winter day, and I wouldn't mind sitting in Casino Copenhagen among the last 40. I wouldn't mind it one bit.

I don't have lot of interesting hands to report, since I think the last 4 hours every hand was finished preflop. But here is a summary of the action.

I started the day as chip leader of the table, a status I quickly lost for good. The player to my right had a stack roughly equal to mine, and just a few hands in, he raised UTG. We both have about 50k chips, blinds are 400/800 - 100 ante. I call with AQo, all fold, pot is about 8k. The flop is QT5 with two spades, I have no spades. He checks, and I bet 5k, he calls. Turn is the 8 of spades, and he bets out 4.5k, a definite underbet that I can't really tell the meaning of. I consider raising, but elect to just call with the completed flush fraw on the board, with the intention of getting a cheap showdown. The river is another ugly spade, he shoves and I must fold.

I lost about 25% of my stack on that hand, and after that nothing went right for a while. The few raises I made was reraised, or I had to fold on the flop. I am down to 21k, when it is folded to me in CO, and I raise with AJ. A sweedish professional Bengt Sonnert raises me from the button which he has done before, and I am forced to put my foot down and shove. He calls with KQs. The flop is exciting with two of his suits, but I win the coin flip for my tournament life, crippling Bengt.

The rest of the day was back and forth between 25k and 55k, not a lot of big hands to report.

In my bust out hand, it was raised from UTG by an active player. Blinds 1200/2400 - 300 ante. He raised to about 6600, I am in UTG+3 and I look down on 88 with 40k in my stack. Calling is out of the question with my smallish stack, so it is push or fold. I shove due to the loose/weak image of UTG. Unfortunately I am called by no less than two players in late position, who wake up with AK and QQ, while UTG folds. There are about 100k in the pot, and I have 19% equity. The prize money equity of the entire pot is a staggering $100k. Unfortunately no help arrives, and I am out in 60th place. Bummer.

EPT Day 1.

2008-02-20T23:52:00.000-08:00

I am very much alive in the EPT after a great first day for me. 174 players are left out of 460 starters, and I am in 17th place.

Here is a small recap of the big hands of Day 1. I will fill in the details freely when I can't remember the exact ones.

Half an hour in, blinds 25/50, effective stacks 10.000. UTG limps, UTG+2 raises to 200, two callers, I call from BB with 86 of clubs and UTG comes along. I can't complain when the flop comes 2c 4c 5c. I check/raise the preflop raiser to 2.000. UTG surprises everyone and possibly himself by reraising to 6.000. He is greek, and after making the raise he tries unsuccesfully to convince the dealer he wants to raise 'three'. Preflop raiser lays down aces (that's what he said, and I believe him), and I have a choice to make. I am very much afraid he has a bigger flush, but I feel he could also make the raise with a set. Since I have the 8c, that takes away several of his possible flush hands that he would limp UTG, and I thought a set was more likely. My speculations prove worthless as I push, he calls and shows 63 of diamonds for the flopped straight. He is clearly not the kind of player to worry too much about preflop ranges. He is also drawing absolutely dead, and I double up.

Last hand before the first break two hours in, blinds 50/100 (my stack is 20k), early position raise to 400, CO+1 calls (12k stack), and I 3-bet to 1500 from the button with AQo. CO+1 calls. Flop comes A97 with a flush draw. I c-bet 2.8k, and he checkraises me an amount that makes my decision a push-or-fold. I have very little fold equity. If I push and lose I am left with about 8k. My read is that he limp/calls a lot preflop, and that he has check/raised me once before in a smaller pot, but this is the first time he has put this much at stake. I make a good laydown IMO. Everyone has gone to the break, and he tells me privately he had 777. I certainly could not have made this laydown in a cash game (3-bet preflop 110BBs), so my mission to think more like a tournament player was succesfull in this case.

Shortly after the break, blinds 75/150, all folds to CO who steals, I 3-bet with AJ of diamonds, I forget the bet sizes, but I guess the pot is around 2400, and our stacks are both around 15k. The flop comes AhQd4h. He checks to me, and I creatively check behind. The pot is plenty big enough already IMO. Turn is 5d, and I pick up a flush draw. He bets the pot strongly, and I call. I consider to use my flush outs as an excuse for a raise, but I don't see him folding better hands, and I am not really scared of the heart draw. River is a blessed 8d, he bets 5.5k, and after a good show of thinking I obviously shove the nuts. He is shaken up by this and after significant anguish he makes a good laydown with 444. My stack is now 24k.

I then stack a poor guy with a set of kings over a set of sevens, giving me a stack of 34k.

After this, a long period of nothing special happened, until 40 minutes before the end of day 1. Blinds are 300/600 - 75 ante, I have about 28k chips. UTG raises, UTG+2 reraises to 4k, I am in the SB and look down on the sweet aces. I 4-bet to 12k, and UTG+2 who is a talker, talks for about 5 minutes about his decision before calling. He has me covered, but only by about 6k, so this is serious business for him also. I REALLY don't wanna bust 30 minutes before the end of day 1, so when I see the low flop, I am very relieved and shove after making another good show of thinking. I guess I could have slow played it since he seemed to have a good hand, but I just wouldn't be able to bear it if he picked up a set on the turn on that account. After another 5 minutes of talking he folds, and my stack is now 41k and regain the chip lead at the table. The last 20 hands, nobody wants to bust, allowing me to run over the table and bring my stack to 50.7k, which is what I will start with in a few hours.

Now that my focus has moved from just making it a good experience to actually making some money, I must admit I am strangely less excited about my situation. The payout structure is so top heavy, that even after a great day one it is extremely unlikely I make a big pay day. Even if I take 10th place, the prize money is little more than another big tournament entry after my backers have taken their share. Conclusion: Full speed ahead, skipper. Crawling into the money holds no interest for me, its do or die. I play for the win now!

Getting excited.

2008-02-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

I am following the live updates from day 1A of the EPT, as I look forward to tomorrow. Two friends from the office where I play are in action now, and Matthias Andersen is one of the chip leaders near the end of day 1A. Go Matthias!!!

Yesterday I went home and made about $6000 in cash games after my early tournament exit, so despite dismal tournament results since Friday, I am quietly confident for tomorrow. I am already up a healthy amount for the month, so I am calmly prepared to meet the destiny dished out by the poker gods. My first modest hope for the tournament is simply to get in the game with some decent cards, and not be forced to sit and fold for hours. But all I can do now is relax, wait, and cheer for Matthias!

Live tournaments are rigged.

2008-02-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

In preparation for the EPT Main Event, I played a warmup tournament at Casino Copenhagen this evening, a 5000kr. (~$1000) event with 100 players. The tournament lasted 20 minutes for me, then I called an early position raise with AQ from late position. The board came QT7 with a flush draw that I had none of. We were 50BBs deep, and I raised his c-bet. I now had 20 BBs invested, and he 3-bet, effectively putting me all-in. My reads were limited after only 20 minutes. He had been active early on, 3-betting from the blinds and then folding to a 4-bet, and limping with 58s from early position (he flopped a straight and stacked a donk).

I called and he showed QQ.

It is not a bust I am particularly proud of, but as a cash game player, getting away from TPTK 50 BBs deep is just against my nature :). I have no doubt that it is situations like this that seperate the great live players from the good ones. Making the correct decision is so dependant on physical reads and subjective opinions of your opponent.

The cash game/online player will typically focus on the given pot odds of a situation like this. He will focus on the fact that he is getting 7 to 3 on his investment, knows little about his opponent and he will assume there is always a decent chance of a bluff or draw. The live tournament expert will focus on the physical tells of his opponent. He will have studied an opponent and have an impression of his demeanor with strong and weak hands. If he knows he is beat by an overpair or set, well then 7 to 3 pot odds aren't good enough for a call, and it is not close. With the rock solid reads that are sometimes available live, you will see fantastic calls and folds that would be huge mistakes online, due to the anynomity of opponents and inherent uncertainty of their skills.

If you read my WSOP entries from last summer, these thoughts are not new to me, and it is clearly the area where I have my largest deficiency compared to the tournament pros. Technically and strategy wise I can always get better of course, but I believe I am much closer to the top in these areas. When it comes to reading people and putting an opponent on a hand, there are players in the field that are in a completely different class than myself and my fellow online pros.

In my opinion, the most important issue for me right now is not to develop better reads, that is something that can only be done through lots and lots of playing hours at the green felt. What I need to focus on is the mind set that reads are in fact very important when playing live. Once I have that focus, I will trust my reads more, make better use of my eyes and ears, and start to make decisions that are not always founded in solid cash game strategy.

I am playing Wedensday at 2pm local time, channel your luck my way!

Gearing up for the EPT.

2008-02-13T02:57:00.000-08:00

After the holiday it's time to get serious again. Going on a safari is a very expensive vacation, my bank accounts are hungry, and the European Poker Tour is coming up next week in Casino Copenhagen close to my home. I will probably be one of the select few players in the tournament arriving on a bicycle.

As you know, I am not a tournament expert, so a bit of preparation is in order. As you may recall, I played 3 WSOP events last summer, but unfortunately I haven't been able to follow that up with more live tournaments since then. The biggest difference between tournament play and cash game play is the stack sizes. For most of the tournament, players are struggling to stay alive as the blinds grow, so efficient stack sizes quickly dwindle far below the 50-200BB starting stacks. The small stack sizes, or rather the huge blinds have a significant impact on the dymamics of the game, for example there will often be little or no post flop play. Back in the days (a little over one year ago) I was purely a Sit'n'Go tournament player, so I believe I still have a good feel for the tournament dynamics. The last year as a cash game pro should be more than adequate to handle the first levels of deep stack poker. In this event starting stacks are 200BB.

