[Poker Brothers] caltabiano's grinding + farming FTW!

Yeah - I'll second that - be sure to make it to Mendoza in Argentina for the vino and the mountains.

ATB,

Tim64

Mendoza is on my schedule already, and a good deal of wine as well haha

5th/October/09. Dandycal - SSS NL200

Hey guys,

Today was an interesting work day for me, with valuable insights. I'll share a little bit.

Two events took place:
1 - A friend of mine lost his starting capital after a couple of days playing SSS
2 - Today I suffered the largest losses of my entire career.

My friend's losses were mainly due to bad play since he lacked discipline and patience to follow the charts strictly and ended up "experimenting" too much. He couldn't understand how it was possible to actually make money with poker. I tried explaining a few basic concepts of the game to him and realised how difficult it is for someone without significant experience to actually understand the relevance of things like variance, long-term profit due to playing with small edges etc. We, as beginners, are often stubborn/arrogant enough to think we "figured it out" and that we can already follow our own "intuition". This goes for many things in life, not just poker. We need only observe the usual behaviour of adolescents towards life in general and we'll recognise these same symptoms. But how wise is the man who is trully humble, and how much further he can go!

I woke up early today for a funny reason. Yesterday my brother took my house keys by accident as he went to his girlfriend's (very far from where we live) and locked me in our flat. As a result I couldn't go out for my saturday night with friends and ended up in bed early. Well, I found out that Sunday morning has incredible traffic in Poker Stars, the tables were teeming with fish. Yet I managed to run really bad and lose over 10Bi/2k hands for my first session. FINE! I was actually cool about it. Back at night for some more grinding and I really liked the way I was playing, very focused and attentive, I actually managed to clearly improve some things in my game. But yet again another 10Bi/2k hands down (see graphic). Ouch...
My confidence sank in for a moment and I decided to take a look at my total AI EV graphic for NL200 (see graphic) Ouch: my confidence sank some more.

I mentioned the whole thing to my brother as he was going to bed and he just said: "hey man, it happens". And you know what? that is so true. Now I really do not want to say this is just a bad swing and I'll "wait" for things to get better. There is always room for improving, and improving a whole lot. I really don't believe I'm playing -EV in NL200, not even break even, I think I have a decent edge against most players, but it's true that my edge is probably smaller than it was in NL50 and NL100. So guess what, I'll increase this edge by optimizing my game, obviously! Besides, the EV line we get in HM manageris not a flawless indicator of your actual equity, far from that, so I'm definitely not going to overreact on that matter.

I'll take the blow of -20BI as I have done more than once before and use the opportunity to improve my playing skills, increase my patience, and become humbler. After all, exchanging a few dollars for an improved character sounds like a great bargain ♠_cool:

Peace!

Im from the spanish community (Argentina), and I remember reading your old blog!

Great work guys, and very good blog.

GG

thanks Dante!

6th/October/09. Dandycal - SSS NL200

Horrible results for the beginning of this month. These were my last 9k hands:

Nearly 30 stacks down, totally need a tilt room ASAP! lol

Anyway, thinking a little about the future I'm pretty certain I'll start big stacking next month. The difference in traffic from NL200 to NL400+ is drastic and it'll be really difficult to multi-table the higher limits. Also, the lack of volume in play would result in bigger variance over a longer period of time and I don't really want that, especially since I have to make constant withdrawals from my BR for paying bills.

SSSin up to NL200 gives me a mighty fine income and is enough for my basic needs at the moment. By becoming a proficient Big stacker I will develop my general skills a lot more than if I stick to SSS imo. And that is what I want. Besides, I will be able to reach higher limits and much greater win-rate that way.

I'm in no way planning on abandoning SSS, I still want to go all the way to NL1k SSSing, it just won't be a priority. I'll keep grinding at least 60k hands a month for income while I study some postflop poker ♠_cool:

Vacations are drawing near and I'm looking forward to travelling south. Resting a little and coming back with a fresh disposition will be +++EV for sure.

Have a good week y'all. Peace.

12th/October/09. Dandycal - Holidays

Hello everyone,

I'm now officially on a break from poker, or rather, on holidays. Yesterday I arrived in Buenos Aires and I'll be travelling for the next 3 weeks ♠_cool:

At this very moment I'm right in front of this square (Plaza del Congreso)

The city is very beautiful. I might stop by some casinos over here, but I'm not sure, since apparently they only have NL400+ (and I can't really multitable SSS there, can I ? ♦)

Last Friday my brother and I went out to celebrate our first year playing poker. We had some Cachaça and lots and lots of pizza. Feels good to be paying for all that with poker profit.

