Dendra fighting:) I wonder who is that friend which compared you with Durrrr? I mean durrrr is so pretty, he has wonderfull skin and great blue eyes while you,what? You are fat poker player, when did you saw sun last time? Just kidding, hope your br will soon be big enough to play NL50, then next month you are @ "project Noob" with me. Good luck dewd.
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shoosh you Bronze pest from a Croatian wannabe poker town Pozega ♦ (just kidding, he is not a pest and Pozega is not in Croatia but Serbia :))
As for your kind words...I'm not fat 
and I'm a vampire...As for your "project noob", I have faith in you...trust me, you'll be the next Phil Hellmuth...tall...as durrrr would say 
Huh, there are lots of thoughts on my mind, so let's try to go in some order ♦
I have to say I must apologize for not finding the video of Mike Tyson I was looking for, but I'll have to paraphrase his words then ♠_mad:
No...I wasn't going to quote his "I'm going to f** you until you love me bi*ch" and no, I wasn't going to quote his other famous words "My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious."
The quote I was going to paraphrase here is from an interview with him. What he said is that he knows that if he trains well, prepares well, gives his best once he enters that ring - there is nobody that can stop him.
That is correct! Someone may be better than you but if you work hard, train well - you will knock him/her down (I don't support hitting women - even if they specifically ask me to and pinpoint where they want me to slap them, I still have a hard time accepting that as a justified act).
My friend told me yesterday - some people are just better than you, more talented, this and that - to be honest, it's not about beating other people, in the end it's about beating yourself, there will always be someone who is better than you and if you can't find that enemy in yourself, you won't be able to push yourself to the highest limits.
The important thing is not to get demoralized - oh noes! he is a super-sexy imba player, I'll never be like him unless I take a plastic surgery and a brain transplantation, he is just a God in a human form with pocket aces factory up his sleeve - that's just impossible for me to achieve.
You do your best, and you will succeed ♠_cool: That's one of the problems many people have - they look at a defeat as something bad, negative, humiliating, etc. - don't be like that, be ferocious, use that energy to fuel your improvement - don't use it to fuel your anger and hunger for revenge because you can't get even at that guy until you become as good as him - unless you throw a lucky punch and knock him down 
So the question is just if you'll slam like a maniac and hope to land a lucky punch or be a baller and crush the guy and make him start flailing shots at you in desperation.
Mike Tyson had the perfect mindset to become a champion - and I am truly sad he got locked up in jail, not to mention his original coach dying...which led to his change of style, etc. but in his prime, he was a true king 
People criticise him but it's not easy for a youngster to handle so much pressure and if you actually listen to the guy, you will see that he is actually pretty damn smart, wise would be the correct word. Anyway...
Moving on to Mr. Tom "durrrr" Dwan - I watched the live million dollar challenge and wowowiwa (as my friend would say),Marcello "luckexpress" Marigliano amazed me - I used to imagine him as a young American with too much free time but it turns out he is Italian and it turns out he is the first Italian I admire.
So - what did both of them say? Dwan said that making bluffs, making calls and being wrong is a part of poker - you gotta accept it and move on to the next hand, if you can't do that, well then poker maybe isn't the game for you.
Meanwhile I was impressed by luckexpress and his kind words, a very humble man and his words were kinda soothing. I recommend watching Episode 4 on youtube.
As for bad calls, bluffs, etc. - it is funny I have an easier time accepting my own mistakes than do my friends. To skip to something else before I continue with this topic - if you defeat me, I will see it as a reason for me to improve, if I win you, I will see it as a proof I am going in the right direction. You can't kill my desire to beat you, desire to try again, will to fight, my hope, etc. In that way I guess I'm pretty much a nasty opponent to have, I may not be the smartest, toughest, most skilled opponent you'll encounter, but I'll bring you down.
However, I think even harder than being my enemy is being my friend. When I do something right, I don't expect a friend to congratulate me, I know I am doing well by myself, no need to point it out, it just makes me feel uncomfortable. If I f** up or do something bad, I don't need advices on what to do, I know on my own what I want to do - so basically I'm a solo-machine.
