[Closed] Timors road to poker stardom ;)

Oh yeah, and I'm thinking of taking up Omaha regulary. Any thoughts on that, or should I further improve my NL game?

Hi Timor83!

Nice to hear that you are back on track again! I strongly recommend that you post some of your hands in our sample hands board so that you keep improving your game.
Concering the hand you played: Raise on the flop. There are straight draws and flushdraws possible and 3 opponents still in the hand. Although you have the nuts there is no need to slowplay because you are getting paid off anyway.

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

Well, I know that a raise on the flop would be the standard kind of play, and 9 out of 10 times I'd follow the standard play. But in this particular case, I didn't want to scare off the likely overpair from CO. His stats indicated he was very aggressive on the flop so I wanted to give him a chance to raise me out of the pot, which he did. It turned out CO had AA and UTG had an underset, ideal conditions for top set

And the upswing continued today:

- Played 3 11$ sng's, finished 2nd once.
- Played my first 22$ sng, finished 5th
- played 1200 hands at 0.25/0.5, with an average of 17BB/100 hands

I understand it's difficult not to get too excited and all that, but this is going almost too well ♦

Well done, Timor83!

But I don't want you to finish 2nd or 5th I want you to win! ♦

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

Hehe, I do want to win, but the cards aren't always cooperating with me in the very late stages of the game it seems. I think there are still some leaks in my game for this part of the game, so I'm looking forward to the new tournament strategy section on PS within a few weeks

Update:

I was rather unlucky the last 2 days in my cash game. Actually, unlucky is a eufemism because I was down 500$ in 2 days. However, I managed to finish 2nd today in a PartyPoker 6$ tourney, which made up for all my losses and even added a nice profit. This player is happy again. Nightynight

Congratulations Timor83!

Well done. Hope you are moving up again.

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

After cashing a bit of my bankroll out (needed the money), I managed to finish 7th in a 22$ and won a bit in cash games, which build up my bankroll to 2000$ again. I should've finished a lot higher though, because I was in the chiplead and splashed all my chips in about 4 or 5 hands, 2 of them with particulary bad play. A shortstack pushes all in UTG and I have AK, so I reraise. Player behind me instacalls, putting 1/3 of his stack in. I really should've known he had a premium pair there, but nonetheless I contibetted on a very dry flop and off course the guy reraises all in, which I'm compelled to call because of the pot odds. He shows QQ and his hand holds up. Very stupid indeed, and instead of winning at least the 500$ would've probably made with 3 place, I get busted out a few hands later with TPGK on a very drawy flop when Villain gets his straight on the river. at myself

good to see some other belgians doing well
keep it up

Decided today, since I reached the proper bankroll, to give NL100 a shot. So far I'm showing a slight profit, and it doesn't seem all that different from NL50 regarding the level of play.
Ordered No-Limit Hold'em: Theory and practice from Sklansky and Professional No-Limit Hold 'em by Matt Flynn on Amazon last week, and can't wait to get my hands on them ♦

New goals:
- reach NL200 by the end of the year
- further improve my tournament game in order to win a significant prize again

Well, I guess I'll have to set myself for a bit more ambitious goals, because I reached NL200 today. Play seems a little bit more difficult though, there are more skilled players. Hope i can make it through...

Btw, I've read "Professional No-Limit Hold'em". Is anyone here familiar with the SPR theory in practice? Because it seems to me that some plays in terms of that SPR seem very strange to me (limping with queens, minraising, etc...). It seemed a little bit confusing and in contradiction with everything I've learned so far

Hi Timor83!

Congratulations for reaching NL200! Concerning the SPR strategy: I've heared from it. It might be a good strategy to vary your game, but I doubt that it is a better strategy than the strategies you have learned so far I think I have to read the book first to be able to judge it.

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

Well, there isn't an SPR "strategy", it's just something which exists whether you think about it or not so it's better to be aware of it and sometimes play to manipulate it. The stranger plays in the book are obviously not to be applied blindly, they're for specific table conditions, like most examples.

Yes, but that SPR can't always be reached. It says to aim for that specific SPR, but how can you know how many callers you will get? It seems to me that's the flaw. You can aim for a SPR of about 7 with your QQ, but if you've raised too much, you've chased everyone away. If you raise too little or limp, you may cause a cascade of limpers, in which case you've reached a SPR of probably above 20, but your Queens play terrible against so many opponents.
Sure, the hand plays itself once you've reached your SPR-goal, but you're giving up a lot of other advantages, like not giving someone the right price for a call or raise pre-flop, chasing away opponents or on the contrary, inviting too many, or maneuvring yourself in a position we're you're as good as committed to the pot, although you know you are beat, or denying your opponents to give you information about the strength of their hand. Off course you should always keep the SPR in mind when making decisions, but pre-flop, I think it's a bad idea to adjust your standard pre-flop play to the SPR's at the table.
But perhaps I'm misunderstanding the whole thing, so feel free to point out the errors in my text above

Things aren't running very smoothly at NL200, although I'm still showing a slight profit (0.21 PTBB/100 hands after 9k hands :/). Not really motivating: sometimes I see my winrate rise spectacularly, only to lose all of it the day after. I'm really jojo-ing at the moment, and it's affecting my morale, although just slightly.

A few minutes ago, I watched the sickest hand I've EVER played, together with the biggest pot I've ever played.

Known players: (for a description of vp$ip, pfr, ats, folded bb, af, wts, wsd or hands click here)       
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/pfr/af/wts/ats/foldbb/w$sd;UTG$258.85:251/36/5/0.2/30/24/11/52;CO$232:315/6/2/0.2/17/26/3/80;Hero$327.90:///////;[/tg]
1/2 No-Limit Hold'em (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Texas Grabem 1.7 by www.pokerstrategy.cc.

Preflop: Hero is UTG+2 with Q♠, Q♦. MP1 posts a blind of $2.00.
UTG raises to $4.00, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $12.00, 3 folds, CO calls $12.00, 3 folds, UTG calls $8.00.

Flop: ($41.00) A♣, Q♣, 4♥ (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $25, CO calls $25.00, UTG raises to $70.00, Hero calls $45.00, CO raises to $220.00 (All-In), UTG raises to $246.85 (All-In), Hero calls $176.85.

Turn: ($754.70) J♣
River: ($754.70) K♣

Final Pot: $754.70

radicalidiot shows [ Qh, Ad ]two pairs, Aces and Queens.
Timor83 shows [ Qs, Qd ]three of a kind, Queens.
BreakMeAgain shows [ 4c, 4d ]a flush, Ace high.
Timor83 wins $53.70 USD from side pot #1 with three of a kind, Queens.
BreakMeAgain wins $698 USD from the main pot with a flush, Ace high.

On the other hand, I would've tilted so hard when I had experienced this 3 months ago, now I just moved on to the next hand (and won it, btw ♦). So I guess that shows that I'm approaching the game with a healthy attitude. Still, I don't want anymore of these bad beats, thank you very much mr. Pokergod ♦

perfect play, big stack for you, shouldnt you cash out when you have so much?

I'm not sure what you mean, but if you're referring to my stack size: I usually don't cash out because of situations like this. If I had won this pot, I would've stacked both UTG and CO, meaning a 90$ profit compared to when I would've had just 200$.

Well played, Timor83!

But Lady Luck didn't like you in that moment. The fact that you just go on and don't tilt is indeed a good sign that you are on the right track.

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81