Alright then, I'll probably not be posting for a while here. Wish the best of luck to everyone. Peace!

caltabiano - 12th of October

Hello everybody! Yes I know I'm almos a stranger to this blog Since my brother is travelling right now and someone must keep this blog active, I guess the duty falls to me ♦ I'll make sure I'll post a lot during this time. I'll post some hand reviews, updates and some random stuff probably.

Lemme just quickly update you all on my poker career! I've oficially moved up to NL100 =D I think the move has been for good this time, since I believe my roll stands at around $6k. I'll have to calculate it after I make my cash out for this month. But I'm pretty sure it's around that. So I've got a pretty solid cushion for NL100. I've aready gotten used to it also, so I don't plan on moving back to NL50. The rakeback in NL100 will be so sweet. I've secured $1k of rb alone for this month. Pretty nice IMO.

I've been doing lots of sweat sessions. With some people from another site and with Bierbaer from PS.com. I must express my thanks to him as he has offered free private coaching to the community and I was the lucky one to get it. I confess that, due to my own fault, I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have, because I wasn't online in skype all that often and I could've done some more sessions with him. The sessions we did have were great though! He certainly knows his poker and has been cutting his way through the small stakes into the midstakes. Now his classes have started in university, so I guess his time is gonna be cut short. Nevertheless, maybe we can still strike up some sessions from time to time. And once again, thanks Bierbaer!

I've also started having private coachings with TwiceT. I've had 2 sessions until now. I'll be looking to have it weekly. He's definitely a great coach and a great player. I've been getting a lot from his coachings.

this has already gotten kind of big I guess =P Anyway, I'll be more present in this blog, I promise! And in the end of the month, I shall be posting my lifetime graph, since the 23th of june, when we decided to go pro.

That's it for now people. I'm off to do some studying.

Cheers

Oh yeah, I wanted to post this hand, cause I found it pretty amusing =D

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $1(BB) Replayer
SB ($26.70)
BB ($95.85)
UTG ($40.10)
Hero ($106)
CO ($115)
BTN ($19.50)

Dealt to Hero J♠ J♥

fold, Hero raises to $3, fold, BTN raises to $19.50 (AI), fold, fold, Hero calls $16.50

FLOP ($40.50) T♥ 9♥ 8♥

TURN ($40.50) T♥ 9♥ 8♥ K♣

RIVER ($40.50) T♥ 9♥ 8♥ K♣ 7♥

Hero shows J♠ J♥
(Pre 18%, Flop 20.8%, Turn 13.6%)

BTN shows Q♥ Q♣
(Pre 82%, Flop 79.2%, Turn 86.4%)

Hero wins $38.50

caltabiano - 14th of october

What's up everybody! Like promised, here I am, making posts =D

I'd like to start with a nice hand:

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $1(BB) Replayer
SB ($100)
BB ($100)
Hero ($99)
CO ($40)
BTN ($95.50)

Dealt to Hero A♣ A♦

Hero raises to $3, CO raises to $8, BTN raises to $21, fold, fold, Hero raises to $99 (AI), CO calls $32 (AI), BTN calls $74.50 (AI)

FLOP ($232) 6♠ 9♣ 7♦

TURN ($232) 6♠ 9♣ 7♦ 5♣

RIVER ($232) 6♠ 9♣ 7♦ 5♣ 3♦

BTN shows Q♥ Q♣
(Pre 16%, Flop 9.5%, Turn 7.9%)

Hero shows A♣ A♦
(Pre 66%, Flop 80.6%, Turn 84.1%)

CO shows K♠ K♦
(Pre 17%, Flop 9.9%, Turn 7.9%)

Hero wins $229

Total domination FTW

Today I had my first losing day in quite a while... probably a week or so. I'm glad it happened though, cause it allowed me to notice how much my mindset has improved over the past few weeks.
But it was only a losing day, cause I made a couple of bad moves that cost me nearly 1 buy in. Funny, I haven't been very focused at night in the last couple of days. I gotta change that, since night is fishy time ♠_cool:

I posted this hand in the hand evaluaton forum and it got a pretty nice discussion going. I'll post it here. Leave your comments

Villains is a TAG 25/19/2 (VPIP/PFR/AF)

NL Holdem $1(BB) Replayer
SB ($99)
BB ($107)
UTG ($51.40)
UTG+1 ($114)
Hero ($90.50)
BTN ($98.50)

Dealt to Hero 7♥ 4♥

fold, UTG+1 raises to $3.50, Hero raises to $10.50, fold, fold, BB calls $9.50, fold

FLOP ($25) K♥ 8♠ 6♥

BB checks, Hero checks

His range for flatting my 3b OOP is JJ+, AK I believe. So it's pretty strong. KK+ and AK are stacking off on this board obv, the rest folds to 1 or 2 barrels. cb/cAI is profitable in this spot because there's dead money in the pot and we're mostly flipping. However I believe checking behind is even more profitable because:

- He gives us information about his hand on the turn. He's often gonna lead AK or KK+ and check JJ - QQ again
- We can still get him off JJ and QQ if he checks to us on the turn, by betting turn and shoving river

This way, we don't have to get the money in on a coin flip and if he does bet the turn, we can probably peel for our outs and be pretty sure the money goes in if we hit river.