What I need now is to get it all together and improve my sharpness and feel. I am dedicating this week to playing as many multi table tournaments as I can cram into it. On Monday I am playing a $1000 warm up event live at Casino Copenhagen. Tuesday I will just relax and maybe drop by the casino to view the Day 1A action, and by Wedensday I should be prepared to kick ass. As some of you may know, I carry a good mental baggage from when I won the Partypoker Sunday tournament a while back for $95k. Although that experience is far behind me, I know from personal experience that it is possible to go far, and I am not afraid of choking come crunch time.

I got a head start last night as I played my first two MTT's in a while. Both were $55 tournaments, one on Party (~500 players) and one on Crypto (~250 players). That experiment was a success to put it mildly. I took 21st on party for $150 and I won the Crypto tournament for $3600! Those were both extraordinary results, and quite a way to start my MTT experience. Meanwhile I also destroyed two tables of 1000NL and pulled home $7500 on 550 hands. Of course I don't need to tell anyone how disgustingly lucky I was on both accounts, but who am I to complain? What a 'welcome back' that was.

Back from Africa.

2008-02-11T03:12:00.000-08:00

I am back from a spectacular vacation in Africa. The first week we toured Tanzania. The main goals were the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It was a spectacular safari, in which we saw all of 'the big five' (the big five includes the lion, buffalo, elephant, leopard and rhino), and many other beasts, often close up. I never expected to get so close to so many wild animals, but it turned out to be a regular National Geographic experience, live. I do think we were very lucky with the animals on this safari, though, such a success is not standard. I just run good on safaris.

Here is a video of a lunch break in the Ngorongoro crater. This is my first attempt at sharing a video with you, I hope it works. To top it all off, quite litterally, we went on a balloon safari over the Serengeti plains. A fantastic experience seeing the sunrise over the plains from above. We flew right over a big herd of buffalo. Not sure what they thought of us, but they ran away when we went down to a few meters above them. We had a ton of other great experiences, but I am sure everyone has better things to do. We finished off with a week of beach and sun in Zanzibar.

Now it's back to business. Next week the European Poker Tour comes to town, and I am in it. I will update very soon on my ideas on how to handle that.

A look back.

2008-01-22T03:51:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've combined my databases and looked at my results for the last months. In November I was simply running too well to care, and in December I was running too bad to dare. I hope things have settled down now, and I am in the mood to get down to business. To properly focus on the present and future, I need to get the past out of the way, so here is a brief overview of the damage.

I had to end November early when I put up a $12k session around the 22nd. That gave me a great monthly total, and allowed me to focus on more important stuff, namely the computer game Company of Heroes. That came back to bite me though, as I burned most of my November profit in December, struck by a bad case of Nemesis.

January has not been exceptional in any way, but I am making a quiet profit, which is infinitely preferable to the blood sucking, life draining grind that was December.

Of course the harsh jumps around December 1st can be attributed to my forray into the world of 2000NL. My total 2000NL results are unexceptional, it was just a wierd fluke that I happened to have all the good luck bunched up in my first session there. Overall, since November 1st I have been making a little over $100/hr despite a terrible month which I hope not to repeat in the near future. If I include my entire database stretching back to the beginning of September (220k hands), I am up about $185/hr, so I have no reason to be unhappy with my luck. I'll just repeat that for my own sake. I have no reason to be unhappy with my luck.

My all-in luck graph which I mentioned in my whine post in December is just slightly negative since November 1st. Like I have said before, all-in luck is just a small part of the fluctuations that you experience as a poker player. The most interesting thing about my all-in luck is how extraordinary November was. Like any other poker player I didn't consider for a second how lucky I was back then (OK, maybe I did, honestly), but as you can see at one point I was up over $15k compared to my expected all-in winnings. December took care of that statistic quickly, and January has been semi bad as well in that respect. Remember that all-in winnings are not net results, I lose money on all the hands were I am not involved in an all-in situation (because I fold a lot in those hands)

Looking forward I hope to continue producing solid results, as well as continuing developing as a player. While I am happy with my income, I am not entirely happy with the fact that I am at the same buy-in level I was 10 months ago. I hope to focus more on mental and poker skill development in the upcoming months.

Post is getting long so I will finish up with two spectacular plans for the immidiate future: On Friday I am going to Africa. If I survive Nairobi, Kenya, I will cruise Tanzania for a one week Safari, and then spend a week beaching in Zanzibar. Also, I bought a ticket for the European Poker Tour Main Event in Copenhagen in late February, so when I get home from vacation I will have to spend some time playing MTT tournaments again. Later!

I am back again.

2008-01-19T18:00:00.000-08:00

It has now been a whole month since my last entry, and a lot of water has run under the bridge since then. I don't know why I even bother to write anymore, since the number of visitors is actually UP since I left the blog. Weird, but thank you all for stopping by once in a while.

I think I owe you a short recap of what's been going on in my poker life during that month. Shortly after my last post, I kind of gave up on poker for December. I actually haven't had the courage to run the numbers, but I certainly ended up over $20k in the red. A horrible result, especially considering that I have never had a losing month before, and that I had gotten used to a monthly profit of 20k-30k.

This is the second time in my poker career that I experience a challenge like that. Last time was in the fall of 2006, when I played Sit'n'Goes for a living and broke about even for 3 long months. It may not sound horrible, you have to experience it to understand how tough that is to go through. Back then my response was switching to cash games which I certainly have never regretted. This time the experience was shorter, but unfortunately more costly. I have no plans to make a radical change such as switching games, but in January I have begun to change a few things that I hope will help me going forward.

One realization that I made during December was that I very often did not want to play poker at all. I had to force myself to sit down and play to get through the downswing. Getting into the habbit of losing had the unfortunate effect of instilling some fear of losing in me. Instead of thinking 100% of how to optimize my play, I spent some of my energy wondering when the next bad beat was going to show up. I honestly don't think it had a huge effect on my game, but every little bit counts. Playing good poker is a delicate balancing act, and while an experienced player will have an easier time playing reasonably well when mentally distraught than a newbie, there is no doubt that optimal poker requires peace of mind.

To achieve this, I have decided to mix up my short handed game with a bit of heads up poker, and perhaps some pot limit omaha as well. This should help me to always have a game available that I can approach with some excitement and energy. When I am running good in the 6-max cash game, I wont need to jump around in other types of games where my edge is smaller, but when I need a break or just get sick of playing the same thing day in and day out, I should be able to change it up. Perhaps it will even help me become a better poker player.

The second change that I have implemented is improved table selection. I don't think that my table selection even now is particularly good compared to some of the guys that I know, but I hope that it is at least passable now. A side effect is that I am playing slightly fewer tables than I did in November and December. I now don't HAVE to play 8 tables if there aren't any fish at 3 of them, whereas before it was almost a matter of principle to fill both screens with tables.

Even so, my January results have not been up to the standards that I was used to before my personal doom switch was turned on December 1st. I am not running super well, but at least I am showing a profit. Until tonight, when I actually did run super well and doubled my result for the month in 4.5 hours. A great session that I have been sorely needing. Yay me! I think I am up about $10k for the month now, so I am well on my way out of the hole. Hopefully the result will be more frequent posting here, to reward my loyal costumers.

Good luck to you all, until next time!

A bad poker experience.

2007-12-19T18:24:00.001-08:00

So I am sitting playing eight tables of 600NL trying to get out of the huge hole I am in for the month. I am down $15k for the month and more or less break even for over two weeks now. I am down $6k for the day. I am not in a good mood.

A pair of semi bad players are mouthing off as usual. Then one of them hits a bad draw.

The other one says:

"I hope someone rapes your children."

...

The line of work I have chosen is somewhat fucked up.

On and on it goes.

2007-12-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

Poker gives me two great things in life: One is despair. The other is suffering. That is pretty much all I have to say at this point.

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $302.90
Hero: $901.35
CO: $519
Button: $613.15
SB: $60.75
BB: $722

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is UTG+1 with :kh :ah
UTG folds, Hero raises to $24, CO folds, Button calls, SB folds, BB raises to $123, Hero raises all-in $877.35, Button folds, BB calls all-in $599.
Uncalled bets: $179.35 returned to Hero.

Flop: :qs :8c :6h ($54, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $1471)

Turn: :8d ($54, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $1471)

River: :th ($54, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $1471)

Results:
Final pot: $54
BB shows Td Ad (two pairs, tens and eights))
Hero shows Kh Ah (one pair, eights)

Power session.

2007-12-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, poker results have been going steadily downwards. I am now at the bottom of an $18k downswing, and the last couple of sessions have been about break even.

In an effort to get out of the downswing, I put in a huge session today. After 8 hours of 8-10 tabling 600NL, I think I can hold my head up high for today. If I am not mistaken, this must have been my longest session ever in terms of number of hands (6650). Thanks to a last minute heater I ended up ahead, but it was by no means a smooth ride.

That's all there is to it when things are not working out I guess, keep pluggin'. I will climb out of this hole, it is just a matter of playing enough hands. I hope to put in another good one tomorrow.

2000NL is no fun.

