[Closed] Dendra's Mind Thoughtulations

antonin - cant say i played well all the time but yes, im not worried because as long as the money mostly goes in while im in the lead, im happy with losing my money as for scary cards, it seems to be one of the first "bigger" problems we all have to overcome hehe ♦

my hunger for multitabling certainly doesnt help solving it in my case - but i'm trying now to focus more on such situations, though thats hard when all of a sudden titan software sends me an "alarm message" - you have just folded AA, and I'm like...what, where, when? wtf!?!?

hehe arisko - at the moment I'm in a somewhat "grinding mode" - aka I wish to generate max rake to clean my 1st deposit bonus asap and in general I can beat this limit with the current number of tables. However, my profit would be more stable and better if I played less tables, like 12.

As for table selection - basically I rarely find myself in a situation where I want to leave a table - on Titan Poker you cant have table selection, you've got 15-20 FR tables and that's it (during the day for Europeans). In general I like short stackers because it's so easy to see if a guy is an sss nit or some donkey short stacker, etc. and I can scare him away in several ways while losing not that much money if he beats me

-basically short stackers can be scared away in two ways - either you donkbet their entire stack size (I usually do that if my regular bet+pot size together would be roughly the same as short stackers stack size - then I rather put him all-in and make it a tougher decision for him)

the second way to scare a short stacker is to bet small - let's say NL10 - if he has $2, you raise 4BB, he calls and now has $1.60. Here you can bet $0.40 on the flop and he wont call you if he missed because he is a short stacker, afraid for every little cent he's got.

-the only thing you gotta do is recognize what type of short stacker are you playing against, a guy who plays his cards, or a guy who will shove any2 if you check to him.

As for hand posting - yes, I'll have to post and I'd like to but there are 2 problems, a) I'm not sure how to "mark" a hand during a session so that I can copy it afterwards, when I play 5k+ hands per session it's pain in a*** to try and find interesting hands after the session

-for this I guess I need some program, my trial pt3 expired, not sure how HEM works, didnt like it at all when I downloaded it just to see how it looks

b) To post hands here I'd need to go find the guide on how to do it and I'm laaaaazy but ok, if I solve problem a), this one won't be that much of a trouble

Basically the reason why I'd like to post some hands is because there are different lines I've learned on my own so far which seem to work, and lots of hands which are based on notes or some sort of logic, like let's say Q4o calling 3 barrels on 3d6d4h+8d+3h board. (3way pot with me €20-ish, 2nd guy irrelevant since he folded on flop or even preflop, not sure, and the aggressor had €10-ish stack)

One important thing about hands and the way they are played etc. - it depends quite a bit on the platform, for example titan poker is donkament festival compared to pokerstars On titan I find myself shoving with K3o+K top pair, and on PokerStars I fold AK+K easy mode so often - on titan I fold such top pair once in a life time since ppl shove 2nd pair, bottom pair, weak top pair - their hand range is so wide...opposed to pokerstars where ppl usually have 2pair, set and such

-I'm comparing nl10 stars with nl20 titan btw - since I never got to nl25-ish on stars. Anyway...gotta go now, take care and good luck at the tables

P.S. You're totally right about table selection, and everything really counts in poker, including number of tables, because you want to maximize your profit. However, I'm a stubborn donkey who wont care about such things until I feel like I need to start paying attention to table selection and such in order to increase my profit or something

Day 5 - 6: -$10 (overall -$84)

Basically I had some stuff to do+catch a train for hometown so I didnt really play a regular session on Day 5, just Day 6

On Day 5 I played a quick session for like half an hour and lost like $45 and then Day 6 came. It went something like this: -$30, +$30,-$55,+$50,-$50,$+$45 and then after losing some tiny pots I ended the day up by roughly $40, in other words down by -$10 more than I started Day 5 with.

I count these days together since that's how my day/night schedule looked like, all weird and connected I thought it was going to be another horrible day for me, kept losing pots to miracles and it's so annoying when you know you should be up and you're down like 2-3stacks.

However, it seems that one of the longest/worst streaks of misfortune is over. It's always like that, you're making profit and you think you're crushing the limit, killing the game, owning everything that sits and has 2 cards in its hands, but when Lady Luck strikes you...after some time it simply gets to you and you start to wonder will you win money in poker or always lose it all in a few days despite building up that bankroll for like month(s).

I'm hoping for a nice session today and that's pretty much how I came to the tables every day, I didn't expect bad luck to own me again, I was optimistic and felt like it was going to be a good day and I guess now I might even have a good day after a while hehe ♦ There is no reason to fear bad luck, if you play your game dont let it tilt you and change your game - like omg, I gotta fold aces here, he'll beat me again with some crap any2 hand.

On the topic of aces...you know when a donk takes a seat at your table and constantly raises, plays dumb,etc. and you wait for a decent hand to collect the free money? Well I was lucky enough to get pocket rockets against the guy and would you believe it - first time he hit a straight with K6s, next time he had something like J6o and hit trip sixes on river, facepalm

Losing rockets twice to a donk was almost more amusing than annoying, it was just so damn funny - anyway, I'll be back to the tables in the evening and will see how it goes.

P.S. Later in February I might buy pt3 micro stakes version so then I'll be able to see how many hands I've played etc.

Day 7: +84 (overall +$0)

Quite funny results on Day 7 - I received +$80 from my 1st deposit bonus and earned another $4, seems I simply had to end the day just by coming back to square one, aka zero losses/winnings.

I didn't have much time to play sadly, only for an hour or so. Since I played later in evening I didn't even have that much action, like only 4 nl20 tables and maybe 2-4 nl10. Session was boring as hell naturally Like +$15, -$10, +$4, gg I'm out

Only fun hand was a guy raising in CO to 4x BB, BU 3bet him and I check his note, see he likes to blind steal often so I figure 4betting him. Worked fine and brought me a satisfied grin hehe

Btw, I finally figured out the iron man challenge thing - well "figure out" in translation means I found the will to browse titan website and read the info

So I'm out of the $2.5k prize race, but I'm still in for $1k. I need to collect only 450pts per day to stay in it so I guess I should stay in there for a while

Hmm yeah, by the way, since I'm home now, I'm stuck with my 17'' monitor or my laptop monitor, so either way it sux compared to my 22'' monitor in Zagreb. I'll be home until Tuesday/Wednesday and then it's back to solo mode, grinding ftw - so I might play less these few days, will see how it goes Can't say I'm pleased with the "challenge" thus far but at the same time I'm glad I didnt hit a rock in the middle of the challenge, but in the very beginning.

