A Woman Swimming With The Sharks!!!

Nice.... Seems like Chess and Poker are really interwind... Actually in Slovenia word has it a lot of the best chess players took up poker as they make more money by it, and as a result our national team isn't as strong anymore haha (we were never really good, but ok i guess).

But it seems all the GM's, which i assume you are, are making very good money by poker, so if you work hard you'll definetly achieve that as well

Glgl!

Thank you, Skodljivec

Actually, I heard it as well, that Slovenian GM's play poker, so maybe it is true. I know the guys from over the chessboard but unfortunately never talked to them. Need to ask them one day. But I heard they play HU?

Well, I am not a full GM, just WGM, easier to achieve women-friendly title

And yes, its easier to make a living playing poker than chess. But chess is much more socially accepted (obv.) although I believe both these games could fit in the same category as mind sports... maybe one day

btw doesnt your username means something like sb. who makes harm?

gl!

Lol i taught it would actually be youtube video of woman swimming with sharks

gl with blog and crush some sharks

Wow, it's the famous tv personality Zuzana in blogs, welcome! ♠_love:

I think you'll find a few kindred spirits here that play both poker and chess, it does seem to be a popular combination - erm, not in my case he added hastily!

I'll keep an eye on this one I think it may just turn out to be worth it.

Good luck and have fun!

Mal.

Originally posted by wotsss
Thank you, Skodljivec

Actually, I heard it as well, that Slovenian GM's play poker, so maybe it is true. I know the guys from over the chessboard but unfortunately never talked to them. Need to ask them one day. But I heard they play HU?

Well, I am not a full GM, just WGM, easier to achieve women-friendly title

And yes, its easier to make a living playing poker than chess. But chess is much more socially accepted (obv.) although I believe both these games could fit in the same category as mind sports... maybe one day

btw doesnt your username means something like sb. who makes harm?

gl!

Yeah my username is weird... It's for the annoying bugs that hurt crops etc haha. But it was the title of a song i was listening when i made my PS account, when i was still a nl10 player ♦

But yeah, they play HU mostly, but i assume they had to play some 6max. I don't know the personaly either, more a friend of a friend type of thing.

Well WGM is great obviously haha, you are still better than 99,99% of players ♦. I was a lowly 1900 rated player in my prime, but then i saw that there was just too much work to really achieve enough in chess, so i can really respect players that are at your level. I mean i have friends that play chess for the last 20 years every day and can't brake the 2200 ratings :(. That's why i also decided to not play chess regularly anymore and focus more on poker. Still i started quite late, at 16y to play chess, so maybe if i started earlier i'd be a better player now haha. ENOUGH ABOUT ME THO ♦

From my personal experience, if i had the same passion for poker as i did for chess, i'd be playing high stakes regularly for a few years now, it's that much harder to succeed in chess. So if you are a wgm in chess, you should crush the midstakes easily by putting half of that work into it. You just have to find to love the game

So glgl, and keep us posted!

good luck, in which episodes u did played? ♦

Welcome Zuzana!
Finally female poker pro starting a blog here.

Look forward to the updates and congratulations on all the achievements so far!

So far just one short ssn today, trying out the shark infested waters of Zoom nl100 on Stars... there are some curious people out there

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $99 (99 bb)
BB: $148.87 (148.9 bb)
Hero (UTG): $117.16 (117.2 bb)
MP: $26.08 (26.1 bb)
CO: $101 (101 bb)
BTN: $102 (102 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J T
Hero raises to $3, 3 folds, SB raises to $10, BB folds, Hero calls $7

Flop: ($21) Q 4 T (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($21) T (2 players)
SB bets $10, Hero raises to $30, SB calls $20

River: ($81) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $25, SB calls $25

Results:

@PmagicLchocoOballs:
lol maybe some other time ♦ I believe there actually was a poker player who jumped into a shark pool as a prop bet for $1k, not sure what was his name...

@Skodljivec:
yes, its quite tough to move up in chess... 1900+ is solid, its about where you need to put some serious work into learning your openings otherwise you wont ever get a good position to begin with and its an uphill struggle. There were some changes in rating koeficient recently, making it easier to gain rating points at the beginning and also there is currently insanely lot of information on chess out there, so maybe its easier to get better at chess nowadays but on the other hand you need to keep working on your game or the others will catch up quickly... basically you need to commit your whole life to the game and its questionable whether its worth it afterall... so it does not surprise me that you quit. I dont understand why poker is less fun for you though, at least you dont start with the same position over and over again!