2007-12-03T05:06:00.000-08:00

This is a graph of my last session at 2000NL. Those of you who know what it means are probably reaching for the puke bucket or just throwing up in your mouths. While you guys sort that out, I will explain for the rest.

The red line is my equity in all-in situations during the session. The blue line represents the actual results of the hands. So, if I am all in with aces against kings preflop with full stacks, my equity is about 82% of the pot, and the red line will increase by my expected winnings: $4000 * 82% - $2000 = $1280. If I win his stack, I will have registered a positive difference between the red and the blue line of $2000 - $1280 = $720. If I lose, the difference will be -$3280.

While there are many other ways to be lucky or unlucky in poker, the difference between the two lines is the purest form of luck measurable. You will never see a systematic deviance between the two, only chaotic variance. So, if you haven't reached the conclusion yourself, let me spell it out: Friday, the cards screwed me over to the tune of $11.000. It was just an unbelievable series of lost coin flips, missed draws and nasty suckouts never going my way. Total result of the session was -$13.500, since I also got a bit unlucky in other ways than this.

This means that my short stint as a weekend high roller at the 2000NL games is over for now. It will take a bit of grinding at mid stakes to get back to where I was, so thats the plan for now.

2000NL is fun.

2007-12-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

Apparently, rich people also suck at poker.

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $10/$20
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $2210
UTG+1: $2708
CO: $2739.79
Hero: $3374.34
SB: $7940.37
BB: $2107

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is Button with As Ac
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $60, CO calls, Hero raises to $260, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls, CO calls.

Flop: 5s 9s Ks ($810, 3 players)
UTG+1 bets $450, CO folds, Hero calls.

Turn: Jc ($1710, 2 players)
UTG+1 raises all-in $1998, Hero calls.

River: Qh ($5706, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $5706)

Results:
Final pot: $5706
UTG+1 shows 8h Kc (a pair of kings)
Hero shows As Ac (a pair of aces)

Doing well, but not blogging too much.

2007-11-29T05:50:00.000-08:00

It is time I face facts: I will no longer be blogging several times a week. From now on I will just post when I want to, so I won't have to apologize to you for not posting more often. Ironically, I am getting pretty close to the same amount of visitors (not many) now, as I did when I posted frequently.

There has been an unfortunate development in my poker career. I bought the RTS game Company of Heroes. Since then I have been busy conquoring France, not leaving much time for poker.

The last time I played was pretty crazy though. I have been playing almost exclusively 1000NL lately, and that's what I started out with this Friday night. I lost 6 buy-ins in an hour, which ate up over half my profits for the month which was at about $10k. Needless to say I was not happy at all with this development. Anyway, I dug in and played through it. After mentally having come to terms with my reduced bank roll, I then struck a huge heater and
went back up to a 2 buy-in result for the day. This was after about 4 hours of play. Something got into me, and I decided to take a shot at 2000NL with my newfound wealth. An hour later I was suddenly up 12k for the day, by far my best cash game result for a single session. On top of that $18k upswing in about 4 hours I just can't be bothered to play poker for pathetic $1000-bills anymore :). Once I finish off the Krauts, hopefully that will change.

I, Robot.

2007-11-07T17:39:00.001-08:00

I have taken another step in my quest towards multi-tabling pwnage. 10 tables of 600NL. I rule.

I recommend playing 10 tables if you are tired of thinking about anything except poker decisions or just tired of being sane. I think I still played profitable poker, but I guess there has to be an increase of mistakes every time I add a table. Also I got the nice feeling that my brain was being slowly toasted.

The screen captcha that I sometimes get is particularly annoying playing ten tables, because first I have to finish all table actions, THEN turn the 'force active table to front' option in MTH off, THEN type the captcha text, THEN turn the option back on, and THEN take care of all the actions waiting in queue without timing out the last ones. This may sound like a walk in the park, but the MTH option makes the mouse unresponsive when clicking other windows than the active table, so it is quite a pain to navigate the menus. It is possible, but not very relaxing. I think my increased difficulty in passing the captcha test is a sure sign that I am slowly developing towards becoming a robot.

I've also played some 1000NL lately, since my results were so good last month. Results have NOT been good my last couple of sessions though, so I think I may need a small break from the grinding. The 10 tabling experiment was partly caused by being bored with the same old grinding I must admit, so I think I should spend some time doing something else for a couple of days now. This may or may not result in me posting a blog entry with some actual content! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Still here.

2007-10-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Once again I must apologize for my infrequent blog entries. It seems that when I run into a cold streak at the tables I can't muster the energi to write about it. After a sensational first half of the month, things slowed down considerably the last couple of weeks. But still, the end result is a great month, enough so to make up for September which was downright bad.

I have combined all my game data for the last two months on one computer for scientific purposes, and here are the results.

400NL
Total: $4,743
Hands: 14,381
PTBB/100: 4.12

600NL
Total: $27,198
Hands: 87,503
PTBB/100: 2.59

1000NL
Total: -$1,345
Hands: 2,310
PTBB/100: -2.51

Total
Total: $30,597
Hands: 104,194
Hours: 145.87
PTBB/100: 2.69
Multitabling ratio: 6.91
Hourly rate: $209.76

Single session record.

2007-10-17T08:13:00.001-07:00

As I continued my pursuit of the Partypoker Bad Beat Jackpot, I turned in a nice 4 hour session playing 8 tables at 600NL. Result: $8,529 in the bag, for 20.73 BB/100 over 3,429 hands. WUHU!

Here are a couple of hands. I didn't run hot in all of them.
First hand:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
4 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $836.40
Button: $1035.50
Hero: $1531.90
BB: $525.10

Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is SB with :ah :ad
UTG folds, Button raises to $24, Hero raises to $80, BB folds, Button calls.

Flop: :3d :qh :5c ($166, 2 players)
Hero bets $130, Button calls.

Turn: :6d ($426, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $388, Hero raises all-in $1321.9, Button calls all-in $437.5.
Uncalled bets: $496.4 returned to Hero.

River: :5d ($2077, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $2077)

Results:
Final pot: $2077
Button shows Td 7d (flush)
Hero shows Ah Ad (two pairs, aces and fives)

I know the other guy well, and played him perfectly, and still lost a thousand dollars.
Second hand:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
5 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $600
CO: $588
Hero: $637
SB: $655
BB: $2239.15

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is Button with :8s :9s
UTG folds, CO raises to $21, Hero raises to $70, 2 folds, CO calls.

Flop: :9d :3c :4h ($149, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $110, CO raises to $330, Hero raises all-in $457, CO calls all-in $188.
Uncalled bets: $49 returned to Hero.

Turn: :8d ($1185, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $1185)

River: :6d ($1185, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $1185)

Results:
Final pot: $1185
CO shows 5c 4c (pair of fours)
Hero shows 8s 9s (two pairs, nines and eights)

This one is debatable. I knew even before I bet the flop that I was in for a tough spot if he raised me. Of course this shove is never even worth considering without some serious history.
Third hand:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
5 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $150
CO: $718.65
Button: $591
SB: $2091.45
Hero: $1358.25

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is BB with :ad :ks
2 folds, Button raises to $24, SB folds, Hero raises to $80, Button raises all-in $567, Hero calls.

Flop: :5d :qd :3h ($1185, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $1185)

Turn: :9s ($1185, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $1185)

River: :7c ($1185, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $1185)

Results:
Final pot: $1185
Hero shows Ad Ks (Ace high, King kicker)
Button doesn't show 8s Ah (Ace high, eight kicker)

People get crazy sometimes. Especially when they are 3-bet a lot preflop. The trick is to know if you are dealing with an aggressive guy gone over the edge, or a patient guy who hit his monster. Experience and stats are needed to make that decision correct as often as possible.

Wanna see a bad beat?

2007-10-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

OK, here it is:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

BB ($400)
UTG ($406)
MP ($523.40)
CO ($459.50)
Hero ($934.90)
SB ($495.70)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Kd, Kh. UTG posts a blind of $4.
1 fold, CO raises to $14, Hero raises to $50, 2 folds, CO calls $36.

Flop: ($106) 8d, Kc, 4d (3 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $75, CO calls $75.

Turn: ($256) Ah (3 players)
CO checks, Hero checks.

River: ($256) 8s (3 players)
CO calls $459.50 (All-In), Hero calls $334.50.

Final Pot: $1050

CO has 8h 8c (four of a kind, eights).
Hero has Kd Kh (full house, kings full of eights).
Outcome: CO wins $925. Hero wins $125.

I played 400NL instead of my normal 600NL because I wanted to try 10-tabling while the Partypoker jackpot was huge. Its still huge btw (I didn't win it yet). The playing went well except for the results, so I may try it again. Ran horribly bad though and lost 8 buy-ins, my first losing session in almost two weeks.

PS. Don't play at Absolute Poker. They cheat.

Much better.

2007-10-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

What a difference a week makes. Pretty much everything has gone right since my last blog entry. Here is the same graph I posted then, with action since then:

Sometimes poker is much more fun than other times.

Another week.

2007-10-07T05:41:00.000-07:00

I am still alive and still grinding.

Results wise I am doing ok, slowly padding the good old roll. Right now is not a very inspiring time from a blogging stand point. I am doing what I have been doing for a while until I feel I have enough money to move up and have fun.

When I come up with some exceptional new insight I will let you know. Until then, here is a bit of insight into what I have been dealing with the past month. Since I am playing in two different places, this is only half my play during the last month, but you get the idea. There are 34k hands with red numbers at the end. Also a 20 buy-in downswing. Poker is not always exactly wonderful.