I think Lady Luck has run out of bullets, so while she goes recharge her revolver to shoot down my pocket rockets and what not, I'll try to sneak in some profitable sessions

Hey Dendra,

I really enjoyed reading your blog (especially the early stage). I managed to catch up quite some good advices from your micro stakes Poker Stars days, which is always good, especially considering I'm like the opposite kind of player compared to you (I like doing A LOT of research, reading and stuff before making a big decision about pretty much anything, while you stay on the trial-error side), but to be hones this morning I realized that I actually make more profit when I play more tables!

Can you believe that?

I think I should start with the fact that 31st of December I was introduced to the game of Texas Holdem, especially the possibility to turn my 60% to 70% win rate at EVERY multiplayer game I decided to get serious with, into money ♦

So January I start playing, 1st week made my $50 bankroll into $25, get pissed, a week later I pick up again, go up top $90, feel invincible, then bad beats + bad mistakes caused by the bad beats and back to 50 (talking about 4NL bss all the time, lowest stakes in cake poker).

I can rant forever about how happy I was when I was on a $70 win streak and how depressed I felt when I lost almost all of it, but that deserves a blog on it's own, I think I shouldn't have posted even those bits of info here

Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that playing more tables actually helps you win more money in micro stakes! That can add to the list of good advices you have, but u can't really give it because u always played a lot of tables

So to reason myself - I started playing 2-3 tables max, thinking poker is scary, or I'm risking a lot of my bankroll if I play more, or that I don't learn as much if I play more. Total bullshit!
Playing 2-3 tables generates so little action, that even when you WANT to play your game, you get distracted and start loosening up, because it's BORING. Playing ABC poker at those micro stakes is more than enough to win, and by playing more tables, a player is kind of forced to play ABC which is good in 2 ways:
1) you win more and that makes you happy no matter what ppl say ;P
2) you learn ABC poker better, which gives you the solid ground you need to take off in bigger stake games, so you can actually incorporate complicated moves as you go, and not do them in stupid situations

Also when you play more tables, loosing a BI here and there doesn't scare you off, because you know you're playing a lot of hands and eventually it'll come back, or your stoploss will trigger and you'll rest and rethink the situations ^^, while if you play 2 tables and loose a BI you feel extremely bad. Might be just me, but I think this is a good thing to share with the rest of the community and the newer players that might be reading your blog

I just recently moved from 3 tabling to 6 tabling and I already feel the difference. I even feel I can easily handle at least 2-3 more tables, but here is the main question I have for you:

How exactly do you play more tables? I read in your blog that you used to play 24 on PS and still play 16ish even on higher stakes with buggy soft. How do you do that?

I have a 22" widescreen (1680x1050 resolution) monitor and I BARELY get 6 tables at smallest size there, last 4 even overlap!
I have a 2nd monitor, but it's kinda distracting for me to look at it, so I can't really put tables there (mb I can get used to it, I don't know), so any advice on how to comfortably increase my table number (I'm also coming from games like StarCraft and stuff, so multitasking doesn't seem to be the issue for now) will be greatly appreciated!

I wrote an extremely big msg, and as I read it I see that its pretty much focused entirely on me which is such a bad ting to do for someone else's blog :(, but I like wanted to comment and get in the discussion that you started with the blog and it just ended up that way

Sorry again for that!

P.S. your friend's band sounds great! Do you have any of his records? I would really like to hear some of their other songs // buy their album if they have one // get link if they uploaded their songs somewhere!

Hehe np for the long post, I dont mind - this blog is here anyway to help me track my poker road as well as potentially help someone else on his poker road

And on that second point, your post fits in perfectly You summarized pretty much all the good points of multitabling as opposed to playing 2-4 tables. Basically, multitabling is bad until you've got a clear picture on how you want to play on xxx limit.

Once you adjust your ABC poker mode settings to the limit, you can start adding tables, as there are many reasons why multitabling is good - as you listed them yourself

As for multitabling and how I do it? My screen res is 1200(something)x800 or whatever, I'm not in zagreb now so cant remember the exact details However, I played on 1024x768 back in my stars days and I generally like to tile my tables. I tested both cascade and tile and here are the differences (for me):

Cascade tables - I can rarely focus on specific tables&situations in this mode, only thing nice is that the tables can be quite big in case you like it that way

What I did in this mode is usually drag one or more "important" tables to an empty corner of my screen. Once the action is over, I return the table(s) back to the cascade with the other tables.

Tile tables - You can generally tile your tables so that they overlap but you still see your hand on every table- this depends on the resolution, think for me it was 9 max that I could fit in so that my right/left row covered 1/3 of the middle tables and then the middle tables had that 1/3 of the middle part open and visible - and since my pref.seat was set to the bottom middle, I could see all of my hands without a problem.

Once you start playing 12-24tables, tile tables works great because you can more easily access several important tables. Basically what I did here is to keep some important table on top always - aka I do my action there, some other tables start to overlap it, so I simply always click again on that important table so that it always stays on top

- in short: click Table A, Table B pops up, click there, Table C pops up, click there, now my Table A is barely visible in that section of my screen, so I click on it again to get it back to the top.

Another way to keep track of important action is to memorize the location of that table on your screen, so if you want to check how it's going, you simply minimize some tables that are over it until you find it

When playing mulitple tables, the system never really fills up your screen with tables when you start playing like 12+ I mean it leaves room for let's say 1more table to fit in in the bottom row...however, when you add that table, it suddenly re-organizes tables so that once again you got free slot in your bottom row.

