Tough games.

Finally time for a post, and finally today I had the urge for playing some 9man sng. Went rather well, as I in just 6 games had one 3rd place and tree WINS!

These were all turbo's and only at low stakes, but man, these games are getting somewhat tougher. Seemingly it's not unusual to see all 9 players still around at bb200, bubbleplay starting at bb400 and Hu-play when blinds are 500/1000.

Although I'm doing okay in these turbo's (13.2% EV-ROI) so far, I'm contemplating moving to PokerStars and continue playing what I do best, which is the regular speed game. The only thing hindering me is my low volume, because rakeback will be almost cero at Stars compared with my 27% at FullTilt.

"But you only have to play around 200 games a month" you say - yes, but remember I play as a hobby and don't wanna be a grinder.

But who really cares - summer is here, holiday is here and soon me my wife and kid are off to Grece and the lovely island of Crete. So happy holidays everyone!

Ohh and last but not least some nice piece of music i recently stumbled upon:

No games running

I was - according to plan/goal - slowly starting on $20 regular speed sng, but after black friday I completely had to change my goals of becoming a regular speed reg!

Earlier when I played my $10's I could load my set rather quickly, but now take a look at my future battlefield:

absolutely nothing going on!

So to prevent not again ending in poker nowhereland, I instantly made a dicision on moving to turbo's instead. Starting out on the $6.5 level with around 60BI (cashed +$800 out) and only 4-tabling as I gotta get used to the faster pace.

Even though the bitch and my ma'am now having to almost live next door, thing are looking fine:

EV ROI is at 18.3% which I don't think (know) I can keep, but maybe around 10-15% when I get to 6-9 tables. And I think this will be my first goal; adding tables and then move up.

See you at the tables...

Beers and bitches.

The bitch called variance would not leave, so I left her by stop playing! Furthermore games was starting rather slow pre black friday, but now it's even worse - much worse.

The bright side of it though, is that summer has come early here in Denmark, so I have been working the garden instead, and just had a nice weekendtrip to Germany, filling up the car with cheap beers and stuff which is rather expencive in my country.

And if you ever come across this beer:

then don't hesitate, and just buy some. It's my absolutely favorite, and even if it's imported from Germany, it's certainly still a Danish beer! Apart from being some of the best pokerplayers, we also make some of the worlds best beers. (cheers ;-D)

But back to poker. Sometimes when I'm persecuted from a bitch at one site, I tend to switch to another and hope to stay out of her way. So I have mengled a bit with my old 45man spiced with some 18man, and those are still under consideration to be my new main game if fulltilt don't catch up in volume.

Here's the graph:

Now that's my Ma'am talking!

The bitch is back!

Yes she is back. That freaking little sucker of an RNG bitch - called variance - is back. Worst thing is that I don't know how long she's gonna stay, and funny thing is, most times I get outdrawn on the RIVER! It's like the RNG has to hurt me the most possible, and after seeing the flop and turn without getting fuc..., then BAM! - throw the 3-outer in my face on the river.

Here's a litte shot of running bad:

And please don't mention samplesize - I know! But everything does not have to be in big scale, and as a hobbyplayer; I play in small scale.
At least I'm still obtaining my main - in game - goal of getting to the bubble. As you can see i have plenty of 4th places, only have to convert them into 3rd, 2nd and 1st places.

So when I don't have the urge the tangle with that kind of madness, and play less, time is not wasted. Instead I do what I do best; Study. I have allready checked out the next level of $20+2 regular sng, and found that fish is still around, and also tagged the regulars. So when the variance turns around - or just settles to cero - I'm ready to move up!

Here's a little look of my spreadsheet for checking out some players:

Hope to be back soon with a winning graph.

Never to become a grinder.

Playing poker ? - YES. Grinding ? - NO.
But why not ? - Because I don't have to, and I guess I don't want to.

Lately I haven't been playing much, mostly caused by having a cold and coughing my lungs out, but also because I'm in a breakeven streak in my games.

These tiny obstructions leads me to not wanna play, and this is why I have to admit I will never be a grinder. Furthermore, spring is coming and my garden is calling me along with more time to be spend outside the house enjoying the warmer weather and more bright hours.

I'm just born in the wrong year. If I was born just 15-18 years ago, I would be grinding poker now, putting in hours and hours of that unendless physical and mental energy that only young people have. Now I have other and more important things in my life to do, and I guess thats the way life is, so I have to settle with poker being a hobby.

Some GREAT music to go with this post:

Folding an +EV call.

Are we allways to make +EV calls? Well basically, it should not be wrong to make those calls - even the thinnest ones. But I'm sure many of you sharks out there have had many spots where you have folded even if it was a call, or not shoved in given +EV spots also.

I found a (for me) pretty clear spot the other day where I fold my hand although it was a +EV call. Here it comes:


What we know is that UTG and BTN is tight, and that the bigstack not have taking advantage of his chiplead by folding most hands.

We actually don't need to call risking to loose over half our stack, and most likely we are behind or in a coinflip which we absolutely have no need taking. But the most importing aspect is that if we fold, then in the next hand - givin the bigstack keeps folding - we can push pretty wide into the tight BB, and the hand after is a perfect bubble-setup for pushing any2.

I'm still struggling with some variance, but my winning sessions are bigger than my losing ones, and when I get hammered in the $10 I just play some $5. Its almost like there's no variance in those.
A nice consolation was my 2nd place in a VIP freeroll for $525.50 - I should play more MTTs...

Variance in life?

Is variance only something you talk about in poker? Or may it occur in our life also?

Of course it can! This is not a concept that only is related to poker, but fundamentally and scientifically can be defined by chaos theory.

Now I don't want to get too much into this theory, but one might describe it somewhat like "everything is probable".

Like when you mix a deck of cards, it would theoretically be likely to have mixed the cards so that they lie in order aces to kings in different colours.

Ultimately, one can imagine to mix 2 colours of paint, which then turns into a third colour. It is acc. chaos theory possible (because you mix a number of molecules together), after mixing the colours well together, again to get 2 separate colours!

Anyway, back to the variance in life. I personally got acquainted with life-variance here recently, thankfully, only a mechanical one of them:

1. chain broke on my son's bike $ 55
2. my cell phone went in the washing machine + $ 200
3. my son's newly purchased used moped leaked gasoline $ 36
4. steering box on my car broke $ 1.667!

all within 2 days as attributable to variance. Most likely, we can now look forward to the next several years without any mechanical problems.