Lack of faith in me can be disturbing but I do begin everything I do on my own, with everyone saying - not again, there is no way no how you will do it - so yeah, if I happen to start "doing it" and hit a rock, I don't get all surprised why people quickly shift from saying - hoorray way to go, into booo, just stop doing it, you see it's not working.
If friends criticise me it's not because they think I failed, it's not in a negative context, they simply wish me well - however, I regard it as an attack and simply shut down the system and go in solo-berserk mode until I fight the demons myself
That's pretty much what happened when I lost $300-ish on NL10 on Stars and pretty much what's happening now on Titan. When I lost half of my roll on Stars (was up to $790 or so I guess), I decided to go to Titan and deposit there - so pretty much in the moment of my greatest defeat I launched a new attack, instead of doubting myself and thinking - damn this poker thing just doesn't work!
Now, I lost double the amount of that money, it may not be 30BI like it was on NL10 but it hurts money-wise. My next direction? I could be pleased with Titanium rank on Titan Poker, but I want the diamond. I need 12k or so points more...and I can grind it, so I quickly came up with the scheme to get back to NL50 asap and grind more points until next month.
Once I reach diamond, I can focus on poker a lot more - right now, all this points making and 1st dep. bonus clearing gets me distracted, I play in pots I shouldn't because I see I can get a lot of points if it gets big - aka I sometimes make marginal calls against short stackers because I don't fear losing xxx amount of money I know I'll win again in next few minutes.
There are many things I see I have to improve, things I will improve later, etc. but I'm just not focused enough atm on writing about it, so I'll do it in another post I guess ♦ Anyway, lemme move on to some quick topics I wanted to write about here:
DP - Cheating B'stards, or in modern English , Disconnection problem
A friend gave me recently an answer to something that bugged me ever since I started playing on Titan Poker - basically the scenario goes like this...I bet, a guy calls and suddenly we both reveal our cards as if we go all-in, and we both have $$ left behind to bet more post-flop.
Like 1-2days ago, I played a session and a guy raises, I 3bet him, we are both big stackers and he has a tough call to make, because if he calls my 3bet, he could potentially go all-in post-flop. Suddenly, we can't bet any more and all 5 cards come to the board...
I checked the hand history and noticed it had (all-in DP) or something like that, well that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in poker - and now it makes so much sense why some people did this to me before.
So basically the b'stards disconnect on purpose, lose minimum money with a marginal hand they were afraid to play with "all the way", or simply buy information on my play with this trick - it is LAME.
It's just pathetic in my eyes, are people really that desperate to win money? I mean I can understand when a guy slowplays flopped nuts and plays as a scared cat until river, wondering if he'll get all my money in - when I see such a desperate guy, I say to him - oh gee, if you wanted to take my money, just shove it in on the flop, not like I'm afraid of that little stack of yours anyway. If you're really that much dying to win money in this hand, take it and let's move on, no need to play 10 minutes...
- cuz the guy takes maximum time to think because he thinks that it will make me believe he has a tough decision..and I'm like lalalala I don't care what you do, just do it already cuz I know what my next move will be.
It may be an -EV way of thinking to some people, but in most cases I'm here to play poker and learn, wasting time on some irrelevant hand can be annoying. Granted, I don't have this attitude always, maybe 1/20,000 hands.
Stats - do you really need them?
To be honest with you, I think you don't need stats to beat any limit - just take notes on people and in time you will simply get to know them, how they think, what they are capable of doing etc. - it takes time maybe and more energy but I think it is much more important on the highest level of poker than it is to have a program track someone for you - so you can see "aha, he folded 70% to my 3bet, excellent, I can 3bet him".