Due to this, I usually liked to manually resize+add last table to that last free slot in the corner of my screen if I knew that was the last table I wanted to add, or could add

Those bottom corner slots are also useful for adding some "unique" tables - aka on micro limits you might encounter some tables that have tougher opponents or simply crazy guys you wish to exploit the best you can - such tables I also sometimes put in the bottom row - why? because no other table can completely cover my bottom row, I can always easily click on those tables if I wanted to check the action, as opposed to some table in the middle which is not "one click-away from your view".

-one more note on multitabling on stars...the software won't tile the tables always because for some reason it bugs out and cant find a logical way to tile them - aka you got 13 tables and click tile..nothing happens, you add 1-2more tables and poof, tile tables works again So depending on your resolution you will learn on your own when the software can and cant tile your tables, for me it was around 11 I think on 1024x768

How do I multitable on Titan Poker? Because the software is...as it is...it is virtually impossible for me to tile tables and keep track of action on all of them, I'd time out sooo often - because I simply wouldnt notice it's my turn to act somewhere.

Another problem is that software lags like hell if you decide to switch from tile table to cascade, or simply tile your tables several times during the session - each time you do something like this, be prepared to be immobilized from making any action at the tables for like a minute - I never timed it but the results would be catastrophic probably, so never tile tables there unless you want to lose some extra nerves

So how do I play there - I use stack tables layout - basically I put 4tables on tile - I manually arrange them on my screen unless the software does. And then I simply put next tables on top of those. Titan Software does it on its own actually, depending on your resolution sometimes you dont even have to do a thing - for example on 1024x768 4tables fit in perfectly and I never have to do anything to adjust them.

This way it's easier for my eyes to notice action on that software but naturally, there are bad sides to this type of play - since software is so nice, you will have to drop the habit of minimizing some table to follow the action on the table below it - why? Because if accidentally you happen to minimize a table that just pops up at the exact moment you wish to minimize the current one...your chances of finding that table again are slim and you most likely will time out on it.

Another problem is that with stacked tables you depend on the system popping up the table where you must act - however, the system sometimes likes to randomly start folding madness across your tables and you will find yourself timing out on 10 tables for no reason. Yes, it's hard and annoying and costs money - if you think you can handle it, the bonuses on Titan are great, but if you wish to learn poker - dodge titan and play somewhere where the software is not working against you

The system is also chaotic as sometimes I want to fold or call on one table and system suddenly brings up another table and I accidentally click there - folded aces, donkcalls of someone's entire deep stack shove with 63o...yes, it all awaits for you

In general, stacked tables are ftw on Titan Poker because of the layout problems but as I said, you gotta be extra careful not to do unnecessary clicks anywhere, because they can easily make the system skip a table you have pending action on and yeah, pretty much always be careful when minimizing a table - it can be painful when you have a top set somewhere, raise, wait for the guy's reaction and another table pops up, you make your move, want to close that table but your table with the set pops up and you accidentally minimize it instead - then you try to find that table asap, only to time out on 13 other tables and eventually on that one as well

So to summarize, tile tables is ftw when multitabling, you dont need to see the entire table the entire time - your focus is on ABC poker, you dont need to watch what others do, did they think for 10seconds or 20, etc., you just play your game and that is enough - pretty much like in StarCraft, you cant watch your army move across the map...while it's doing that, you gotta go to your main base and do other stuff, you cant ever focus on one thing too much, because other parts of your game will suffer

If you got some interesting action, as I said, you can keep the table on top and follow action there, etc. In general, the only thing you're interested in is what did he call you with, such things...you shouldnt care that much about the result of the pot - because it's about decision making, the ending result (lost/won pot) doesnt make your call better or worse, that's why in multitabling you should always focus on the current action, once you make your decision - move to the next table!

It can be hard making notes while multitabling, because other tables keep popping up, but it's doable So you just need to organize your tables so that you can keep track of things you find important to adjusting your game, watching the entire table the entire time is rarely necessary - especially on the micro limits

P.S. Here is the official site of my friend's band - http://www.wecomeone.org/ You can download their albums under Discography

Ok I'm out for now, if I missed out on anything or have to write some more - feel free to tell me Btw big posts are no enemy in here, so feel free to write whatever you like as much as you like

Day 8: +$8 (overall +$8)

Some donk once said "I think Lady Luck has run out of bullets" - well now it's confirmed, she never, never runs out of ammo, she's lurking around every corner, waiting to tilt you ♠_o:

Anyway...just +$8 today, yes it might look pathetic and ok..it is...but as you're probably guessing by now, my day didnt go like this > sit down at the tables, blind steal until I'm up +$8 and then leave the tables.

My day naturally went in the complete opposite manner - lose €120...and grind back up to where I started the day...Basically today I played best poker so far in the past 8 days. Naturally I suck compared to higher limit players but for my standards, I played good.

Also this was the first day I actually wanted to punch something and I nearly went on a tilt, why? Because I went all-in on turn with a set against overpair 5 times and all five times the opponent rivered a better set...what are the chances for that? Like 5% or something? (too lazy to equilate)

My 6th all-in which I lost went like this:

Was in late pos. with A4s and decided to call pre-flop raise since there were some juicy callers before me On the flop I hit a gutshot+flush draw - what more could I ask for :). It was 3 or 4-way pot on the flop, naturally I bet, guy raises, 1 guy calls, I call.

I catch my flush on the turn but the board also pairs...I had pretty much half of my stack already in and I now needed to win like 40% of the time or even less to make it a profitable move to shove the rest of my stack in, as I had the nut flush and only feared a full house. So the first guy bets, 2nd guy folds, I put the 1st guy all-in and yep, he had full house.

So this was the only time I was all-in where I wasnt sure if I was ahead or behind. After these losses I simply needed a break, I focused on playing good, not donking around too much (ok I lost one stack on a bluff but it's not something I'll ever cry about), and I still lost like over $120 after 1-2 hours of play.

After a long break, slept most of the time, went outside, then slept some more, and finally, I returned to the tables - once again late at night when there is like 5 tables of NL20 available. There were only 2 NL10 tables available and since I played so few tables, I decided to throw in 2 NL50 tables to keep me focused more and not start surfing around the internet.