TURN ($25) K♥ 8♠ 6♥ K♠

BB checks, Hero bets $18, BB calls $18

Now here we can put our plan to action and bet it when he ckecs right? Well, no... This is pretty much the only card in the deck that does not allow us to put our plan to action. Of course I failed to realise it at the time and still put it to action.
When the 2nd K hits, he's not gonna give us much credit for having a K anymore. So he might talk himself into calling JJ - QQ off and there goes our FE. So we should've switched to plan B and checked behind again hoping to hit one of our outs. If we do hit, we ship the river, even if it has to be an overbet.
If the turn had bricked off, we'd put the plan to action and bet turn, ship river

RIVER ($61) K♥ 8♠ 6♥ K♠ 5♠

BB checks, Hero bets $62 (AI), BB calls $62

Of course I'm awesome and hit though

I'll be glad to hear comments.

Cheers peoplez

interesting hand, what did he end up having?

I'll post it a couple of days from now ♦

You can try and guess though

The rakeback in NL100 will be so sweet. I've secured $1k of rb alone for this month. Pretty nice IMO.

What platform do you play at?

PS: Nice indeed!

Edit: About the last posted hand.

IMO, his not calling there on the river without a K. And he probably wanted to reach showdown cheaper as posible, maybe because he has KQ.

More exactly KcQh!

This, if he didn't slowplayed a set on flop and boat on turn, knowing that you will bet. This is somehow unlikely that he will called 10BB with a pp.

Possible QsQh :), thinking that his queens are good.

So, this are my 3 possible hands that i put him on.

i would say QQ or AK

JJ/QQ imo

i'll take a punt at 8 8 in the hole

caltabiano - 21st of october

So, I came to São Paulo for a week with my girlfriend, in order to play a live tourney. It took place on Monday, and I didn't cash, unfortunately =/

The tourney here is like super uber turbo or something. The blinds go up every 20mins and I suppose that's really fast for a lie tourney. Live poker is soooo fishy! It's really amazing. But I guess tournaments variance can be pretty crazy and I'm gonna have to play a bunch of them before it evens out.

I'm already getting tired of the city TBH. All the noise, all the huge buildings, all the cars, all the smoke... argh. I wanna go back to my peaceful Brasilia I'll be back by saturday noon I guess.
I shall certainly be back for some more live action in the future though. They have daily tourneys here, so it's pretty cool.
It's also nice to take a week off online poker and just chill and then be back with a rested mind. Especially since in the last couple of days in Brasilia, I lost nearly 15 stacks, hahaha. I'm happy about my reaction to it though. I really didn't mind the loss at all. My mindset is certainly improving Way to go!

I'm not gonna talk about hands of the tourney because well, there wasn't anything interesting, lol. I must've played 4 or 5 hands maximum. The rest of the time I was just follding J3o, Q4o, 83s... Oh yeah, there was this time when a hand had just finished and I had been the SB in it, so I was supposed to be the button next hand. The dealer however, forgot to pass on the button to me and started dealing the cards. After he had finished dealing them he looked at me and said, "Post the SB". So I told him I was supposed to be in the button. The guy next to me confirmed it and so the dealer started getting everybody's cards back in order to re deal them. So I decided to take a peak at what I'd have had and I see AK in the hole =/ I had 7bb left and it would've been a pretty nice oportunity to double up. Bloody dealer!! And he dealt me J3o next hand
The last hand was a flip. I had 33 vs QJs with 4bb left. He flopped an open ended and nailed the turn. Oh well.... not a problem ♠_evil:

I'm off now peoples!
About the hand from previous post: He had the rockets Hahaha Nice hand, sir! lol

Cheers!

Isn't Brazil a relatively unsafe country? How do you guys cope with security (both pokersites & physical as in burglars)?

I heard Rio is pretty criminal, how about the rest of the country?

Gl hf!

Originally posted by Gerv
Isn't Brazil a relatively unsafe country? How do you guys cope with security (both pokersites & physical as in burglars)?

I heard Rio is pretty criminal, how about the rest of the country?

At least they can live off such a small amount of money at least when you think of it in terms of USD... in Canada you need like 4k-6k a month

+ the weather and sexy half naked girls around

is it easy for you guys to cash out-live from poker in Brazil? going there is more realistic than going to monaco , and at least I can understand portuguese ( a bit ♦ )