▓▒░~Break out of Micros or GTFO~░▒▓

what a video... omg

and hello Daniel, very nice introduction, I love the blue color too because even though you wrote a wall of text ♦ it made it very easy to read and don't tire the eyes.

Your motivation seems to be at maximum and you're right you can only push yourself to do this. I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties with you parents. I hope it gets better soon.

Wish you good luck at the tables, keep us updated

Ingrid

Thank you for the warm welcome and the very nice feedback Ingrid, I appreciate it. Don't worry, the thing with my parents wasn't very serious, just that it opened my eyes on my situation a little bit, which is good.

Short session this evening. Played 9 3$ STTs . Net amount won -5,4$.

Lesson 1:
When I'm deep at one table, I can't pay atention to other tables. So I have to make it so that I am not at final phases at many table at once. So, I guess I should start them 5/10 mins apart.

2. Posted some hands 4 review in the forumz

3. Created a topic on How to play AK Early stage in low level SnG's

Tomorrow's plans
finish posting the other 2 hands (Done)
make another thread on playing very short <4BB (Done)
watch a SnG Video (Done)
Play and mark hands for review (Done)
Post hands

Cya,
D.

Hi again.

First Three tasks done. About playing with <4BB, found an excellent video, pzhon's Folding Wars . Have to constantly review it.

How To Win a Folding War:
The other short stack blinds off
You get all-in and double up, or the other short stack gets all-in and loses
You steal more blinds than the other short stack
Be a big stack

Core Lessons
Folding war = nearly equal short stacks before a step up in the prize structure (so this can happen after the bubble has burst, too)
Don't push UTG w/ trash (no folding equity). It's not so bad to blind off
Understanding Risk Aversion
-Shorts are not risk-averse towards each other, but they are against the Bigs.
- Bigs are not risk averse towards shorts, but they are Very risk averse towards each other

Personal Note
I shouldn't really count on opponents' risk aversion at the levels I am playing at, just observe opponent's stats and tendencies and profit from that.
Especially when I'm Big vs Big. If I see he is very tight and risk averse, yeah steal the blinds GOGO, but if he raises / calls all ins often, I should steal a lot less from him.
Personal Note End

Adjust pushing / calling ranges to reflect your and your opponents' risk aversion (again, profile your opponent first)
when your opponent will be pot committed preflop, consider playing
- stop and go: Bigstack raises 2,5x you call from the BB with a decent hand (like 88), planning to shove most flops
- limp and go: limp from SB with a decent hand (89o) when BB is the other short, shove most flops. This way he would have almost always called an AI preflop, but will sometimes fold on the flop.

Short preparation, getting comfortable and will go on a Party Session.

D.

Hey Daniel,

Good luck with your goals, I will be following this. Awesome video btw.

Bafta
Stefan

By reading the blogtitle I had to think of this song:

Then watched your vid and was like ♠_o:. I have sick respect for someone with so much willpower and believe that is true that if you put that much effort into something, you will be succesfull! If this is your goal with poker, then I'm sure you will make it! Do take advantage of everything we have to offer and work your hardest.

I would especially advice to take advantage of our hand evaluation boards and follow one or two live coachings on top of our video's and articles.

Also try our training software, the ICM trainer light and the ICM trainer to get your push or fold game as good as can be!

I wish you all the best in your poker challenge and will try to read the blog from time to time! GL!

great video, best of luck

Quick update.
First of all, I really appreciate the positive feedback from you guys, I really wasn't expecting it! Thanks alot melvin for your suggestions, spot on.

Today's results: +25$. Pretty satisfied overall. The Folding Wars vid helped me a lot. I was in those spots sooo often!

Then, I went to play a live 10 people SnG. I want to build some live skills / experience also, since I think they are very profitable (lots of fish). Not a good run, really lacked playable hands, interesting experience though, the game is very different.

Today (2:52 AM) is my birthday, so yeah, I was thinking of going on a hike, even if it's winter time, I really enjoy spending time in nature.
Then it's back on the grind.

First thing to do poker-wise is to post some interesting hands 4 review. Oh sh*t, just realised I had to reinstall HM, hope I still have them...

More to come tomorrow.

Daniel

Happy birthday and best of luck!