@MaxLange:
I believe it will be the 5th episode, so far only the first one was on air, the 2nd will be on air tomorrow but dont expect too much of serious poker, the show is aimed at casual audience, so its weighted more towards fun and showing personalities... it was a freerol so everybody was just enjoying themselves, no serious poker faces etc!!! Amazing experience really... the twist was that if you get bluffed or get caught bluffing (edit: on the river only) you would spend an entire orbit (it was sng with antes from beginning) in a cage

thanks for your support guys!!!!

Do you regret not getting the (open/unigender) FIDE Master title [which is equivalent to WGM rating-wise, i.e. 2300+, but more prestigious, as norms have to be earned in tourneys with men's participation]?

Have you ever met Alisa Melekhina :f_love:, Jennifer Shahade, Hou Yifan, either of the Polgar sisters or any other female chess superstar? Have you ever played poker with Jen or her husband Greg (aka 'curtains')?

Do you think Caruana will be rated higher than Carlsen 'in the long run'?

GL with the ugly card game! (I wish there was more money in chess, hopefully Millionaire Chess sparks more public interest in the greatest game ever.)

Hi,

yeah my problem was i loved openings and never studied the endgames cause i found them boring... I always got ahead in the main openings tho haha, was ahead in the midgame, but if it was a 50/50 at the end i'd straight up loose ♦

And i dunno why, but chess has a mystical feel that poker doesn't.

Well enough about chess, let's keep this for poker haha

Nh

@Tony

I remember when i played a tourney in Trieste and Caruana was there, a 12 year old kid people said might be "good one day"... ♦

Originally posted by Skodljivec
Hi,

yeah my problem was i loved openings and never studied the endgames cause i found them boring...

I think you realise that you'd have to love the endgame to get anywhere in professional chess... the endgame has its own magic - recall e.g. Reti's and Sarychev brothers' studies :f_love:... (I don't like it myself, shame on me, but it means that I know what to blame myself for.)

Originally posted by Skodljivec
@Tony

I remember when i played a tourney in Trieste and Caruana was there, a 12 year old kid people said might be "good one day"... ♦
Yeah, the world is small, almost everyone has once met someone who'd become famous...

I went to the same high school in a Moscow suburb as a super(ish) model Sasha Pivovarova, was once offered the role of the king in the 'Snow White' school play where she was playing Snow White; I chickened out, then reapplied to play the main dwarf, so I was responsible for 'resuscitation' of a future world class model. No, I've never liked her appearance

@Skodljivec:

haha that sounds so much like me actually :facepalm:, I cant stand endings at all! I have played countless games where I messed up in the endgame, either did not realise my advantage or even loose! I messed up so many games.... but still, I just cant force myself to study the ending part of the game ... I guess I just dont love chess enough

@tonypmm:

Sorry but I think you have wrong info. FM is definitely worth much less than WGM! Actually FM and WIM are pretty close, but WGM... nope. The only requirement for FM is to have the rating of 2300 at some point. You dont need to achieve any norms for that. But for WGM you need 3 norms with perfo 2400 at least. And WIM requires perfo of 2250 so thats the title which is close to FM really.

If you meant IM, thats 2400+ rating and 2450+ perfo for that, I actually have 2 IM norms but missed my last one because I messed up one game where draw was enough for me... but anyway I am far from 2400 rating anyways.

I know of Alisa but think I never met her, I have played in 3 Olympiads representing SVK, so I know the players you mentioned, I have seen them playing... but I never played against them myself, only against Kosteniuk a few rapid games (I made one draw in a winning endgame ♦ ) and then made draw e.g. vs GM Cmilyte and GM Dzagnidze at the 2012 Olympiad, drew also against world GU20 champ. Cori and had a couple of other results, beat few GMs (variance ), played next to the legendary GM Korchnoi in Gibraltar open etc etc, would be a long story.

I remember Caruana from a long time ago, he used to play Mitropa cups for Italy, he always seemed very promising. I think he has the potential to be eventually even higher ranked than Carlsen, it would definitely be an interesting match for WCH.

And its not an ugly card game, the enjoyment I get from playing and figuring things out is very much comparable to enjoyment I get from chess, when I make a nice combination etc... thinking about it for days

e.g. after playing this hand I had such a warm feeling in my heart for several days and also a good laugh every time I thought about it...

Party, $5/$10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 3 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

Hero (SB): $1,038.50 (103.9 bb)
BB: $1,000 (100 bb)
BTN: $1,105 (110.5 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A J
BTN raises to $24, Hero calls $19, BB folds

Flop: ($58) 7 J 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $29.12, Hero raises to $100, BTN calls $70.88

Turn: ($258) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $70, Hero raises to $300, BTN calls $230

River: ($858) A (2 players)
Hero bets $614.50 and is all-in, BTN calls $614.50

Results:

btw it was against a very good reg but obv I am just a troll at nl1k, trolling there when I am in the wannabe mood

gl and gn all!