Shots taken.

2007-09-30T03:17:00.000-07:00

Being officially out of the downswing, I decided to take a few shots at the 1000NL cash game Friday and Saturday night. It would have been a better decision with a month worth of solid income just hanging around to lose, but I did some data mining and found some good tables, so I thought it was time to gamble a bit.

Overall it was a good experience. I played only 4-6 tables of 1000NL, whereas I am used to 7-8 600NL tables, so I felt I was better able to focus on the game. I also played a bit less aggresively than I am used to, since I didn't really want to get involved in the 3- and 4-betting arms race for that much money. I can't wait to have enough money to really let them have it at 1000NL though.

The net result of both days was a $3500 loss, but I am not down about it much since I am now quite convinced I can beat this game, at least in prime time. My plan is to grind it up at 600NL, and continue taking shots at 1000NL when games are good. When my bankroll has enough padding to absorb the swings of the bigger game, I will consider myself a 1000NL player.

For now, it seems I have some grinding to do.

A week gone by...

2007-09-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

...and no blog updates. I am embarrassed by leaving you all out to dry, but I have had a rough week in my poker life. The rest of my life has been good as usual, so no need to worry.

Anyway, since last post, I had several losing days in a row, culminating Monday with a minus 10 buy-in session bringing me in the red for September. Having a losing month is not something I am used to, so it wore on me a little, and I couldn't really motivate myself to write about it. Yesterday morning I was at the buttom of a 20 buy-in downswing, so thats $12k down the drain.

The last couple of days have been good though, so I am now more than half way up again and feeling better about the whole thing. Like I've mentioned before, how you handle the tough days is really what defines your ability to become a professional poker player. I try to not let it affect my mood. That is not really possible, but at least I try to put it all in perspective and remind myself how little it means, in the long run financially, as well as in terms of what really matters in life. That said, I don't feel like discussing it much when I am in the middle of a bad period. I usually prefer to work on it myself in my own head, and that can be a bit dangerous for my social life. At least it is something I need to be aware of, so people around me don't get the idea I'm pissed off or not caring about them.

Anyway, enough about that. Poker has no memory. All you have to think about is how to play the hand you've been dealt.

Interesting day

2007-09-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

Today I proudly put in 10 hours of pro poker, so I am quite satisfied with myself. I had symptoms of being a bit burnt out yesterday and ended up watching Monday Night Football instead. More like Tuesday Morning Football in Denmark actually. I think the tournament experience along with the bad running left me not really paying attention to the marginal situations that are so vital. Instead I made too many loose calls looking for the jackpot hands.

Not so today. I started out on a new 'hobby', Pot Limit Omaha. I lost a bit, but learned a lot, so all is well with that. I guess I should start lower, but I can't really bring myself to care about the 100PLO games. The crazy thing is that while I make a ton of beginners mistakes, there are enough donks that a rudimentary understanding of poker prevents me from being a big loser at the 200PLO games if I am a loser there at all. It is my hope that I will become at least reasonably competitive in the Omaha disciplines within a few months.

After fooling around with Omahahaha, it was time for bringing in some real money. I played almost 4000 hands at 600NL and won $5k. Niiiice. Extra nice since the winnings almost bring me back to the level I was at before disaster Thursday. I had a few very interesting hands that I would like to share with you:

In the first one I am super deep stacked against a tight preflop player with donkish tendencies. I end up making a huge fold whish I am still not sure was good. However, I take some pride in the fact that I chose the safe route in a high pressure situation, given my recent tendencies to lag a little too much. I simply would have hated myself too much for losing 4 stacks here.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

SB ($2312)
BB ($615)
UTG ($11357)
MP ($1245)
Hero ($2384)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 4c, 4h.
2 folds, Hero raises to $21, SB raises to $44, 1 fold, Hero calls $23.

Flop: ($94) Kd, 4d, 9c (2 players)
SB bets $96, Hero raises to $300, SB raises to $600, Hero calls $300.

Turn: ($1294) Kc (2 players)
SB raises to $1668 (All-in), Hero folds.

Final Pot: $1294

His stats were about 25/8 for only 50 hands, so along with the preflop miniraise I suspect some donkiness on his part, making the fold extra interesting. I honestly can't say that he is not on AK or AA, in which case I just cost myself $3k in one click of a button. His min-raise suggests KK or AA, but of course quads are extremely unlikely, and wouldn't he have played quads slower? It is a close decision, but I stand by it. Had villain been a solid regular, I would have had no doubt the fold was good. Now I must admit some doubt remains. Feel free to share your opinion.

The second hand is an example of how some players get tilted out of control by constant 3-betting preflop. This is not a bad player, very aggressive, and not easy to play against, but he definitely doesn't handle the arms race around the blinds too well, as this hands shows nicely. Earlier in the evening he called my preflop 4-bet shove with AJo (I had 55 which held up).

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
6 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with 2s 2d
4 folds, SB raises to $24, Hero raises to $85, SB calls.

Flop: 2h jc kc ($170, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $130, SB raises to $395, Hero raises to $660, SB raises all-in $2725.85, Hero calls all-in $933.6.
Uncalled bets: $1527.25 returned to SB.

Turn: jd ($3357.2, 2 all-in - Main pot: $3357.2)

River: jh ($3357.2, 2 all-in - Main pot: $3357.2)

Results:
Final pot: $3357.2
Hero shows 2s 2d
SB shows As 9h
Hero WINS!!!

This was my biggest pot ever, and I will leave you with that for now.

Deep run in WCOOP

2007-09-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

Sunday 8 days ago I had a nice run in Partypokers sunday tournament, but finished #93, so still a ways from the real money. Playing Sunday tournaments on the laptop coincides nicely with watching NFL. Since I am an avid NFL Fantasy player, I don't appreciate missing any available NFL games, costing me countless hours of good poker time. By the way, thank you Patriots for bottling up LT, I just need a couple of points from Kevin Curtis or David Akers now FTW.

Anyways, yesterday (and today as well actually) I played World Championship of Online Poker Event 5, a $530 NL tournament at Pokerstars with over 6000 players.

After about 8 hours of play, I was in 4th place with about 250 players to go. At that point my stack was worth about $30k I think. But after that nothing went right, and after 10 hours I took 134th place after losing with AK to KQ all-in preflop. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining about winning $3600, but DAMN that was dissapointing. Going that deep in such a huge tournament is an awesome experience nonetheless, too bad it happens so rarely, and almost always ends up with a frustrating beat. I would quickly go insane if I had to make a living from multi player tournaments alone. This experience has left me wanting more however, so I may play another WCOOP event or two in the coming weeks.

They are finishing up the final table as I write, after 18 hours, it is still undecided. You need stamina to go far in a tournament like this that starts late in the evening European time, and then drags on for 20 hours. I am now cheering for AB_illusive who I chatted with on Pokernet (danish poker forum) 10 hours ago when I was high rolling like him. He is currently in last place at the final table with 8 players to go. Go Asger!

Update: He is now 2nd in chips by a wide margin both ways. 7 to go.

Update: Chip leader with four players to go after hitting a sick 2-outer. This is his day.

Final update: Asger took it down, and I guess he will be famous now :). This was the longest tournament ever on stars (Almost 21 hours) and the 3rd largest prize pool after the WCOOP 2005 and 2006 main events. The heads up battle was a totally sick back and forth battle btw, I don't recall seeing anything like that before.

This just in: Tournaments also rigged.

2007-09-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

According to recent observations, the riggedness of online poker has now spread to the Pokerstars tournament games. I played a $1000 EPT sattelite, a $100 rebuy (cost me 6 buy-ins) and a few smaller tourneys this evening, and tanked early in all of them. Among the highlights were an AK vs AJ loss, and a KK vs AA, both large stack losses.

Like a dog I returned to my regular cash games and was promptly punished by a 2-outer for $1600 when I finally got my money in with a set vs. overpair. I can't believe how rigged it all is. I did manage to make a modest $1000 profit on the cash games, so all is not lost just yet. Things will turn around.

Well that was fun...

2007-09-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

I am really excited about a new record of mine which I set tonight: I just lost $6,988. It was just an incredible amount of bad beats, coolers and expensive laydowns that combined to give me a gruesome session. I think I stacked myself about 3 times in which I should have made a good laydown, but I honestly think the rest was pure bred bad luck. I lost about $2000 with the hands QQ, KK, AA, AKo, AKs combined. As you know, I am not the type to slowplay these hands, so this is a testament to the amount of great hands I ran into whenever I had the goods. I also lost $3000 with two pairs being my final hand. Pretty disgusting.

Well, tonight put me in the red for the month, and there are some tough days ahead grinding it back up.

Bad luck

2007-09-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

Today was not my day. Considering how many coinflips and ugly setups I lost, I am very satisfied that I am only down $1200 for the day. I was down $3000 actually, when I got a crazy hot streak of about half an hour in which I got back to break even. But of course I had to lose a set over set and a flush over flush in the last 10 minutes to put me back down.

Here is the craziest bad beat I've taken in a while:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

UTG ($849.25)
MP ($125.84)
CO ($144.86)
Button ($558)
Hero ($850.25)
BB ($823)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9c, 9h. MP posts a blind of $6.
1 fold, MP (poster) checks, CO raises to $18, 1 fold, Hero calls $15, BB calls $12, MP folds.

Flop: ($63) 9d, Ah, Jc (3 players)
Hero bets $35, BB raises to $70, CO folds, Hero calls $35.