Ok, I must admit - I was apparently also on a slight tilt since I'd never usually go to a higher limit without a proper bankroll - I was ready to accept the errors of my choice to move up to NL50 and didnt actually plan to play crazy, just standard TAG.

It seems this change was the boost I needed, I woke up, cards started hitting me and I ended my NL50 adventure up by €30-35 there. Personally, I can't wait to get there, I love the bet sizes, pot sizes, it's all imba compared to NL20. Had a blind fight against 2guys and won a pot which would usually require me to go nearly all-in on NL20 - sweet.

So anyway...after an hour or so, I got up to +$8 in overall and decided to stop there. Once again instead of ending a day up by +$100-ish, I ended it sorta miserably but nevermind, I'll keep on fighting and eventually more profitable sessions will come along

P.S. If anyone wishes to know how many hands I've played or an overall graph of these swings, I can probably buy pt3 in a day or two. Otherwise, I'll buy it after the challenge ends - so yeah, will see

Well, there are some free programs that you could use if it's only for the graph
Don't u like the Elephant? or it just doesnt work for titan?

Anyway, good to see that you can actually play decent after 5 bad beats, and the 6th... what can I say, I can NEVER fold nut flush, even when deep inside I know for sure he has a full house

But really, after I get 2-3 bad beats I almost always stop feeling comfortable and start making bad decisions, so being able to get 6 of the pretty much worst beats possible, and still play your best game is a good 'virtue' to have

Anyway, hope to see more and larger green sums soon
gl

quick update - I dis..like elephant I'll buy pt3 license in a day or so anyway, it's just better for me - also there are some problems with elephant and why bother solving them when I'm already used to using pt3 ♦

Btw I didnt have net yesterday+dont have it today, which sux - as I'm out of the iron man challenge, but in a day or two I'll return to the tables and hopefully start making some larger green sums as you put it

Take care, gl at the tables.

Day 11: +$38 (Overall +$46)

Hiyo folks, I'm up +$6 today, amazing I didn't start the day in minus but yeah, seems I won't be playing until later in the evening because Titan Poker doesnt want me to play.

In translation - after 5-10 minutes of play, the software just shut down like 6+ of my tables just like that, for no good reason Very funny, especially since I paid for blinds on all of the tables and it's obvious titan poker isn't exactly intending to gimme back €2+ or whatever I just lost.

Naturally I'll go argue with the staff and return to the tables after lunch, so see ya later

Update: So, I played for an hour or so tonight, again like 4-5 tables available but anyway...+$38 for today and I almost thought I'd end the day below +$10 because I couldnt hit a single hand, mostly won pots with bluffs. However, I finally hit some nice hands towards the end of this mini session

- Basically I was up +$27, then went down to -$20 and thought I'd end the day in minus because I was getting sleepy but oh well, seems I bounced back up - btw this was my 1st session I actually played lying on my bed half-asleep, just didnt want this day to pass without me playing at least for 1h

If I push the pedal now, I might even get closer to my goal for this month but who knows, I'm still optimistic about making the profit I'm aiming for

Good night ;O)

I have no idea how you keep yourself in this site

I mean good offers are good, but are they worth it with so many bugs? Many of the good players say that if you want to improve at poker, you better stick in the same site (even when you get no more bonuses), make notes and better your overall play, and you do seem like a capable guy
Those $10 pots that I loose to a donk and make me mad aren't much for your limit, just like those $50-$60 pots that seem big for you are nothing for NL100...

Even tho i'm such a newbie, as I told you I like reading A LOT before making decisions and that's pretty much what I figured it is after a lot of browsing and reading stories here and there.
The "good" players that make a living out of NL holdem grinding, and dont care about tournament titles usually stop at NL200 to NL600 (or at least that seems to be the trend in Bulgaria ^_^, 9 tabling at 400 NL) and when you think about it at a close to that level the opening offers are pretty much worthless compared to how much you can grind at those limits.

Anyway, that's just an opinion... everyone can think differently and it would be stupid to try to enforce one's point of view to another person so I'll leave it here.

I've also finally decided to start my own blog, because 1st of all you inspired me and 2nd it's stupid to take over your blog, which would happen eventually if I continue like that ♦

and let lady luck watch over you on your quest against the bugs ♠_biggrin:

haha np i'll drop by to spam your blog

As for software and tolerating bugs - I intend to go for diamond rank, that will take 1more month (next month I'll probably be titanium or whatever). If I'm correct, I should be easily earning 100k+ points per month, my aim would be to earn 320k points per 2month>$4k cash bonus.

If I can achieve this, I could easily play let's say 2h per day titan poker just to keep my rank and grind points, while on the other hand investing most of my "poker time" into a better site where I'd play for skill more than bonuses or whatever.

As for reading, figuring out and all that stuff - my way is to simply pick a spot in this big poker world and start from there, I don't care how the other side looks like, I'll get to that point in time, for now I focus on exploring one part after another - too much planning and analysing what's best and what's this and that can overcrowd your mind and instead of learning one bit after another, you try to swallow big chunks from random parts of the game and...well yeah, just not my style for me, small steps come in the beginning, big in the end

Anyway, gonna play some poker now, or hmm maybe sleep some more and then play, who knows... ♦

Day 12:+$122 (Overall +$168)

Huh, another day is over and yes, this time the numbers look nicer but still...here's the story of a blue fish who's got a blue house with a blue window (OK I'm lying, living in an apartment and far as I can tell there ain't one bit of blue in it):

The opening 30 mins were great today, everything was going smoothly and I found myself up like +$50. However, in the next 10 minutes I re-learned a valuable lesson - never relax!

I made 3 bad calls, ok you might call them marginal, I'd say they were not that bad calls in 1/3 times had I found myself three times in identical spots but anyway...it took 3 mistakes to donk all my profit away.

Back to zero for the day, my nightmare rollercoaster began. Running into sets in blind fights, kings into aces, aces into two pairs, two pairs into gutshots which completed on the river (all-in on the turn, doh, gotta love such moves), etc.