Teaching my 1 year old to walk Its actually physically challenging... and sometimes even mentally

I wish I had access to Channel 4.... the lucky ones that you have, dont miss the 2nd episode of Shark Cage tonight!
Lineup: Faraz Jaka, Theo Jorgensen, Philipp Gruissem, Scotty Nguyen and Jennifer Tilly + online qualifier

Please don't troll at NL1K, troll a bit on forums instead, it's much cheaper

Originally posted by wotsss
@tonypmm:

Sorry but I think you have wrong info. FM is definitely worth much less than WGM! Actually FM and WIM are pretty close, but WGM... nope. The only requirement for FM is to have the rating of 2300 at some point. You dont need to achieve any norms for that. But for WGM you need 3 norms with perfo 2400 at least. And WIM requires perfo of 2250 so thats the title which is close to FM really.

Oops, sorry, I wasn't thinking clearly then, forgot that FM doesn't require any norms and that all WGMs are automatically FMs too. Thanks for telling us about your IM norms, this has answered possible questions before they even occurred.

However, I'd still say that WGM is farther from IM than FM from WGM. Imagine two titles: a 'Zoom winner' is someone who has won pre-rakeback in Zoom NL500 over some 200K-hand sample (maybe not the last 200K hands); a 'Zoom crusher' is someone who 1) is a 'Zoom winner', 2) has won >=5 BIs in Zoom NL500 within an hour on three occasions. Clearly, anyone with a slightly positive winrate will become a 'Zoom crusher' sooner or later by just grinding it out.

The same applies to the WGM title - if a woman actually improves to a 2400 strength, she'll get the norms way faster, but just grinding tourneys as a 2300 strength player will still net the norms within several years because 'hot' (1.5 points above EV in a 9-round tourney) runs (blunders of stronger opponents, sudden tactics) do happen.

Originally posted by tonypmm
Please don't troll at NL1K, troll a bit on forums instead, it's much cheaper

I am trying but sometimes I just cant resist the temptation but dont worry, I have a stoploss ... at least most of the days

I definitely agree that WGM is closer to FM and that if you are a 2300 rated player and play enough international tournaments against titled players the variance will get you there ... thats basically what happened to me to be honest, but who cares ♦

Had a good time playing today, played 1k+ hands :f_love:, which is a very nice volume for me.

I am seriously thinking about hiring a babysitter for 3hrs / day so that I could have a decent and stable volume, but finding one is not easy...

The overall good feeling from the sessions would be better if this hand did not happen, but its not a big deal afterall, I am still happy (for getting a chance to play today)

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $105.71 (105.7 bb)
BB: $182.82 (182.8 bb)
UTG: $110.49 (110.5 bb)
MP: $100 (100 bb)
CO: $100 (100 bb)
Hero (BTN): $247.85 (247.9 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with Q Q
UTG folds, MP raises to $3, CO folds, Hero calls $3, SB folds, BB calls $2

Flop: ($9.50) 4 T Q (3 players)
BB checks, MP checks, Hero bets $7, BB raises to $19, MP folds, Hero raises to $50, BB raises to $179.82 and is all-in, Hero calls $129.82

Turn: ($369.14) K (2 players, 1 is all-in)
River: ($369.14) 8 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results:

It looks like tomorrow I will have a break from poker :f_frown:, my 1 year old has a scheduled checkup and besides looking after her I plan to cook, do other chores and probably also go buy a new grinding table ... I guess in the evening I will be too tired to play, although I am hoping to play for 1 hour when my daughter falls asleep...

Hello everybody!

Last month was a success
I had a small volume of 10k hands, but for one week I didn't play at all because I went to play and win the national women's chess championship At the same time it was a nice holiday in High Tatras

So I guess the volume is acceptable afterall. However, I had a really great run, so I am satisfied with the results!
I played on several sites and various limits, e.g. the stretches of str8 line is nl100 Zoom and the big drop in the middle is my awful bluff at nl1k

My little daughter is learning to walk so we had to buy her shoes. It was a really difficult, almost impossible task to find shoes of the size 17! After going to many shops we finally found a place where they had the very last pair, so we had to make the call.

I was happy that we got the shoes finally, but at the same time felt a bit exploited having to pay 23,5 euro for it. Hopefully she can wear them at least for one month before she needs bigger ones...

Have a great weekend guys, gl, gl!