For me to come to such a conclusion, I need to memorize action against a player, our past major clashes, how he reacted to my play, etc. It may sound like an awful lot of things to remember and I do have an awful memory, along with endless laziness, but it just somehow comes naturally, such things pop up in your mind - "aha this Table bottom right, Mr.Ziigmund, he is that bold guy I got drunk with last summer, yes, I better not 3bet him, he will coin flip me next 10hands."
Stats are kinda useful to perfect your decisions against each opponent, you can much more precisely bet a guy or fold to his bet and such, it's very useful because when you're playing your "ABC" poker on multiple tables, it increases your efficiency. You also have to think more advanced I guess, because you've got so many possibilities with stats running.
However, what are stats here for? To help you beat a limit, balance your lines? Personally, I prefer beating a limit with my own head and I'm not here to maximize my winnings on micro limits, I'm here to maximize my progress and gaining experience, etc., everything I rate as important on my journey to becoming a good poker player ♦
This is why I do have to agree stats also include using your head, but in my head, it just doesn't fit my plans. It's my own road and I don't recommend for people to follow my way, as it is in everything I do - I choose unhealthy, dangerous, crazy, chaotic and what not path to success.
As I said above, stats will help you out, but the funny part is - against "thinking players", you have to drop the stats and think for yourself because other guy will adapt, he will change, he will not follow the same pattern, etc.
So to summarize - don't think that you need stats to beat a limit, don't think you play bad because you don't use stats and don't think stats will turn you into a winning player.
Progress to the new limit on micro stakes
Ok, I gave this a separate title because I saw some people actually read this blog and actually found something I wrote here on the differences between limits useful. So, I am sad to say I won't be able to properly give you an analysis of the differences between NL5>NL10.
Why? Because Titan Poker has completely changed my game and the players are so different, I have decided to use my current bankroll ($80-ish) on PokerStars to grind up to the higher limits and once again experience the differences, etc. and changes I needed to make - so that I can bring you the best possible answer I can.
Since this month didn't go as I expected, I'm not sure how soon I will start playing on Stars and do that project. Granted, I will notify you in advance when I find time to do it because moving up to NL10 with BSS is kinda critical in my eyes.
Once you reach NL10, you've got the basic knowledge, you're no longer a lost fish, now you actually see where you are headed, what you wish to improve, how to adapt NL BSS to your personal preference, etc.
I've got like roughly $300 spread around on people I staked on Stars so my roll there could be healthier but either way, I'll move from NL5 to NL10 "manually", I hope I'll also find the patience and will to play NL2 as well.
P.S. Regarding this matter, two of my friends will start playing NL2 next month and I'll try to assist them so if anyone wishes to join our sweat sessions and such, feel free to join us - I'm not Yoda of NL2, so don't expect god knows what brilliant insights ♦
OMG I'm soooo looking forward to your new "challenge" and to those sweat sessions!! Plzz say in advance when you're going to do them (when it gets to that point) so I can arrange things to be able to watch!
OK, not on the non-fanboy-wanna see other ppl play on my limit-talk about stuff.. side of mine I wanted to talk a little bit about stats.
I clearly remember what a good Bulgarian coach said about stats when describing how you should plan your 3 and 4 bets against certain opponent types. In his mind (and I came to think like this too, despite playing in a site that has no stats) he said that he's sick of reading people post hands against certain opponents with a large hand sample (say 4K hands against a single opponent) because for him stats is just an easy way to play against rather unknown opponents; something to get you started. When you've played so many hands against someone you should pretty much know him inside out, and if you don't have ANY read about his play, then you're either playing Ivey or you're not paying enough attention.
I do have limited experience on that part, but the way I think is pretty similar, so I 100% agree with this way of thinking.
So in conclusion there is no real need to drop the stats, as long as you yourself evolve as a player, you might pretty much always have the stats open, it's just that in the most important situations you won't be using them anyway.