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose Party Poker for low-level SnGs? I mean, considering the tournament fees are relatively high (they are $2.70 + $0.30 compared to the standard $3 + $0.30) and there is no rakeback. Is the competition softer or do you really like the software?

Happy birthday.
Never give up and you will reach your goals/dreams.

Happy birthday !!

I love hiking, I used to go every Sunday with my dogs. Perfect activity. I was living in Brussels at that time and the forest is huge there. I was doing my regular routine with my dog Basil, when I realized that 3 hour passed and I kinda got lost. after 6.5 hour walk I ended up 16km in the forest and the help brigade came to rescue me.. ♦ was fun but scary too! Hope you have water/map with you

enjoy!

Originally posted by Melvin
By reading the blogtitle I had to think of this song:

I wish you all the best in your poker challenge and will try to read the blog from time to time! GL!

haha, beat me to it!! +1 on the good luck though

I play on Party too, and I'm on threes at the moment as well (no traffic at sixes/elevens + downswing).

If you fancy exchanging knowledge (I believe I know a few things that you'd benefit from) let me know.

You said the minimum BI at Party is 3. Not true, it's 1 and I think you should play like 30-40 tourneys there first to get used to the site.

Good luck,
Matt

Thank you all for all your good wishes, it means a lot to me! ♠_love:

@oblitron - I just had some cash over there (on party), took and saw a lot of beats on stars, party is PS tracked so i can get points again by playing there, maybe even reach gold from the first month, players' field is acceptable. So lots of reasons

@Ingrid - hahah you're the adventurous type! we are so similar, I also have two dogs at my country-side house, and today I took them along with me also, I knew they would enjoy the ride. A good friend and my bro/sister also joined me. We chose a path I knew though
And yeah I had cake, my gf made it, she waited for me at home with my parents to surprise me lol.

@Matt sure I'll add your skype. Yeah I meant the lowest I am willing to play, that have decent speed. The 1$ Turbos on Party are too fast 4 me.

The problem is, I have been having issues with HM2, keeps crashing when I open a table to play. On top of that, party software jammed frequently this night when I played.

Was down to the last two, HU, was shortstack, then skillz --> bigstack (13k to 3k), then party jammed , then needed to restart laptop --> placed 2nd.

So yeah it's pretty frustrating that I haven't been able to play today, I am looking to solve my HM2 issue, posted on their forumz. I can't wait to get it back so I can GRIIIIND ♠_biggrin:

My goal for the month is getting affected.

PS: When driving back home from the hike, it was already dark and on the narrow road I was on, out of nowhere appeared some fat guy running across the street RIGHT IN FRONT of my car, I was like 60km/h and this irresponsible fat dude is in front of my car, 1second from being hit extending his arm towards me in fear.
I saw him like 2 seconds before impact, so I use MAD REFLEXEZ to avoid him with one hand on the steering wheel, kept my cool swooshing by. I only realized what happened a minute later when my sister says from the back "Damn I would have ran right into him!"

Yeah, nice run
Daniel

Hey hey

Quick update. Started Push or Fold video series.

So yeah, HM2 is still down, support didn't reply. So I'm like NO! I'm still playing. Just that I can't play optimally 3-4 tables at once. Then my laptop starts constantly freezing again in the middle of me playing 1-2 tables during the whole session so I look at my frog and he's like

All this translates to me randomly losing SnG's. So whenever I bust due to being sucked out on or getting opponents with AA when I steal with good hands, I'm feeling kinda down and maybe I'm a bit tilty but then I think: "Was that the correct play?". My usual answer is "yep" so I'm like whatevz I'm winning long term and I'm not sad anymore.

So yeah getting beats or things that I can't control don't tilt me that much anymore, after 1/2 year of poker, the only things that tilt me nowadays is when I make a bad play. I can't control beats or suckouts. I can control how I play however. This realization was pretty important.

And yeah at least I shipped the last one, I realised that I'm pretty much a monster when I get to HU in a SnG, when the blinds are big. Even when I'm much shorter than my opponent.

Unfortunately I can't mark hands anymore (no HM2) so the learning phase is getting kinda sluggish. Blargh chenny didn't evaluate my hands from couple of days ago anywayz.