Turn: ($203) Qc (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $102, Hero raises to $350, BB raises to $735 (All-In), Hero calls $385.

River: ($1673) Td (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $1673

Hero has 9c 9h (three of a kind, nines).
BB has 8d Jd (straight, queen high).
Outcome: BB wins $1673.

Grinding again.

2007-09-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

I am way overdue for an update, so here is a nice one, with results graph and everything.

I have now been a 'full time' poker player for about a month, but spent quite a bit of that month doing other stuff, such as hiking in Iceland. It rains all the time in Iceland. But now I am returning to the grind, and doing very well.

I have not been playing nearly as many hours as I would like, but I hope to change that in the weeks to come. At the moment I am enjoying just playing and not doing much else poker wise. I should get around to trying new games or analyzing my NL game some, but right now I prefer just grinding. When results are this good, there is no point in doing anything else I guess.

I am playing in an office away from home, which is a nice way to get out of the house a little bit. I also have a battle station at home, but my computer exploded a month ago, and the new one is not quite up and running yet.

This graph shows my results at the office from the beginning of summer until now, all at 600NL:

I have played some at home during this time as well, but those hands are not included. I think I am about break even for 10k hands at home. As you can see, there have been a few 10 buy-in downswings, and also the ugly day I mentioned here is not included, so even though it looks like a walk in the park, it hasn't been all happy days and noodle salat.

I have played over 10k hands at Partypoker over the last few days, and I am cautiously optimistic about the level of profitability in online poker. I may have been a bit lucky, and that will always screw up your perspective, but I think the number of donkeys willing to donate for the cause is reassuring, and overall there are plenty of players around. There may be an ever increasing number of poker pros, and the level of play may also be steadily improving, but it seems there are plenty of fish to go around at the moment.

Here is a hand that clearly demonstrates why poker will remain profitable some time yet:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Button ($558.90)
Hero ($571.90)
BB ($600)
UTG ($604)
MP ($101)
CO ($641.94)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Kc, Ac.
1 fold, MP raises to $24, 1 fold, Button calls $24, Hero raises to $100, 1 fold, MP folds, Button calls 76.

Flop: ($230) Th, Qh, 8h (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks.

Turn: ($230) Ad (2 players)
Hero bets $200, Button calls $200.

River: ($630) 5s (2 players)
Hero checks, Button shoves, Hero calls $258.90.

Final Pot: $1144.80

Hero has Kc Ac (one pair, aces).
Button has 3h 4d (high card, ace).

Outcome: Hero wins $1144.80.

Rollercoasting.

2007-08-23T16:14:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had 3 hours to spare late at night, so I wanted to build on my succesfull session Sunday. Things went well early, I made about $1200 after the first hour, largely thanks to a genuine one outer, where I hit quads on the river to save me from a set over set situation.

That was the end of luck for me though, as the doomswitch turned on for yours truly. I proceeded to lose $5000 in about one and a half hour, quite a feat on 600NL, even playing 7 tables, and certainly an unpleasant record for me. Every large pot went the wrong way, and nothing held up. It was a pretty depressing experience, and I went home down $4k. I guess it sort of felt like the mental equivalent of getting hit by a sledge hammer in the belly, and then dragging it out for a couple of hours. There are a lot of perks to this being an online poker pro thing, but sometimes there is a price to be paid.

I was not quite sure I wanted to play today, but I had it scheduled, and I am not normally likely to tilt, so I went ahead and started another session. Now I sit here $6500 up again, so I can record a nice net win of $1500 for the last couple of days. I am wondering how unusual/unlikely large fast swings such as these are, somehow it doesn't feel normal. The net result is completely normal, I guess the wins and losses just got bunched together oddly. I hope with every experience like this I get a little bit tougher, mentally.

I had a few hands where I felt really clever, and I've picked a few interesting thin river value bets for you. Here is a post I wrote some time ago about merging your range, and I think I managed to do just that successfully here. The key to these plays is that the other guy thinks you are full of shit.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

SB ($511.85)
BB ($628)
UTG ($518.24)
MP ($597)
Hero ($783.35)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ad, Th.
2 folds, Button raises to $21, SB calls $18, 1 fold.

Flop: ($48) 4s, 4h, Tc (2 players)
SB checks, Button bets $30, SB calls $30.

Turn: ($108) 8h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

River: ($108) Js (2 players)
SB checks, Button bets $80, SB calls $80.

Final Pot: $268
SB has 5s 5c (two pair, fives and fours).
Hero has Ad Th (two pair, tens and fours).
Outcome: Hero wins $268.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

SB ($612)
BB ($619.80)
Hero ($957.65)
MP ($808)
CO ($1)
Button ($878)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Th, Tc.
Hero raises to $24, MP calls $24, 4 folds.

Flop: ($57) Js, 4s, 3c (2 players)
Hero bets $45, MP calls $45.

Turn: ($147) 2c (2 players)
Hero checks, MP checks.

River: ($147) 7h (2 players)
Hero bets $90, MP calls $90.

Final Pot: $327
Hero has Th Tc (one pair, tens).
MP has 9s 7s (one pair, sevens).
Outcome: Hero wins $327.

This is another feel good hand, but with no strategic content. This hand is posted to celebrate the existence of happy donks who love to donate $836 with a straight on a paired board, almost all of it on the river.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

UTG ($883)
Hero ($1,583.06)
Button ($621.90)
SB ($836.50)
BB ($807.50)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 4s, 4h.
UTG raises to $24, Hero calls $24, 1 fold, SB calls $21, 1 fold.

Flop: ($78) 4d, 4c, Jh (3 players)
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks.

Turn: ($78) 9s (3 players)
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $50, SB folds, UTG calls $50.

River: ($178) Td (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $120, UTG raises to $282, Hero shoves, UTG calls $490 (All-In).

UTG has Qc Kd (straight, king high).
Hero has 4s 4h (four of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero cleans house.

Am I getting schooled here?

2007-08-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

This hand is pretty sick. Please tell me if you think I am dealing with a huge tool here, or if he is just reading my soul. We have both been actively 3-betting preflop.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Hero ($1460.90)
BB ($653.50)
UTG ($601.60)
MP ($660.95)
CO ($1089)
Button ($736.53)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9h, Ah.
4 folds, Hero raises to $24, BB raises to $72, Hero calls $51.

Flop: ($150) 7s, 4h, Jd (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks.

Turn: ($150) 5s (2 players)
Hero bets $100, BB calls $100.

River: ($350) 8s (2 players)
Hero bets $250, BB calls $250.

Final Pot: $850

Hero has 9h Ah (high card, ace).
BB has 5c 3c (one pair, fives).
Outcome: BB wins $850.

But don't you worry about me, I am fine for the day, booking $2700 for 3 hours of 'work'. I even got 2 outered for $1700 more. Looks like Baldie is back in business.

Professional poker player!

2007-08-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

I return to you envigourated by several vacations, the World Series of Poker, conclusion of my education as an actuary and love, no less, as I am now a married man.

In other words: I am pumped ladies and gentlemen, and ready to play some poker. Since I am no longer a student and I certainly don't plan to do any real work anytime soon, the only think left to call myself is...

Professional Poker Player!

I am already a few days into my career as a pro, but so far it's pretty much the same as before. I don't have that nagging feeling that I should be doing some home work or thesis work instead of doing whatever else it is that I do, but otherwise life as a pro is exactly the same as life as a semi pro/student.

But that will not do. It is not enough for me to make a comfortable living on a 20 hour work week, and then just hang around the rest of the time. I need to do more. I am not quite decided yet on what that should be, but I promise myself, you, God and my parents that I will produce at least a 40 hour week of either playing or learning.

The beautiful thing is that I get to choose from a wide range of possibilities. I could learn some new poker variants. Stud or Omaha comes to mind. I could sharpen my tournament game. I could take more shots at higher levels of NL Hold'em cash games and spend some time properly analyzing my game. I could try to commercialize this blog in one way or another. Or I could learn a proper programming language and try to produce a poker application or two that I have in mind.

For now, I am just enjoying my freedom and grinding a bit of poker. Vacations, WSOP and the wedding have taken it's toll on all the bankrolls, those for poker as well as those for spending, so grinding and rebuilding is on the schedule for now. Hopefully I will soon get it back to a level I am more comfortable with, and then I will consider that list above.

One day, I shall return!

2007-08-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

...probably Monday if I had to hazard a guess.

I have been home from Canada for about a week, and still haven't gotten around to blogging yet on account of some marriage business. That will blow over soon, and I'll be back where I left off. Don't worry, I still love you, have patience!

Poker activities discontinued

2007-07-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

Discontinued... What a stupid word.

But once again I pull the plug and abandon you guys to your grinding misery. This time I am going to Vancouver, Canada for 2½ weeks with the significant other. Site seeing, mountain hiking, nature appreciating and around hanging will be among the chosen activities. NO POKER WHATSOEVER, will be involved. To make matters worse, when we come home, it will be to finish detail planning of our wedding, no less, so don't expect too frequent updates even then. By the middle of August, things should be pretty much back to normal, and then I promise I will resume pwning poker.

Until later...

Signing out...

Bald!

Luckboxing continues

2007-07-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

I had a really crappy evening at the tables, I only made $4.4k today, so considerably worse than the last couple of days. I have no idea what is going on really, except that I am running at 17BB/100 over the last 7.5k hands. This is about a cool thousand dollars an hour. I can live with that I think.