I pretty much spent the next 2.5-3h swinging around, my lowest point was roughly -$30 and highest over +$50. In the final hour of my today's session, I finally won some nice pots and the rest as they say is history ♦

Btw software-wise, it was business as usual, aka horrible Besides lag (it disappeared sorta later but around 22h CET it was pretty annoying), I also had lots of problems with timing out.

My friend actually watched a hand in which I isolation-raised pre-flop and suddenly got a msg saying I've timed out somewhere, I was like wtf, where what table?

So I browse all other 15tables only to find out that I timed out on the table where I made my iso raise, like wtf? I had that table opened the entire time, weird

Among notable timed out hands, I'd like to thank titan poker for throwing away my pocket aces, who left my table too soon twice during the session. Fellow pocket pairs 66 and 55, best of luck to you too, hope the timed-out-curse won't separate us next time. Best regards to suited connectors and other useful hands as well.

Day 15: +$80 (Overall +$248)

Sorry folks, been busy&tired lately, nasty combo

Basically, on 13th day I didn't play at all - opened tables and realized it just wasn't going to work, as my eyes were closing. However, on Day 14 and 15...I received my $30 1st dep. bonus and the remaining $50 came from my own sweat ♦

I pretty much went -$250 or so, up to -$60, then down to -$300, up to +$30, down -$200, up to -$20 and multiple times -$100 and back to +$0, so yeah, it was pretty rough. Eventually, I came up to +$80 and said, ok that's enough for today ♦

These oscillations were primarily because I had a few NL50 tables opened (instead of moving down to NL10 I added those when wanting more action). I actually like NL50 a lot, next month I'll hopefully switch to it fully. It has cost me quite a bit, mostly blind fights which ended painfully - aka 95o flopped 2pair vs backdoor flush, then 84s flopped 2pair vs backdoor straight, and yes you guessed it, they both completed their draws ♦

Even though it was quite swingy, I had loads of fun and I also learned a few things about myself and what causes me to potentially tilt when losing to bad beats. That's a topic I'll cover when I get some rest

So anyway...I played like crazy whenever I could, and with so many swings, I'm expecting something like +$100 from 1st deposit bonus ♦ Got less than 15days left now to complete the challenge. I'll have to try focus more on controlling these swings and going up more steadily.

-btw, so far I've generated something like 11-12k points in 15days as platinum rank on titan poker. Roughly 1k points per day on average since I didn't play every day I'm thinking of possibly aiming for diamond if I can somehow earn 1.5k-2k points per day until the end of February it's doable - though it's pain in a** to balance my lust for points, action and completing this challenge, the three simply fail to cooperate ♦

Once again I had some hands I wanted to post here, some interesting, some I misplayed and wanned to put here for exactly that reason, etc. However, I'm still lazy to find a way to mark hands during my sessions, when I buy pt3 licencse I'll look into that further to add something interesting in this blog besides my random thoughts

Update: High Stakes Season 6 is great, lots of action and...you know those situations where both players have a flush draw and you wonder what would happen if both get it but it never happens - well on this season, it happened and it was quite enjoyable, especially since Hellmuth was involved in those hands haha ♦

Anyway, I primarily wanted to update you here on my current bankroll on Titan Poker - at the moment it is $1,120. This is the first time I'm over $1k in poker, I deposited $300 of my own money, so can't say I'm not happy about the current state hehe

Day 19: -$19 (Overall +$229)

Hiyo, so yeah, once again I've been away most of the time to update ya regularly, anyway - here is a brief story of the last couple of days.

I wanted to try some more NL50 tables, which is kind of outside the boundaries of my "challenge" for this month - I figured if I played NL10 a few times, might as well do NL50 a few times - seeing that when I was creating the challenge for myself I didnt expect to hit NL50 this month.

So anyway, I played for like 2-3days 12 tables NL50. It went something like this -$320, recovered to just -$30, down to -$200, up to +$0 and down to $100 numerous times and eventually - yesterday, I started the day down by -$130 (overall it was like -$200 or more I guess), but eventually worked my way up and ended the day up by $160 - so basically yesterday I "earned" over $300 if you start counting from the lowest point of the day ♦

Pretty crazy day(s) I guess, now I'll stop doing NL50 cuz it's way too fun for me, so I'll go back to 16tables NL20 and grind my way up hopefully.

- one thing that was useful though is that now NL20 is a lot easier for me because the fear of losing "a lot of money" in one hand is gone because I've had so many €100+ pots (played NL€50 as well, which translates to NL68 I guess) these days I eventually stopped caring about being down -$100 or $200.

So after this month is over, you can expect me to fully switch to NL50 (cough NL68) FR BSS, in fact, I'd do it right now because it's so much fun but I'll try to first finish my "challenge", not many days left but I'm a believer ♦

Edit: Tilt switch, where is it?

I mentioned earlier I noticed some things that potentially cause me to tilt. So in general, here is what I discovered over the past few months I've been playing NL BSS >

When you start playing poker you have a small bankroll and you are on scared money, if you lose a bit it will affect you emotionally. You feel the need to progress, make the first step into the poker world.

Because of this, you will tilt when you get sucked out because you want to get up and if you fall, there is no safety net. In comparison, when you beat NL10 and wish to move up to NL20...you may lose money but you will be under less stress because if you fall there, you still have NL10 to build up your bankroll again.

So at that point it becomes a game of patience and discipline more than a game of emotions and "building a safety net". As long as you can take a step back, it is easier to handle tilts - we do the same thing when we start playing and feel like we have nowhere to go, what do we do then? We move from NL SSS to NL BSS, we move to SnGs, we try MTTs, etc.

It is hard to give a proper advice here - if you lose your starting bankroll, dont rush into finding a new one, maybe ask someone to watch him play for a month or so, learn things and then start playing - basically building a proper foundation is the most important and usually, the first limit is easy to beat if you just play mediocre abc poker - it might seem lame and easy but when you're a beginner that's a whole new world to enter ♦

The important thing here is (I guess) to find something you enjoy playing, dont go looking for the "most profitable" game in which you can get the fastest to earning money. Play poker for fun in the beginning, to get the feeling for the game, learn new things, nobody is forcing you to be a successful player right from the start and if you fall - it is no shame.