The DP really sounds awful. I can't imagine there aren't thousands of complains being launched @ titan, or if there are, I can't imagine what kind of a lousy good-for-nothing company would just stay there and laugh at their potential ex-players' misfortunes 
Anyway, I hope you get back to NL50 soon and actually manage to make a big bank, before "trying out NL100" ♦
I'm also looking forward to your sessions with your friends and to your reports from NL5 to NL10, because that's pretty much where I'm stuck ATM (hmm I guess it's time to stop playing turbo SnGs that usually wipe away my daily winnings :f_biggrin:_)
Take care
-Victor
Basically I'm back to basics, I don't have the time nor proper bankroll at the moment to chase diamond rank on titan Poker, I'm like 8-9k points short or so.
Things were a bit crazy this month, lots of stuff on my mind but one thing is definitely certain - I'll re-challenge myself, maybe next month maybe not, who knows, at the moment I'm focused on re-building bankroll and anxious to see changes in the amount of points I'll collect with my new titanium rank.
I doubt I'll make an official challenge again, Eli Elezra said there isn't a poker player who isn't at least a little bit superstitious and yes, apparently I pi** off lady luck and all of her little evil midgets so from now on - no more money-making challenges from me, I'll just follow my poker line as it goes
P.S. I will secretly let you know if I intend to do something crazy, though silently and with grey coloured letters or something so that my fair lady doesn't see it and decide to play around with me again, for a while.
By the way, yesterday was an ugly day as usual, like -$50,+$50, then -$100, then up to just -$20 and down to bed cuz I was dead tired. Today I earned $45-ish I guess, can't say I was happy losing a buy-in with flopped set against a guy who shoved oesd - but, I did win a 3eay pot with a set against 2oesd, which kinda made my night nicer
I'll try to focus now just on rebuilding slowly once I peak $1k, I'll buy full PT3 licencse probably - just for the sake of graph, I like it too much. Some people need stats to play, I need my graphs (in earlier days of my blog you probably noticed I spammed graphs ever since I discovered how to put them here - and I'm guessing it would be more fun to you if I did that with the hands I play but yeah, who knows when I'll start posting some hands ♦)
It's quite funny, whenever I win on NL20 or wherever, I think to myself - hey, I had lots of bad luck today, bad calls and some nice luck but I'm still in plus for today, so it's damn easy to end every day up.
...but then the next day is so brutal you wanna puke. I'm not sure how many hands of NL BSS I've played so far, my wild guess would be around 300k but I don't know really, will find out next month I guess anyway, I'm bit sleepy, probably rambled here random stuff but yeah, an update is an update, if the deck is cold that doesnt mean I gotta leave my blog cold as well.
i think you must've played crazy number of hands to be in the Top250 playing micros.
how come you're always so dead tired?
Huh, I'm guessing lots of things piled up and along with me being sick for most of the January, I never really recovered and I was pushing it this month, trying to play 5h poker per day with all the other stuff so yeah, pretty much burned out - I'm taking it easy now, playing 6-13tables nl20 or something like that, depending on my mood and playing like 2hourish sessions or so.
As for top250 - errrm I'm far away from top250 overall (missed like 3-4k spots to get into the money spots, now probably even more as the month is coming to an end and people are playing like crazy most likely ♦), but yeah, seems English community is not that competitive in top100 
Yo Victor, an update for you - sweat sessions are starting as off today, they will be mostly in evening, feel free to send me skype/msn - btw skype is better cuz we can have multiple ppl in conversation. Cheers
just add me (skype - battlehunter_bg, don't laugh :P) whenever you like. I'm cool with skype too, because it's the chat client I follow the most.
I am back friend lured me to the poker tables with some cookies and yes, it seems I'm getting back on track - my current bankroll is $493 or something, I made some withdrawals, swapped some points for money and when everything was said and done, I found myself with $430.
Played a small 1.5h session yesterday on NL€20, improved my bankroll a bit and decided to call it a night as I still havent reached nirvana. In other words it may take a day or two more for me to get the engines running and start playing regularly.
The reason for my absence is not due to the horrible results in February, I just found myself missing a point to it all, overall purpose for doing everything we do in life. In poker, I regard myself as immortal, you cant kill me, you cant stop me, I'll just keep on going until I do what I want to do.