Interesting/boring statistic of the day: I won with 42 pairs of pocket aces in a row now. One split pot among those.

Zizzling hot!

2007-07-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight I turned in another 3k hand $5k session. Pretty unreal to to have back to back sessions like that. I even had a few nasty suckouts go against me tonight, but somehow still managed to maintain a growing balance throughout. Obviously I am on an enormous heater, but I'll take it. The Vegas trip is completely paid for now, with some to spare, so I am very happy with that.

After securing a good result for the night, I played 3 different multi table tournaments with no success. Apparently tournaments are just not my thing anymore. I like to think I am saving my luck for that one huge score. Anyway, MTT's for me will always be sort of a hobby with positive expected value. I could never play them for a living and remain sane, and I have the utmost respect for those who can. To have your bank roll depleted continually, only rarely boosted by infrequent big wins, is a great recipe for a stressful life in my opinion. There is nothing quite like winning a big tournament though, I hope to try that again some time. Anyway, I quickly went back to the cash games after those few tournaments and commenced pwning.

Right now I am channeling all mental energy and luckboxness to my friend Per Ravn who is playing day 1B of the main event as I write. I have a piece of his action you see, otherwise I wouldn't have cared one way or the other. Good luck Per, make me rich!

Back

2007-07-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

I have been back from Vegas for a few days now, and I am still trying to get used to having roughly the same temperature outside as inside. In Vegas the difference is about 20 degrees minimum.

I feel great about the trip, despite miserable results. It was an interesting experience, and very inspiring from a poker stand point. I think I saw every famous poker player I know, except two. I also felt I realized some things about the live tourney game which will hopefully help me in the future. For now, getting back to the cash game has the highest priority, but I will attempt to write a post or two about what I think I learned playing so much live poker. Hopefully I will get to that soon.

In the mean time I had an absolutely excellent session tonight, winning $5k in about 3k hands of 600NL. A nice welcome back from the party fish to me. Some time during the session I put a bad beat on someone so bad it tilted two tables at once!!! Someone was at both and couldn't help telling the story. Pretty funny actually. Basically I shoved with a pair of 4's when I didn't believe the preflop aggressor had an overpair. He did, and I rivered a set. That should teach him... something.

Also, you know you've played too much live poker when you do something like this:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Button ($682.10)
SB ($612.30)
BB ($1)
UTG ($190)
Hero ($609)
CO ($305.90)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 5d, 5c.
UTG raises to $12, Hero calls $12, CO calls $12, Button raises to $55, 2 folds, UTG calls $43, Hero calls $43, CO folds.

Flop: ($186) 2c, Ac, Qh (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks, Button bets $92, UTG folds, Hero raises to $250, Button folds.

Final Pot: $528

I obviously flashed my junk hand and tilted that table too. When you play live, you must let your reads adjust your game considerably more than you do online in my opinion, and I guess my read here was that he didn't like that ace on the table at all. I certainly would never have made this play before Vegas, we will see if it was a case of momentary insanity, or if I am actually going to put more faith in my reads from now on. Of course playing 6 tables will prevent me from going overboard with this concept (hopefully).

WSOP Event 49

2007-06-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

I am so going to win it. And I ain't kidding this time. When I qualify for the final table of this event on Monday, it will mean I leave Vegas never having spent a full day not playing WSOP. Think about it.

Btw. getting in a cash game at the Bellagio Friday night takes roughly 2 weeks. I had to quit on them bastards.

Result edits:

Hi, guest blogger benny here. At the first break Kristian was up to almost twice his starting stack. What happened next? The guest blogger went to sleep, night fell on mainland Europe... But stay tuned for more updates, morning has rerisen.

---

Haha, nice one Benny. It's me again now. I got a nice run for my money, worked my stack up to 5 times starting stack, but busted around place 500, with prize money for final 300 or just about. Three thousand something total entrants. No bracelets for me this year. I am too exhausted right now to post in detail, that will have to wait till tomorrow Vegas time. Tomorrow I am not playing in the WSOP, and that will actually be a nice change.

---

OK, sorry for not updating as promised, I met up with a friend here, and didn't have time to post. Here is my detailed report of the event.

I probably made my biggest mistake of the entire WSOP in just the second orbit of the tournament. I had decided that I was going to mercilessly attack the table hard from the beginning to abuse all the amateur players nursing their precious $1500 stacks. The table fit this strategy better than I could have hoped, this was the worst live table I have played at ever, and it is not close. During the first orbit I picked up 4 smallish pots, and also played a couple of other hands, so by the time 3rd orbit was starting, my image was extremely LAG. A young guy to my left had made just one raise, but I had a vague read that he was a good aggressive player like me from his general demeanor. I am in SB, folded to button who steals, I call with 99. I would have raised normally, but felt like underrepresenting my hand due to my image. Now young guy 3-bets, button calls. I consider shoving briefly, but due to the weakness of my read on young guy elect to just call again. Flop comes 853 rainbow, I check, young guy shoves, button folds. His shove is about pot sized, and I have him slightly covered. I think for a long time, and finally fold.

The reason I think this is such a big mistake is my image. I deliberately played to achieve a LAG image, I exploit my image underrepresenting a good hand, but fail to pull the trigger when it is required that I put faith in my strategy. I folded because my read on young guy was so weak, and he moved in so confidently. Had he been a passive casual player, it would certainly have been a good fold. Time proved him to be an Internet pro like myself, and had I known that I would have called instantly.

As it turned out, he was the only decent player at the table, so I was pretty unlucky to have him at my left. It became quite clear that the two of us was going to battle for table control. It turned out to be me, as I sucked out on him all in preflop with 76s against his queens, and he busted later against some other guy. This allowed me to pick my spots comfortably, and I almost tripled up during the 3 hours I was at the table. Let me just clarify that tripling up is not an expected result even at such a table, I was also a bit lucky, but people were playing horribly passively and giving me free cards when I was behind, so I didn't need to be extremely lucky. I felt comfortable that any raise postflop was a big hand, and information that solid is very valuable.

The next table I played had a few good players, but still a couple of passive old timers. The guy to my right literally TOLD ME, that he would only play for his stack when he was pretty sure he was ahead. I don't think he even realized that there was a difference between pushing and calling an all-in, I believe in his mind an all-in was sort of a mutual agreement.

Anyway, this is getting long. To make it short, I had an interesting run. After tripling up to 9k, I went up another stack, then down to 6k, up to 14k, all the way down to 3k and back up to 14k again. Lots of interesting hands. I finally got moved to a new table, and spent an hour folding, so I was down to about 12BBs. I then raise ATs from UTG+1 due to my tight image, get two callers, flop comes A93, I check/raise aggressive button table chip leader who has AQ, bye bye. I busted after 10 hours of poker, with a slightly different view of what a WSOP event can be like. I must admit, I want more. Unfortunately that will have to wait till next year.

WSOP Event 47

2007-06-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

Aside from my unfortunate results yesterday, it has been an awesome experience being part of the WSOP so far. I am still kid enough to get a kick out of seeing all the famous TV players, of whom there are an unbelievable amount. It seems like they are here every single one of them, merely walking among us mere mortals like they were not some kind of super humans. Phil Gordon is really tall. Joe Hachem is not tall at all.

Las Vegas is an all out assault on all senses, and playing poker in the big convention hall of the Rio is a challenge. Today my focus is on maintaining full concentration despite numerous distractions. Distractions does not only include noise from the hundreds of players in the tournament, it includes appearances from famous faces on the rail and regular announcements and crowd noise from the TV final tables in a semi secluded corner of the hall. Of course, distributing cash game players to their tables which are also in the hall must be done by loud speakers, so everyone can hear that Jimmy J. has an available seat at table 164. Being cold decked for an hour in such an environment makes it really tough to maintain focus.

Now, I will hit the breakfast buffet, and then take the shuttle bus from Harrah's to the Rio. So far, the shuttle is the only thing in Vegas that is free. I fully expect to win event 47.

Results edit:

Once again I busted 3½ hours in. Players were considerably worse than yesterday, but the cards were the same.

Notable hands:

We are close to starting stacks of t4000, blinds 25/50. I raise from MP with AQ, get called from BB. I flop top two pair, and bet t300, he calls, so pot is t1000. Turn is a J, he checks, and I check behind. My reasoning is that I won't get calls from many worse hands, and that another bet pretty much ties my whole stack to the pot. I could put in a small bet maybe, or just bet big and commit myself, but I check behind with the intention of charging a big bet on the river or maybe inducing a bluff. River is a king completing a flush. He check/calls my half pot bet, and shows AT for the runner runner straight, taking 25% of my stack.

I get my stack back to 4k, find A3s in early position, and make an uncharacteristic limp. CO+1 raises to t200, button calls, and I call. Flop is J22 giving me a flush draw. Checked around. Turn is an ace, I bet 400, 1 fold, button raises to 1100. The board takes care of my kicker trouble to some degree, so I call, given that I can't put him on a hand that beats me, except AQ. By that logic, maybe I should have 3-bet. River is a brick, we check, he shows AT and we chop. It turns out I was free rolling the turn.