In comparison, when people fall down 10 times and on 11th beat a new limit, do people laugh at them on forums? No..they congratulate that person for his/her fighting spirit and dedication because it's not easy to get up when you fall...so don't think going busto is something you should be ashamed of - it is a part of the learning process just as going down a limit later is.

The second thing that tilts us is playing for money - I remember when I started playing nl2 (yes, I have a great memory ♦ - *sarcasm alert*), I was told to focus on improving my game, not earning money and eventually I didn't care if I "made money" that day, it was not a success in that way.

Money became a form of success, aka if I ended the day up by $10, it was a good day because I "won". I didnt bother about playing poker profitably, just beating a limit (ok I did care about how much money could be made if I was to play for "money" on that limit).

Now the problem is, with each new limit - we cant help but notice the difference in the amount of money we play for. Until we adjust to that, it is hard to play good. Even when you get used to the bet sizes and such, you are still not tilt-proof because losing money can make you tilt if you care for it.

How to get rid of caring for money? I honestly dont know if you can 100% do it without moving up to the next limit and then going back down ♦ For example, when you play nl2, a $20 swing can look like madness!!! On NL$50 you'll fall asleep in a $20 pot.

However, one thing that helps you stop caring about money are swings. Losing money and "winning it back" frequently will eventually make you stop freaking out every time you lose money to bad beats, bad play, insert anything else you want here ♦

Once you realize you can handle the swings, you will more and more focus on playing poker because you know that results will come eventually. This is easy to say, hard to believe in yourself and actually do it.

How to believe in yourself? The important thing to realize is that none of us here are "pros", yes some people make lots of money but put them in a cash game vs durrrr, ivey, pa and such and they'll get crushed. So here we may have NL20 pros, but when I say pro (from the game I come from) it means someone who is top skilled ♦

So back to the topic, how to believe in yourself. As I said, none of us here are flawless and none of our strategies are perfect so there is no point in analysing your game to conclude that there are leaks in it - there are and always will be, poker is a game in which you improve constantly.

So if you want to fix your game, the first thing you have to start looking for are any changes in your game after bad beats or even your own suck outs in which you win a lot of money. Do you change your hand range? Do you change your bet sizes or betting pattern? Do you call more lightly or are you more scared?

Look for mistakes in your own game, it got you this far after all, didnt it? Dont go looking for a "better style" to play, first work on yourself because choosing the correct style is something you should've done before starting to play.

Basically I mean here, some of you like to play tight, some aggressive, some like small pots, some big - so before you begin playing, you look for a specific style which suits you the most, or can serve as a nice place to start from.

Once you start playing that style, you try to copy it, play accordingly to it - however, once you think you got it and start playing by heart...and eventually run into bad beats, you suddenly find yourself in doubt, what is wrong here?

Should I play more aggressively? Should I fold those hand? Dozens of questions swarm your mind and you look for new information to improve your game - if you picked a poor strategy, it will help to change it entirely. However, you will often pick a strategy that is already proven to be working, so what to do here?

Stop looking for new information - start looking for variations in your own game based on bad beats, distractions around you, maybe how sleepy you are when you play, etc. Look at it this way - when you start playing poker, you are given 2 puppies, they jump around you and it's all fun and games

but at some point the puppies start running in their own way and you're worried they'll get lost - instead of getting new puppies, catch these 2 troublemakers and once they start walking around with you, you can consider adding new puppies and training them to follow you as well.

In this manner, it wont solve the root of your problems to find a way to cover up for your losses with a "better style", instead try working on what you have learned thus far because if you dont, you will get stuck in this devilish circle until you get to a point at which no "new knowledge" will solve your problems.

At that point you'll be stuck with a tremendous amount of knowledge and a tremendous amount of leaks in it ♦ So to conclude - once you tilt, see how it changes you, dont try to "beat" the tilts by "outplaying" them

THIS BLOG ROCKS!
deffo competing with waiboy for longest posts ever.
lots of great insights plus i love the raw honesty of it all.
actually read thru the whole thing.

LOL at ur horror of being in a coach's vid. i found that really hilarious. ♦

altho titan isnt my platform, i can totally relate to sucky software probs on ongame. ive had my quads folded for me and many many sets. i cant even multitable past 6 or 7 bec the pokerclient gets laggy as all hell then i'll just be timed out of everything. at first i thought the bonus might be worth it, but i've tilted away quite a lot of stacks (much more than the bonus + fish/donk play on my part) not including making panic all-ins just so the software cant fold away my hand against my will.

moved down limits already, tbh, i had no idea wat i was doing in NL50 anyway. feeling like a big :f_cry:. but for sure there are so many idiots there and i know i'll be back to crush the limit soon. if only i can beat NL20 first...

gl in ur journey. even tho ur such a lazy bum (almost as lazy as me ♦), ur making such excellent progress its quite amazing.

Yeah ^^ I agree! Wish I'd discovered it earlier. Keep it up and hope you make your challenge, mate. You are a saint for being able to handle 'Titanlag', as I used to call it, anyway.

Before I write my next update, I have to say thank you guys for kind words, they really cheered me up and honestly, right now that's on top of my list of things I'd ask for

Twilight zone

I overestimated myself it seems, or underestimated just how many cards does a cold deck have (apparently 3453446 because that's how many times Lady Luck just couldn't help but mess up my post-flop plans), third possibility comes under first in a way, as I had little time to play poker properly - aka rested and focused.

So what happened? I found a way to free my schedule and played a 9hour marathon 10-6tablings nl50 (downgraded to less tables as titanpoker players went to bed), the reason why I played this is because I started on NL20 and my luck was still, just brilliant

So I thought to myself, ok this month I just can't catch a break on NL20, let's get back to NL50 - to be honest, I like it more there, it's easier to play actually and more fun (only tough guys are a few regulars when I'm oop against them, or if they trap me with something weird)..