In a way it is like a small battleship I sent to win the poker war and if that ship is destroyed, I simply send another one, but if my "mothership" is in trouble, I lose heart in all battles and my entire fleet comes to halt.
Anyway, not to go in a wrong direction, I'll cut the long story into a not so long story and simply say that for now I'll focus on casually building up my bankroll day by day. I was tempted to leave some money on the bankroll to make it sufficient to play NL50 but no, that would be gambling and I should know better than that.
Leaving ego aside, I'm working up this roll I have via nl20/25, whatever to call it, and I guess I'll be posting here something more useful once I get back to NL50 because I dont feel like there is much more knowledge to drain from NL20 competition on titan poker.
Naturally, there is always something more to learn but the amount of energy it takes to extract that final 10% from players on NL20 is more efficient used elsewhere. In other words, my primary focus now is on eliminating any tilt effects bad luck or bad plays may have on me.
There are many subtle changes in your play that you may not notice and right now I am trying to distinguish the difference between adapting to your opponents and changing your play due to being on a tilt. It's quite simple, especially when you write it in a blog, but in practice, even the simplest things can somehow slip away from our mind.
On another note, if I'm correct there were several friends I staked, so to give you a brief summary - the first friend whirled around NL10 for a while and now he has withdrawn most money and started from NL2 again - let's call it the road of cleansing and making a recap of everything we have learned thus far.
I'll take that road myself, as promised but yeah, rebuilding my roll should come first The second friend figured out betting on Barcelona all the time is kinda easier money than trying to outplay a donkey (virtually impossible, or in mathematical terms e=mc2/d).
The third friend is like a snail being chased by 10 angry chinese butchers armed with axes (no hard feelings against chinese folks) and since I havent taught him yet how to shift gears, he has learned to camouflage himself and is, as we speak, waiting in the dark for me to wake up and continue showing him what not to do in poker and how not to be as successful in donking away your money as me.
The fourth friend is the black sheep, he wanted to rush into learning poker more than any of the three above friends and yes...it took 5 "when can I play, when can I play" sentences and one hour of me saying "so these are the hands you play and these are the bets you make" before he concluded - wow, this is too much, we better slow down a bit - and yes, indeed slow down we did, our next session will be in a week or so and our last one was...well yeah, back then some 1-2months ago.
Ok, that would be all for now from me, my mind is hectic these days so if you didnt understand anything of what it said here - no worries, I didnt understand half of it either (curse you mind, learn to articulate your thoughts in a human language!)
I forgot to mention earlier, the titan poker update is kinda "good" - in other words, software is better than before. When you click tile tables, it no longer causes massive lag, it does kinda oddly place the tables but eh, nothing is perfect ♦
Now there is an option to make 2/3 potsize bets which kinda means I no longer play there with my finger glued to one button - potsize bet and my reserve finger glued to fold button in case I ever come up with such a crazy idea.
Anyway, the second day went well. I played bit over 2hours, 12tables and +$66 so I'm happy. Going nice so far, hope it continues in the same manner Dendra over and out (is that how they say it in the army, I guess it is)
3rd day going well so far, there were some funny hands. I'm mostly enjoying myself, played 4tables, a bit of 5tables in roughly 1-1.5h, got up to +$80, then decided to play some more, opened 6 tables in total, got down to just +$20 and then up we go, back to +$70.
Interesting month so far, let's see how it continues - I'm swarmed by uber cool bonus offers from titan poker but I don't care about it, it'll just make me chase points and poker is about money primarily, points will come along naturally, at their own pace.
And a short update, it's quite funny how things can go upside down so fast. What's even funnier is that most lessons that I learned in life, usually pop up shortly after in some form somewhere.
I mean - I realized playing roughly 2 hour sessions is optimal and I should just quit at that point instead of wanting to earn more for the day "since it's going so well". Playing tired can cost too much and what do you know - I just re-watched Million Dollar Cash game and Patrik Antonius said the same thing, probably one of the most sincere and useful advices I've heard ever since I watched that fullflush HU match vs durrrr.