My stack is around 4000 still, 100/200 blinds. 3 limpers, and I check from the BB with ATo. Flop is A25 with a flush draw. I bet 500 into the 800 pot, and get one caller, a loose and bad player. Turn is a 6, we both check. River is another 6, flush draw uncompleted. I check and he overbets 2200 into the 1800 pot. This is a critical decision, if I call and lose I am officially a short stack. I simply can't put him on a hand that makes sense. He checked behind on the turn, pretty much ruling out two pair or better, and he called the flop, so how can he have a 6 without a hand worth betting the turn? I conclude that he must be trying to bluff me off a weak ace with a missed draw. I call after thinking for a long time, and he shows 64s. He called the flop for the gut shot I suppose.

I am now a short stack, and I am all in 3 or 4 times without callers. One annoying guy comments on it, as if there was any other way to sensibly play a less than 10BB stack. The whole table is aware that I move all in frequently, when I find AQo UTG. I now have 2200 still with 100/200 blinds, 25 antes, and I attempt to show unusual strength by just betting 600. Annoying guy comments how I must have a monster. The 64s guy from last hand laughs and agrees but still calls, saying he is donating to my monster hand. Annoying guy folds saying he would have called if I didn't have such a monster. How annoying. BB comes along. Flop is T74 rainbow, BB checks, I push, and stupid 64s guy calls with A4s!!! Apparently, he wasn't kidding around when he said he was making a donation on preflop. Sadly, he made a great bottom pair hand which held up.

I don't think I have been getting much in the way of cards in Vegas so far. I am not saying I have played perfectly, but when your good hands don't hold up when they meet resistance, poker becomes really hard. One more shot tomorrow, and after that, it will be all sight seeing and cash games.

WSOP Event 45

2007-06-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

Woke up really early, and got up at 7. Jet lag could become a problem towards the end of the day, but I am counting on adrenaline to keep me sharp. Anyway, it's not like I have never played late night poker before.

The structure of the event looks ok, but it is not going to be deep stacked for long. The first hour starting stacks are 200BBs, next hour 100BB, and then 50BB. In the fourth hour antes kick in.

I don't really have a specific strategy other than to play my usual aggressive style, and then adapt to conditions as quickly as possible. It will be interesting to see how different the game is from what I am used to during the first few hours. I don't have any goals either, other than not doing anything stupid.

If I bust quickly, I will head for some cash games to get into some kind of poker rythm before tomorrows event. Everyone says the cash games here are really soft. I likely won't update results until this evening. Later.

Results edit:

To make a long story short, I busted about three and a half hours in. Starting stacks were 10k, and I hovered between 5k and 10k the whole tournament.

The table was really tough, with no weak players among the starting 6. High stakes pro Eli Elezra showed up half an hour late, then spend most of his time on the rail or talking in a cell phone, while still managing to play a lot of hands. He busted early, probably not bothering to commit himself to the tournament without a large stack. Ram Vaswani (probably misspelled) took his place and played really well, and he was among the chip leaders last time I checked.

Not much interesting action to report from my point of view, I played only small or medium small pots, only a couple going so far as to see the turn. Pretty boring actually. I did get a few decent hands, but never got resistance when I wanted it, unfortunately. I busted as I tried to steal from the small blind with 56s (BB 200, I bet 600), and big blind tried to resteal (to 2000). I sensed some weakness, and decided I had decent fold equity and shoved for a total of 6600. Apparently I overestimated my fold equity and my image, and he called with ATo after thinking for a while. I picked up a pair on the flop, but turn was an ace, bye bye. I am obviously not happy with the way I busted, I obviously could have had a sharper read on what he thought of my image, and also deciding to steal from SB with 56s with only 33BBs is questionable. On the other hand, something did need to happen for me to get back in the tournament, so I don't think it was a disaster play by any means. BB was a friendly swede named Jonatan Stål, and I spoke with him at length afterwards. Sadly, it looks like he busted on day 1 also.

I then played the 5/10NL cash game for an hour. I got stacked with kings beaten by aces, and decided I had had enough poker for today. Finished up by watching some of the final table of the 50k horse tournament.

Actuary arrived in Vegas

2007-06-27T21:41:00.001-07:00

Thesis defence yesterday went well, so I am now officially an actuary!

The trip to Sin City went well, so I am now officially in Las Vegas!

Total travel time: 22 hours from leaving home until entering my room at Harrah's Hotel. I must admit I am a bit beat. Already it has been made painfully clear that I can barely move in my room without it somehow costing me money. If I even touch the mini bar, it will assume I took something and charge me. To log on the Internet, I have to pay for a full 24 hours. Water from the mini bar costs $3. I am almost afraid to turn on the TV. Do you think they charge extra for using the bathroom?

Random observations from Atlanta airport: Everyone spoke like racists do in movies. Every single baggage handler was an overweight black person (observation size about 25). I did not spot a single Mike Vick jersey.

One customs officer in Atlanta told me in standard 'southern', that in the old days you could sit down and play some solid cards, but nowadays poker was all luck with all the new players and all. That means I have a chance! Tomorrow, I hit the WSOP like a hurricane.

Here we go

2007-06-26T02:16:00.000-07:00

I am safely home from Greece, just as a massive heatwave descends on southern Europe. This afternoon I am defending my thesis, for which I am reasonably well prepared, so I am not too worried about that.

And then, tomorrow I am off to Vegas, to play in up to three WSOP events. The main target is WSOP Event 45, beginning Thursday, which is a six-handed $5000 event. If I bust on day one, which is obviously always the most likely outcome, I will be playing event 47 Friday, and on the same condition, event 49 on Saturday. These are $2000 and $1500 events, both full ring. Results will be posted here as soon as they are available.

It's a busy and exciting time, and a time where I could sure use a hand from sweet lady luck. Cross your fingers for me! The good part is that I don't think any off these events can go terribly wrong, I can afford to lose what I am investing in the WSOP, and I can't see the thesis defense go terribly wrong either. Anyway, win or lose, I should have some good stories to tell by the end of the week. At the very least, I understand there is a good chance I will get to piss next to a famous poker pro, as that seems to be a popular activity among WSOP bloggers. We will see.

Brief greeting from Greece.

2007-06-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

Now reporting from the Greek island of Simi, close to Rhodes. The island is poor on internet access, rich on mountains, hot sun, blue skies and blue water. I hope you are enjoying your summer as much as I am.

Summer time

2007-06-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

It's a rainy day in Copenhagen, but I will still use it to share a few summer plans. It is going to remain a busy summer, so blog entries will probably not be as frequent as one could wish, unless my guest blogger (hello?) steps up to the plate.

On Sunday I am going to Greece for a week of relaxation, sun and ouzo. Two days after I come home, I am defending my thesis and (finally) finishing up 22 years of going to school. To just say it like that, it sounds pretty crazy. Day after that, I am off to Vegas where I am practically a lock to win my first bracelet. I should be able to update regularly from Vegas, and share my experience with you. I will be back from that July 4th, only to take the significant other to Canada for 2½ weeks on July 14th.

As you can understand, there will not be much online poker played by me until August, but I should have a pretty good time in spite of that, or maybe even because of it.

I did take an opportunity to break a couple of my own rules for taking shots, at some 1000NL and 2000NL yesterday, and that went pretty well. I was actually up $4700, but ended up blowing $3k of those before finishing up. I am still up about 45PTBB/100 at 1000NL or higher :). Apparently I just rule at taking shots.

This was a pretty strange hand against what I thought was a good winning regular. Now I am not so sure. My image before this hand is probably very LAG.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Hero ($3964)
BB ($2013)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Qc, Qs.
4 folds, Hero raises to $80, BB raises to $222, Hero calls $142.

Flop: ($444) Th, 5c, Js (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $300, Hero raises to $900, BB calls $600.

Turn: ($2244) 8c (2 players)
Hero bets $900, BB calls $891 (All-In).

River: ($4035) 2h (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $4035

Hero has Qc Qs (one pair, queens).
BB has Tc 7h (one pair, tens).
Outcome: Hero wins $4035.

In my opinion, a half decent player has no business calling off 600 on that flop, unless he thinks I am totally crazy. I don't really think he had enough evidence to think that, unless maybe he reads the blog, and thinks I am tilting just from all of the not playing poker? Well, not this time.

For the sake of balance, I guess I have to show you how I donked off $1k too.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Hero ($4974)
BB ($1978.54)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9d, As.
2 folds, Hero raises to $70, 1 fold, BB calls $50.

Flop: ($150) Jh, 3s, 7s (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $100, BB calls $100.

Turn: ($350) Kh (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $270, BB calls $270.

River: ($890) 7h (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $500, BB calls $500.

Final Pot: $1890

BB has 5s Ks (two pair, kings and sevens).
Hero has 9d As (one pair, sevens).
Outcome: BB wins $1890.

It looks pretty stupid and probably is. I knew villain as a weak player from 400NL, and he was calling my first two barrels really quick, like he was on a draw (which he was, obviously) or a medium strength hand like a pair of jacks or 88. My river bet was designed for him to throw those away. Of course he had a draw that happened to contain a King, which sucked for me. The question is if my river bet will work more often than a 500/1390th of the time. I guess we will never know.

Context of a bad beat. Why poker sucks.

2007-06-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

I wasn't in a very creative state of mind after losing those $6k the other day. But I won't have you do without insight into what turned out to be a great example of what makes poker such a mentally demanding game. This will just be a report about a losing session, so feel free to spend your time doing something more fun. Stare into a wall for example.

First, I'll give you some background. I had played about 4 sessions after my long break, and I hadn't done very well. I was up a little, so nothing horrible, but I wasn't thrilled about my results up until Thursday. I was up early in the morning for a change, and played a couple of hours. Lost $3000 in that session, and I had some impossible hands like flush beat by a better flush, nut flush beat by a full house, aces cracked, expensive stuff like that. I wasn't totally down about it, but obviously not ecstatic.