Basically, I don't do table choices, I don't care about your stack size, I don't care how good you are and I don't care if you got position or me or not, I will play anyone anywhere (ok just FR) on the limits I play.

I played some hands bad+ran bad and poof, -$480 for me. So, I went into twilight zone, playing for 9hours straight, determined to get it all back even if I leave blood on all of the titan tables.

And bloody it was, I returned like 250 of it or so, and then instead of climbing back up to -100 or even less, I lost the nut flush vs full house (could've folded actually, river paired the board and gave me the nut flush, I thought I was ahead of his range so I called, as set was less likely based on his betting pattern), the second hand was AQ top2pair vs AA+A.

I tried getting up from that point on, but I was 2tired, I used all my energy to get back up, got close to it, and boom, down Those 9 hours I played crazy, started flame wars on half of the tables, had ppl calling me all sorts of names everywhere, some were frustrated I was running good against them, some just didn't like my 3bets with any2 cards.

And friend on msn was screaming in my ear, durrrr durrrr. I told him I don't play like durrrr, I don't care how he plays, I play like I play, and then my friend said - and his ego is even greater than his crazyness ♦

I have to say one thing on durrrr, before I continue - if I got thins right, you can't "copy his style", it's not like nl sss with a chart you can follow. He just plays the way he does and if he plays 52o it's not because of this or that, he just feels like it's a good time to play it and does it - that's my thoughts on how it's done.

I'm saying this because some pro tried to imitate durrrr and said it didn't work out for him - well obviously, because the way he plays isnt created over a single night.

I'm kinda happy I'm going down some weird road now, playing weird hands in so many pots is new to me, I need to adjust so many things, especially start putting people on more specific hand range and finding proper bet sizes to make them lay down those hands.

The good thing is that half of titan probably has notes on me now "83o raises+calls 3bets, donkraises me on the flop, FISH!!", or something like "idiot donk, noob, calls any2". People started shoving Ace high vs me on flop (granted, I lost €100 making 2calls there with KQ - action went like I bet the flop, he raises, I 3bet, he 4bets, I shove all-in, he calls - ace high)

However, losing pots on bluffs didn't hurt me that much, I won pots like that as well. The things that hurt me the most were bad beats...and...bad calls. The thing that destroyed me were trips, aka AT on a JT4T8 board let's say - the guy has JT and beats me, the problem is that he shoves river and I know he must be on a flopped set and turned a full house.

The problem is, it's titan...people shove KJ in that spot equally, hell, they shove K8 in that spot! So I played those hands as I would against an "average" opponent - which is bad, as on NL50 I need to adjust to each opponent a lot more.

So, the following day, I put in another epic 8hour session or something. I changed my play, modified my calling/betting range based on each opponent and was going up pretty smoothly. The guys who bluffed me last night or outplayed me, were now "outplayed", or I dodged when they had big hands.

Overall, I played better poker but I don't necessarily consider my 1st marathon as bad - people watch you play there, they make notes, they have stats on you, so playing "like a donk", will boost your profit in the long run.

Last night obviously ended bad for me, my roll got cut down in half, so I decided it's time to stop and rebuild - I moved down to NL20 and a bit of Nl10, just as I planned in the beginning of this month - not my fault NL50 is so much fun I'm addicted to it:P

So, I'm rebuilding now, guess my challenge has failed, I'm not sure if it's a curse, or just my high expectations based on previous performance on NL20, but this month just isn't going the right way for me. I took a lot of beating this month, haven't tilted and managed to keep on playing after losing money, etc., and that 9h marathon session I played with an idea, not hunger for donking any2 cards - reminded me of a time durrrr supposedly tilted a stack and someone said, "you can't say that, his whole game is a tilt!"

I'm looking forward to returning to NL50, I will adjust my hand range, my calling skills (or should I say folding skills), I still wont use stats on people and I must say I was tempted to watch Hasenbraten's latest NL50 videos...but no, my ego is stronger, this is just something I have to do on my own.

This is probably the worst part of my poker days thus far and the biggest loss, however, my NL10 defeat was more painful I think because it was harder for me to accept it.

Now I'm just eager to get back into the pit and fight and bleed until I climb up to NL100. I originally thought about grinding NL50 for a while, but I doubt I'll rest easy once I try NL100 and like it as much as I did NL50 when I tried it:D

-friend told me, "yea right, ur sticking to NL50 now? suuuuure, next thing I know you'll tell me: hey, guess what, I tried 2tables NL100 yesterday, and erm, now I'm playing it" - because that's how my switch to NL50 happened ♦ complete, random accident

Anyway, think I've made some nice enemies on titan, trash talk finally produced some results (basically, when I lose a hand, I trash talk so much that my opponent tilts in the end, and thinks that I'm steaming and on a tilt ♦) - for this I like titan, because on stars you just cant have a normal conversation, admins always get called and silence you, *cough ban for a day or week or whatever ♦ Guess these "new-found enemeies" will be gloating on my defeat - was funny, yesterday when I reported my loss to a friend and said how many ppl were pissed at me, and he said - well now that you've lost $500, I'm sure they're smiling, and I was like: well guess from where that $500 came from in the first place ♦

Time to rebuild, I've switched last night to NL10-20, earned $40-ish and went to bed - well the plan was to actually play without any sleep until I get my money back but I just couldn't, I'm too tired these days to pull off an "Isildur". It's hard to say where my challenge ended, given the action I'd give you a rough guess of 15k titan points with $200 profit. I'll have to check how much money I cleared via 1st dep. bonus, but it's more than that definitely. So not exactly a month you can look up to and compare what you can do - guess it's a month for you to look at it and see just how bad things can get

I'll keep you updated on my progress on rebuilding roll, later today I'll update ya how much money I cleared in 1st dep. bonus in 20 days.

P.S. I forgot to mention, titanpoker sabotaged one of my sessions - so I had to close down the tables after 10 minutes of sitting at them ♦ What happened is that every time I call preflop or raise, when the action returns to me, I sit out automatically. I had 6 NL50 tables opened which translated into 3-4 €1.50 bets,along with blinds on all 6 I lost because I had to manually close the software because it was obviously not gonna let me play.