Also, I spent most of today enhancing my skillz in the other financial project I'm in, it really complements poker, it's very social skillz based, a passion of mine.

Being tracked by PS, I'm quickly getting to silver again. If the guy who is supposed to fix my laptop shows up within the next few days, and I get HM2 back on track, might as well go for

Daniel

God I'm so tilted right now. Guy to fix my laptop should show up these days so I'm not playing until then, theory only

Early / Mid Stages lessons

PreFlop: Play only premiums to avoid getting in marginal spots
- stop reraising AK, flat it
- play careful w/ QQ, no sense in getting into marginal spots
- you raise / reraise to Protect your made hands

Postflop - Keep Things Simple
Play StraightForward! The ICM model, you can bluff quite often in cashgames, not here. A chip lost is worth more than a chip won. Especially against the lower limit fish where you are getting called so often.
Go 4 Value
cBet vs one opponent
*Continue only with TPTK or better
*SMH - no slowplaying. Go for value, figure how much to bet each street to get all-in by the river
*You do not hesitate to go AI w/ a SMH (Like TPTK). Even if you get called by a better hand sometimes, it doesn't mean it's not +EV in the long run. Equilate his range vs yours and see if it was a good decision.
*be willing to give up if you missed the flop(like AK on 89Ts). It bleeds in the long run.
*cBet w/ a draw
vs more opponents;
*play straightforward, go 4 Broke w/ TPTK+
*play draws only on implieds
*set --> donk vs passive, ch/r when a bet is probable

MidStages <23BB
reads (notes/stats) are much more important
always consider fold equity -> is he/ r u committed?
bigger raises --> stronger hands / he doesn't want to play postflop (AQ+, JJ-88)
minraises from BU/SB r usually weak
steal looser vs recreational players / tighter vs regs
think even more carefully about your bluffs

Chenny (Getting started on SnG's) - Part 1
:spade:Don't loosen up to iso bad players (as you would in cash games)
:spade:Even if you are 5-8BB and blinds r about to hit u, consider how many players r behind you before you shove UTG (with any Ax for example)
:spade:When stealin if players left to act have <10BB, put them AI directly
:spade:Look 4 spots in lategame where u can push over limpers with decent hands, beware of your stacks

Part 2
On the bubble, bully people around as a big stack, be careful as a mid/short stack (refer to folding wars)
Be very risk averse on the bubble as a midstack vs the bigstack, even if it means folding AQo to a minraise
Only trap w/ QQ+
Don't hesitate to put pressure on (competent)opponents with similar stacks when BVB / BU stealing, even on the bubble. They will have a very narrow calling range, making it a good spot to steal

SnG Report
1.
- Avoid getting in marginal spots early game (like top pair, med kicker)
- Be willing (early game) to give up TPTK in a multiway pot on a drawy board
- you really want to avoid coinflips early on

A2o hand
T9s hand

Originally posted by M1rCea

steal looser vs recreational players / tighter vs regs

Don't loosen up to iso bad players (as you would in cash games.

I've got doubts about these two - perhaps we could get a small discussion going?

Stealing vs. recreational players in my opinion should rarely take place. They won't fold - simple as that. Raise primarily for value.

Vs Tight players (not all tight players are regs!), on the other hand, in spots like BvB First In, we should be stealing any two - they will rarely get involved and even if they call (they will likely do it with pockets and hands like AT-AQ, KQ, QJ) we can take it down on some dry flops.

Vs Good Regs, obviously, we need to be cautious, because they will realize what we are doing. Against these opponents we will need to look at history before making decisions. Here also we should try and broaden our repertoire and try limp/stabbing (this works surprisingly well against most 'decent' regs on the $3,$6 and even $11 BI levels!).

Isolating vs. bad players can be profitable sometimes in my opinion. I'm not too sure about that, though, as this is a relatively new area in my game. But I would raise a hand like K9s on the BU vs. one limper during the early stage. Would you?

All these are my opinions so I'd like to see what you think!

Hey Daniel, I'll be following this blog. It's well written and you have clearly articulated goals.

Best of luck with everything.

thanks guys, will come back to edit my reply. going to my gf's house right now

some reminders on what i want to cover further
- determining winrates
- winning/losing short term influencing mood debate + solution
- good beats vs bad beats vs negativity

Cya soon
D.