Starting blog, game, learning and other stuff!!! Join and enjoy

Hello there PapaSmuuurf and welcome to blogs!

You seem to be very motivated which is a great way to start anything! Let's hope for real good things to happen in this blog and I'll keep a look out for you climbing up the stakes.

That could a good decision not to play heads up I think. As a learner it's better to stick to nice straightforward games like full ring I think to start with.

Very best regards and have fun,

Mal.

Hey again PapaSmurf, I see you followed my advice and started a blog.

Another word about full ring vs shorthanded games: It should be noted that full ring games are easier to learn than 6-max, since they are played in a more straightforward way, if you know what I mean. They are also less postflop-heavy, so they require less knowledge of that subject, and the postflop game is arguably the most complex part of poker. That's why many articles that are aimed at beginners recommend full ring games.

That being said, shorthanded games are not that difficult to learn, and they're certainly a better choice in the beginning than heads up games. In fact, I think it's worth it to learn shorthanded games once you got the hang of it, because the higher you rise in stakes, the more common shorthanded games become compared to full ring.

Originally posted by PapaSmuuurf
Don't know what pokerrooms to start with. I probably go with PokerStars, but it's not decided yet.

Pokerstars is a great choice. Most of our members already had a Pokerstars account when they found Pokerstrategy, which means that they can't get a tracked account there. They'd love to be in your shoes. Just make sure that you register properly using this link, I actually screwed up at that part when I registered and wasted my chance. Not that it matters anymore.

Anyway, good luck on your journey.

Hello everyone,

this in my first real post, as far as the "content" is concerned.
Today i spent like 2 hours on learning basics, outs, pot odds and some other stuff. I played a bit on pokerstars SH 10 nl (I made a small deposit, hopefully the last one). The session was a neutral, i made like 2 dollars or so. But i as happy, because i think i was able to think during this game, on my basic level. I was counting outs, trying to assess pot odds and decide if to call of to fold. I need to work on my maths outside the game. I am thinking about fast calculating, need to be faster to have more time on the table to think about more important stuff. I was trying to make some notes on my opponents. I was playing two tables, total of almost 400 hands. My notes weren't specially good but i'm happy because i made some decisions based on them and it turned out to be correct ones. One villain from Button was reraising on the flop when the flop was paired with higher single cars. It happened 8 times but 4 of those - it went to showdown. I saw he had trash all those times. The 9th time i was on CO he on Button, the same situation, he reraised all in, and i called with AKs, he had 92o, missed the slop completely. And he was reraising always 3 times the previous bettor. I don't know if that was correct from my part, but i spotted sth and i'm happy about it.

The day was good. I think it's not the time to paste here some of my hands. Bu in the future i will, for sure.

Tomorrow i won't have an internet connection so i decided to download Harrington on cash games 6-max volume I, and i'm gonna study it hard.

If you have any questions - please, don't hesitate to post it!

You mentioned that you play NL10. I don't know how much you deposited, but are you sure you're rolled for this limit? What exactly are your bankroll management guidelines?

I wouldn't worry too much about practicing math outside the game. Poker is mostly about applied mathematics, and most of the calculations you make at the tables like odds and pot odds will soon come naturally to you once you get more experienced.

I like what you wrote so far, you seem to have the right thought processes already.

I read about BR of 20 BI. But i decided to deposit 30 BI to this limit.

Today i didn't play a lot, only two sessions of 30 minutes. I decided to divide my time it into max 30 minute periods. My focus is not as good. And i'm working on that, i thought of meditation and goal visualization. I read articles about sports psychology, this is supposed to be a good way.

I read a lot of information today in books i mentioned earlier. I wrote most important things down and i will try to work on that.

I bought a deck of cards, today i was dealing my hole cards and then the flop and i was trying to immediately assess my outs on turn and then on river. After some times it was a lot better, i'm quite able to spot my draws (SD and FD) really fast.

But still have a lot to do. My session wasn't great, i'm down 2 dollars but there was an ugly bad beat. I got a KQ s, flopped a flush on A73 board, villan went all in i though the best hand he's got at the moment is set of A, then 7 and 3, i'm ahead, in theory villan can have straight draw with 45 of 56 or made lower flush. But he raised from UTG so i put him on AA concerning the flop. maybe AKs. And he got AA, and the river paired 3. Full boat over my Flush. Happens.

Tomorrow i'm planing to work on pre flop betting, i mean, i really want to know what 3 bet is as far as the range is concerned. I'm gonna read and learn about open limp and limping in general. They say 'never limp', if you have a hand to play with, you can also raise that hand. But i want ot read about it more. i need to understand it, not just "memorize and execute". I'm not questioning this 'never limp' strategy, but i need to understand it.

See you later!

Originally posted by PapaSmuuurf
I read about BR of 20 BI. But i decided to deposit 30 BI to this limit.

30 BI is good. 20 BI would be slightly loose-ish but nothing too wild.

Great effort, keep it up!

Today nothing happened really, i played 4 sessions of 30 minutes and i'm already tired. I decided to quit despite having much free time, because i felt i'm not playing to the best of my abilities. I earned almost 2 BI, not much, but still i'm ahead. I made some obvious mistakes to me, bad thing i made them, good thing i'm aware of them and will try to exclude them from my game.

The rest of my free time i spent on reading hands review on pokerstrategy.com on my limit. I was taking my own notes and all those hands i'd red i tried to switch, i mean, i was trying to figure out the proper action if the hero is not the villain, and everything is the same, same positon and so on.