There was one more bug later that day, but nothing that disturbing to prevent me from playing. I am titanium now, well I got it secured for next month. I need 15k more points to reach diamond, I will try to grind that on NL20 while rebuilding my roll, that is my aim for now.

P.P.S. Besides adjusting my play the next time I try NL50, I think I'll also act a bit nicer, just because I look up to Dwan as a great player, not because of his play style, but his attitude - the guy is just mannered in all situations, doesnt needle you if you lose, congratulates nice hands, he is really a class...Or, I might consider this option after I reach higher limits and just trash-bash lower ones, who knows, I can't guarantee anything, I'm a donk lunatic after all ♦

Ah, and another extra message, seeing I cant locate nice hands I played, I'll briefly summarize you one from last night (I could be wrong about 1raise pre-flop but the way action was going at the tables, it wouldn't be far off the "real course of events"):

SB - $50+ stack
Dendra (some call it Hero, but I'm no hero ♦) - also a $50+ stack

So, SB raises, Dendra 3bets, SB calls.

Flop 763 (flush draw) - SB checks, Dendra bets $11 (potsize), SB calls
Turn T (flush hits) - SB shoves $30+, Dendra calls

SB: A7o
Dendra: 86o

River: blabla, SB wins $100+

Ok now to explain this hand, I 3bet pre-flop him because naturally I'm not buying that "I 3BB raise my AA in SB" - on the topic of blind steals, a guy said I had 50% blind steal on his tables, yep, pretty much raised every 2nd hand I wa dealt on some tables and yep, blind stealing from UTG is also possible on titanpoker ♦

So anyway, the flop comes 8 high and I love it - why? because I put him on A9,AT,KQ,KJ, any overcards for that matter, AJ+ possible as well. My potsize bet was wrong because it doesn't create enough fold equity against that specific opponent.

-a quick lesson on titanpoker and its mechanics: You have 2buttons to play with, fold and potsize bet. If you do anything else on titan, people just wont respect you ♦ (obviously I'm kidding but yeah, potsize bets are pretty standard there, pretty pretty standard -something like 2/3 pot cbet on flop on pokerstars, well that's basically what potsize flop bet means on titan)

Ok, now the turn is a great card for SB to bluff me. The pot is already big, he insta-shoves. Now I know 99% he is not on a flush, if he is - well that's just pure bad luck of him having KJs ATs or whatever like that - why bad luck? Because he'd very often shove vs me on the flop if he had overcards+flush draw, and if he had some small cards then he'd be on a straight or gutshot draw very likely along with flush draw, so once again, he'd raise me probably.

When he shoved, what did I put him on? A4o was honestly something I was pretty sure he had. Besides that, I put him on any 2overcards which now gave him a flush draw, like ATo, etc.

So I call with my flopped middle pair 86+6 and he shows A7o for top flopped pair of sevens. A tight situation, had he checked to me, he would be forced to fold or have a very tough hero call to make.

It was a fun hand and I guess and no, I dont make such silly moves all the time, I sometimes 3bet with gutshot, but for that matter, this was actually one of the rare occasions where I was pretty sure I had a decent chance of being ahead of his range in that spot. Would've been sweet to win with something like that, but oh well

I've got more hands like those, ATo I raise, guy 3bets, I call, flop I bet 2/3 potsize, he raises 3x, I call, turn I bet 1/2 pot, which is half of my remaining stack and the guy folds - and ofc I show him my ace high, just to cause potential tilt.

For the record, I dont show my bluffs often, but I like to do one thing, like it a lot - when a guy raises and I have 72o and I think I can get him to lay down his hand, I insta turn off "auto-muck hands" and I play a 72o game.

I'd show him my hand anyway but the fun is that I think I'll win it and then when he folds - I just show it Equally fun for me is I guess when a new guy plays against me and raises in CO or somewhere like that, I got random any2 cards, 3bet him and immediately go to write a note on the guy "3BB blind steals, folds to 3bet" - and by the time I write the note, he folds. That feels kinda sweet, knowing ahead what he'll do and making a note on something he is yet to do ♦

For my next attempt on NL50 I hope I'll have pt3 ready so I can post hands for you here, I guess there are many fun hands I somehow tend to always run into - and yeah, it makes poker so much fun ♦

Is this SH or FR? Because IMO even with a guy who steals 50% of his hands, 86o, meh, not very happy about 3betting

shadow - it's FR, and 86o...I was trying to play the player, not my cards and the way how the hand turned out, I was in a rare spot where that weird call was justified (in my head at least ♦)

purple - sry forgot to comment on this "but i've tilted away quite a lot of stacks (much more than the bonus + fish/donk play on my part)"

I have to agree with you ♦ Losing money to bad beats and coolers is one thing, but losing money on titan software, now that would possibly make even Ivey tilt ♦

Comeback road

My bankroll rebuilding mission is going well, today I've earned +$98.

I still need 15k-ish more points for diamond, so I'll try to get back to NL50 asap, for the sake of generating more points because it's worth it I guess.

Anyway, today I started with 16 nl20 tables but the software is lagging so much lately I had to start closing them down and eventually got to 11-12 tables which seemed to be working fine for me.

Nothing spectacular happened, besides me noticing one big difference from playing NL20 before. It's usual I guess but anyway...now NL20 seems so small and as I don't look at opponent's stacks in $$ value any more, I seem to control swings better.

I had my share of bad beats today, had my share of coolers vs others but the point is I felt I had more control over the situation. I care even less now about pot value in $$, I just focus on the table action, players, cards and such.

Before, I didn't care if I lost or won money, but I somehow still cared for their stack sizes and how much I could win or lose if we go all-in. I guess I'll have that feeling again on NL50 but I'll try to focus more on the table and with a solid bankroll that's always easier to do - in other words, after hopefully reaching diamond, I consider slowing down and building a deeper roll for NL50 - and this time I really mean it ♦ (for the moment at least)