Anyway, long story short - I felt like crap on Friday, didn't feel like doing anything so I figured playing some poker brainlessly will do the trick. On this topic - I very rarely play poker and think about poker, I'm mostly pondering bout some philosophical thoughts on life or what not and playing poker along with it.
Session started off well and this time I decided to continue playing and what started with 2 bad beats continued with my bad calls and some more weird hands and poof, I pretty much lost the profit from the past 3 days.
Next day I came eager to fix my error, got up to +$100, felt like it was going good and decided to make a monster session and yeah, instead of continuing in same pace, I soon found myself in minus and trying to start climbing up again - which didn't happen.
The third day was kind of fun. I realized I notice more details in hands and my decisions are better because of that, however, I need to be better to dodge some situations - sometimes I just insta-called with overpair even though I thought for a second the guy could and most likey has a set.
With some coolers and a couple of those hands I could've gotten away from, I found myself droppin fast so I stepped down to NL10. Will focus now on playing shorter sessions and moving bit by bit - problem is I don't intend to play 2h sessions quite yet, so that "now" I used moments earlier refers to the moment when I get back to NL20.
For now, I feel like I need to put in more hours and get back in the saddle asap, can't rush it and I'll still try to balance my energy - I'm down to playing 6tables which pretty much sums up how willing I feel to play but yeh, you gotta do what you gotta do, let's hope tomorrow brings a better day.
Huh, so many things to talk about, errrm write about. I'm not quite sure from where to start, so here comes a brief report just for the sake of briefly reporting latest happenings.
I started rebuilding my bankroll with $430, worked it up to $650-ish or so and banzaiii, fell down to $150. My battleship was sunk, so I decided to turn it into a submarine and find my way back to the surface - one way or another, it was only logical I'd need to get my hands bloody if I wanted to get anywhere.
So...after one week of battling, grinding and what not - I'm back to $456. In the beginning, I moved down to nl10 and after reaching $280+ bankroll I switched to nl20.
Yesterday was a pretty fun day. Lots of coolers such as - JT flopping top two pair on JT3, guy calling me with 43o, same guy shoving on turn 4 and same guy sucking out on the river which was obviusly - another 3.
In short, I quickly fell down from $414 to $292 bankroll, recovered to $313 and went for a break. Came back, played 1 hour and reached $456 which somewhat made me feel happy but still, rather annoying day.
Hmm and yeah, I had a fun session a day prior to the one I just described. Earning $168, +$60 from nl10 and rest nl20. My best day in general up to this date.
Anyway...I write these updates for the sake of letting any passing by reader know I'm still alive and also for the sake of writing my own history - so that one day I can look back at this blog and say - ah I remember that time, rough days matey, arrr arrr.
Since I'm aware of the fact these type of posts are probably utterly boring, I'll switch to something more fun and hopefully useful. No...I won't write about mathematical calculations in NLHE, I'll write about mind thoughtulations in NLHE.
Mind Thoughtulations - Chapter 1: History repeats itself
Personally, it can be very annoying knowing you'll be a much better player in a year and able to avoid so many dumb things you are doing now - but I guess that's why it's called a learning process and not I-was-born-ready process.
So what exactly can be learned, improved, etc.? Let's look at the first steps of NL BSS (at least the "style" I'm playing).
Rule 1:
Be the pre-flop aggressor, cbet and win the pot - because most of the time neither you nor your opponent will hit anything.
Rule 2:
Fold TPTK to aggression because the guy dominates you too often with 2pair or a set.
Sounds simple? Because it actually is. This folding habit extends to folding sets/2pairs when a guy hits a flush, folding flush when a guy hits full house, etc. etc. etc. The pre-flop raise+cbet combo evolves into situations where you have to start using the board to bluff your opponents. These are all relatively basic steps.