See you later

I don't have a HM2 yet, but i am about to buy it, i want to have a database and to be able to review my hands and to apply filters. I watched videos on youtube.com about HM2 - seems like a brilliant thing to have. And the HUD of course. I'm not play so much to be able to have a proper sample to make those stats reliable but i want to play a lot of "smart" poker, and i hope in the future this will happen. Today i read an article about hand ranges, i don't get it completely but there was an information of "when to have Ax range from 2 do K and then to have A5+" depending on the opponent HR in A department. And i really want to check this when i'm gonna have HM2

First minor live success - just won a friendly tournament. You can call it SnG but without blind raise (dunno if there's a name for that). 8 people. Entry - 20 PLN (I'm from Poland, in dollars that would be about 6), one rebuy possible. Winner takes all and i was able to make it. Of course, no skill involved but that was such a party.

Tomorrow there's a study time, but i will try to play at least 2 hours, maybe 2,5 hours if i will be able to make it without making stupid decisions because of being tired.

You seem to me to be very focused on improvement so I've posted the link below to the software such as HM2 and PT4.

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/poker-tools/

Also - and this is really important -

I'm not questioning this 'never limp' strategy, but i need to understand it.

Always question strategy, always. That's how players get ahead of everybody else and get to the top, because they question what others are doing and try to adapt their game to beat it.
If everybody said, 'No limping!' blindly following that - then suddenly they come across you, who limps! The cheek of it! That's not poker!
See what I mean? They wouldn't know what to do with you! ♠_evil:

I really like the way this blog and your progress is headed and fully expect you to be crushing games very soon indeed. Great start.

Regards and keep it fun,

Mal.

Noooooo, I completely understand what you mean by questioning.

But if someone is saying "no limping" i really need to understand what's the reason to say that. I know many is table or player oriented and there's no clear answer, naturally. But i want to crush is into pieces to be able to finally adjust. I don't want to purely memorize "never limp" or "always limp". I want to understand the basics behind those theories to be able to use them properly to the best of my abilities.

I know poker is the game of non-perfect information, there's no pure strategies (as Nash in his paper described it, so did von Neumann).

I think limping might be good against 2nd thinking level players. If I'm on BTN and Villain is on SB or BB with high re-steal factor and high fold to steal factor and i'm in possess of great hand like AA, KK or QQ and AKs. there might be a good way to get value, because simple open raise from BTM will meet a fold but open limp might provoke villain to try to "re-steal" it. And with dominant hand flop pot would be bigger.

Originally posted by gadget51
I really like the way this blog and your progress is headed and fully expect you to be crushing games very soon indeed. Great start.

+1, great stuff!

I also just noticed for the first time that you're silver now. In this case, let me once again link you to w34z3l's 6-max walkthrough from a few months ago (discussion thread, videos). Two of the later videos are for gold members, but that shouldn't matter too much for now.

Are playing on Pokerstars?

I'm really sorry, i was on short vacations, really needed them, and i didn't have an access to internet. So i didn't play. But tomorrow there's gonna be a grind sessions

But i was reading a lot, i mean, a LOT about poker. Hands ranges, switching gears in ranges from polarized to solid. I know it's not the material on my stakes, but still, really enjoyed reading that.

I was working on my hand history, i spotted a lot of mistakes and i hope i will delete them from my play.

The amount of knowledge was vast. I need to transform theory into practice and this week i'm gonna work deeply about playing solid ABC (in the way i can do that) but i want do include hand ranges. I memorized almost 30 sets of data (villain's bet into pot and then how often i need to win in percentages, i found the table in one of those books but there was only 5 examples), then i memorized almost 40 typical hand ranges and was practicing calculation how many hand of those ranges helped the villain and how many didn't as far as the flop is concerned. I know this is a theory but still, i was working on my preparation. I know it's important but i want to practice it. I was out of the internet, i couldn't do anything else.

What do you think?

Thanks

Originally posted by PapaSmuuurf
I'm really sorry, i was on short vacations, really needed them, and i didn't have an access to internet.

No need to apologize, mate. You're doing this blog for you, not for us, you don't need to put any pressure on yourself.

Originally posted by PapaSmuuurf
But i was reading a lot, i mean, a LOT about poker. Hands ranges, switching gears in ranges from polarized to solid. I know it's not the material on my stakes, but still, really enjoyed reading that.

Having a good understanding of hand ranges can be quite useful at the tables, that is actually one subject I can be struggling with at times. Just make sure that you don't do too many fancy plays at inappropriate times, it is often best to keep it simple at the micros.

Everything looking good so far, good luck at the tables!

Wasn't talking about being under pressure. I just try to be serious about poker,i'm have a lot of fun, really, but still, if i'm up to sth, i want to do that.

Yeah, i am practicing hand ranges, all the time. It's hard to do that on the spot, during the game. But when i'm doing that after the session - it's getting easier. Just need a lot of practice.

I know, don't want to be to fancy. Just want to play really solid, want to crush microstakes. Need to learn a lot. And i'm not trying to outplay them. Just want to get rid of my mistakes. Today i was working with my hand history on straight draws, found that i was playing to aggressively my SD with high cards in there was PF raise from tight player. Then i assumed he had many cards that hit the flop, less then didn't hit. so my draw was -EV

Looks like a good start for you man.
Keep up the good work.
If you want I can help you with some hand review some time..

If I dont grind at the table I always try to do something that concerns poker.
Skype name on my profile.