So I decided to play again in the evening, determined to use that ugly red number for the day as motivation. After half an hour, I was down another few hundred, and nothing really seemed to work. Still, I maintained focus, made a few good laydowns, and still played well. For the record, making good laydowns is profitable in the sense that you lose less money than you otherwise would have, so it never really gives you a sense of victory. Then came a hand where I was all in preflop with AKs against a short stack. He rivered a flush with AQs for a $400 pot. Then I lost a big pot 3-bet preflop, and I was suddenly down $4000 for the day.

I pride myself on tilting very rarely. I make bad decisions of course, but I don't really have prolonged periods of tilt. At this point in the session, I am frustrated that I am not making anything happen, but I decide to fully concentrate on playing well, and not give in to destructive feelings. Call it stubbornness, but I just refused to quit on account of a little bad luck. Then this hand comes up.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

BB ($572.55)
UTG ($1217.95)
MP ($0)
CO ($600)
Button ($830.25)
Hero ($655)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7d, 7c.
3 folds, Hero raises to $24, BB calls $18.

Flop: ($48) 7s, 6d, 6h (3 players)
Hero bets $30, BB raises to $60, Hero calls $30.

Turn: ($168) Ac (3 players)
Hero bets $110, BB calls $110.

River: ($388) Ah (2 players)
Hero bets $200, BB calls $378.55 (All-In), Hero calls $178.55.

Final Pot: $1145.10

Hero has 7d 7c (full house, sevens full of aces).
BB has As 7h (full house, aces full of sevens).
Outcome: BB wins $1145.10.

An abrupt change from elation that I am finally going to win a big pot, to fear of the most brutal suckout, to confirmation that this day, I simply cannot win a hand. He beats odds of about 200 to 1 for the running aces.

I must admit after that hand I am shaken up pretty badly. I don't quit for another hour, and that was probably a mistake. It's not like I go on monkey tilt during that hour (actually this experience entitles me to at least an hour of tilt in my opinion), but I am certainly not playing well after that. When you sustain blows to your poker senses like that, it is just very hard to maintain a solid game. I lose another $1000 in a combination of tough situations and questionable decisions before I quit on the worst day of poker I have ever experienced.

Even though my bank roll is capable of absorbing some hits, a -$6000 day is not something I can ignore completely. Another one of those would probably force me to move down to 400NL for a while. My focus now is on going through the biggest hands of the day, hopefully regain some confidence, and then get back in the game. I have an area or two of my game that I am not at all confident about right now, and that will require some analysis. In the end, it is often experiences like this, that force you to take closer looks at certain aspects of your game, and in time become a better player.

This was a tough blow, and it will require work to get through it. Unfortunately I have to defend my thesis soon, so I simply can't put in enough hours before the WSOP to actually work on game adjustments. Tough break, but I will just have to rely on my game being relatively solid after all. I hear the WSOP is full of fish anyway.

Not good.

2007-06-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

2800 hands today. -$5700. Worst ever for me. Saving my luck for the WSOP, obviously.

The difference between Party 400NL and 600NL.

2007-06-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

A nice long session at the 400NL tables tonight was meant to avenge my brutal defeat of Saturday, and almost did, except for a 2-outer costing me two buy-ins in the very last orbit. Those two buy-ins are what I need to be break even for the month, so considering Saturday, I can't complain.
Overall I think I am completely sharp again after my long absence, as I played 7 tables and chatted a bit on the side with no obvious mistakes on the tables, and a tidy profit to show for it.

I started up after my break playing 400NL to make sure I still had the feel of it, but I think I am now ready to play 600NL. Which one I choose tomorrow will depend on the availability of donks. I don't think there is any major difference between the two levels, but there are some subtle ones that I noticed tonight. I think the regulars at 400NL play a bit more passively than the regulars at 600NL (at least of 4 weeks ago). It is probably easier to make a profit at 400NL playing pretty straight forward poker, call a bit preflop and look for the big hands on the flop. I think the 20/14/2 type regulars turning a profit at 400NL are rarer at 600NL, since they will run into slightly more aggression there. The typical regular at 600NL will be more along the lines of 22/18/3. This is just my impression based on a small sample size.

Another impression is that there are fewer battles around the blinds at 400NL, a bit less 3-betting is going on there. I think that in 4 hours of play, I had just one running battle with another regular going on for about 20 minutes, and I think I will normally have a bit more of those at 600NL. Obviously how you do in those repeated blind battles, often 3-bet preflop, will have a substantial effect on your bottom line. In my opinion, at 400NL several of those who I think are regulars, are definitely exploitable around the blinds, as they either steal too often or defend blinds too rarely.

But as always, donks are available at 400NL as well as 600NL, and tonight offered a solid front runner for my 'donkey of the month' award.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Button ($346)
SB ($530.40)
Hero ($983.40)
UTG ($804.60)
MP ($724)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 5s, 5h.
UTG calls $4, MP raises to $18, 2 folds, Hero calls $14, UTG calls $14.

Flop: ($56) 7h, 5c, Qh (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP bets $44, Hero raises to $160, UTG calls $160, MP folds.

Turn: ($420) Kc (2 players)
Hero bets $300, UTG calls $626.60 (All-In), Hero calls $326.60.

River: ($1673.20) Ah (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $1673.20

Hero has 5s 5h (three of a kind, fives).
UTG has Qd Jd (one pair, queens).
Outcome: Hero wins $1673.20.

I was very worried that he had me beat with a bigger set by the turn, and I was certainly unhappy with a completed flush draw on the river. But his stats were pretty atrocious (80/30/3), so I could never lay down a set against a player like that, even for two or three buy-ins. As it turns out, he shoves one and a half buy-in with second pair, no draw. Unbelievable.

I am back!

2007-06-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, but I am back at the tables. I played my first hands of poker in over 3 weeks tonight, more about that below.

Several people have asked me what it was like to take such a long break from poker. I guess most of them and myself included assumed it would be similar to quitting smoking, hard drugs or other addictions. Actually, it was nothing like that. Or rather, like what I assume that is like, since I haven't tried quitting any of those.

I did have the benefit of being extremely busy with my thesis, so playing was never really an option, but surprisingly I hardly missed playing at all. I play/work in an office full of guys playing poker, and listening to their frustrations on an hourly basis, really made me appreciate just how stressful our hobby/job is. I read somewhere that we human beings derive less pleasure from a dollar earned than we experience frustration from a dollar lost. This means that people who are involved with frequent highs and lows, such as stock traders or poker players, experience more frustration than happiness, even though they may be making a profit long term. Taking a break now and then is probably not a bad idea.

All that aside, I must admit I was looking forward to going back to the tables. I was a bit anxious to see if I still felt sharp after the time off, and if nothing else, I like winning and I like money. I felt I played fine, so no problems there. I did make a few mistakes that I don't think I would normally make, but I am not too worried about that.

However, in a cruel twist of fate I ran into probably the worst run I can remember over a thousand hands. No less than $2900 lost in 1300 hands at 400NL! Welcome back, Baldy! I have lost more in a session at 600NL, but in terms of BB/100 I don't think I've ever seen worse. A nice way to jump start the month.

I will just leave you with this hand, which in my opinion is about as sick as it comes. Villain later claimed he had misread his hand, he thought he had a set.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

MP ($400)
Button ($326.20)
SB ($1228.50)
Hero ($709.40)
UTG ($511.51)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Qh, Qd.
UTG raises to $15, MP calls $15, 2 folds, Hero raises to $68, UTG calls $53, MP calls $53.

Flop: ($206) 7c, 3d, 8c (3 players)
Hero bets $150, UTG calls $443.51 (All-In), MP folds, Hero calls $293.51.

Turn: ($1093.02) Tc (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($1093.02) 9c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $1093.02

Hero has Qh Qd (one pair, queens).
UTG has 2c 2h (flush, ten high).
Outcome: UTG wins $1093.02.

Favourite posts.

2007-05-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

As loyal readers will know, I am currently in non poker mode, due to the fact that I am turning in my thesis on Friday. This means one more week short on blog updates. To keep you interested, I am putting together a short overview of some the more interesting posts I have written in the months I have been blogging. Also, I recommend navigating the blog through the labels to the right, or browsing the archive.

Prototypical session reports:
I spew these reports on a regular basis. If you like it, you will love the blog :).

Strategy:
Less frequent, more valuable. Strategy related posts should be the bread and butter of this blog. I am probably not quite smart enough to make it so. Yet.

Lessons from video coaching.
The zero value bet (including donkey content).

Monthly results:
I win money. Sometimes.

Donkey stories:
Ask not what the donkey can do for you, but what you can do for the donkey.

Uncategorized, what does it take to be a winning poker player and taking shots.

I also have some opinions on stuff, in case you care.

Have fun reading, and please comment on anything you like, dislike or disagree with.

Time out.

2007-05-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

All the not playing poker is slowly getting out of hand, but the fact is I really have no choice if I want to become an actuary. 10 days without poker so far, and now another 10 days to go until I turn in my thesis June 1st. You will have to live without frequent updates for a while longer, but then things should get a bit more interesting with frequent online play and my WSOP trip coming up in the end of June. In the mean time I have invited a guest blogger here to entertain you while I am busy, we will see if he rises to the challenge :). Until then, have patience!