Now, I'm confronted with the same learning process, though on a higher scale. When you have a bottom set, can you ever fold it on the flop? I'm asking myself this because I had a hand in which I "felt" the guy had a set of fives against my set of fours.
The problem is, flop came 456 with a flush draw. His hand range can be 2 oversets, 2pair, flush/straight draw and a flopped straight. Now for some reason I just knew he had pocket fives, especially the way he bet on the turn 6 - it became apparent he either has quad sixes or full house with fives. I called and he showed me 55. Now I noticed on high stakes poker shows, durrrr so often dodged bullets with super strong hands and I also noticed Patrik Antonius or someone saying after a hand - "I just don't think I was good enough to fold that hand."
So how good do you need to be to fold sets? Personally, I think folding bottom sets on rainbow flops is doable. It's very hard because a guy can have two pair just as well, however, I think that the better players you play against, the easier it becomes to pinpoint their hand based on certain logic, patterns, etc.
On lower limits, it's just not possible because I guess it's -EV to fold sets even if you're sure the guy has an overset, because they shove so many hands that you could beat... It's the same dilemma as with KK...can you ever fold KK pre-flop? In time, you reach a point where you can tell if a player has AA,KK hand range - which means you either chop the pot or lose it.
Mind Thoughtulations - Chapter 2: Improving is inevitable
I believe thinking too advanced is negative. There are many things to worry about when you start playing poker. I mean our game has so many leaks in it that it's somewhat silly to bang your head against the wall and try to figure out some high level plays - simply take a seat at a table, play, play, play and you will learn - you will expand your knowledge in a natural way.
You have to be aware of yourself and what you're doing. For example - yesterday I had AA, flop comes Qxx, I cbet,guy calls, turn comes another Q and a flush hits the board. I decide to bet again and guy moves all-in, since we got like 3/4 of our stacks in, I call.
What happened there? I could only beat KK and due to his passive play pre-flop, it is not likely he has KK, so he must have AQ, QQ or a suited Q like KQ/QJ. In other words, I could've surrendered the pot on the turn and save half of my stack. I don't know if you watched durrrr play, but you'll notice that when he is sucked out, he mostly figures it out and folds. And if he sucks out on ppl, they pay him off.
Now this AA situation was relatively easy and I should've folded. How many more of these situations occur in our sessions? Yes, it was bad luck and the guy overplayed his QJo but I made the final donkament - same was with i.e. pocket kings and overplaying them on A high board, sometimes you just gotta let go...
When we improve our decisions in all of these spots, we will have a lot easier time making profit. This comes in time, I cannot force this knowledge upon myself. So what can I do, what can you do? The important thing is to keep on moving, never stop moving - what do I mean by this?
Basically, you want to improve as often as possible. It doesn't matter if you learned a new trick in your session, a new situation in which you should fold or do something differently, etc. It can also be improving your mental strength. How well do you handle bad beats? Do you let yourself get caught up in "private wars" on a table and instead of playing poker, focus on nailing that specific player and taking his stack?
In general, improving is inevitable. You will become a better player and what matters is that you constantly push your skills to a higher limit, bit by bit. It is a long road to perfection and the worst thing you can do is to look at things negatively.
Mind Thoughtulations - Chapter 3: Don't worry, be optimistic
Poker is a cruel world and sometimes the best thing you can do is to find a bright side to it all. When you lose a lot of money, don't think about how much money you had and now have to "return". Look at the things that made you lose all that money - yes, you won't be able to see all the reasons for your disaster, but if you spot just one - that money wasn't lost for nothing.
So when you lose a chunk of your bankroll, simply think of how stronger you are now. You took a blow but you're still there, standing and cursing poker gods for pickpocketing your bankroll! Every downfall you take also improves your mental strength and tolerance for poker brutality.
If you just look at the bad side of it all - you'll completely neglect the fact you won't fall down in the same way again. Next time you'll know more and be better prepared - you'll just keep on coming, stronger and stronger, until eventually, you bust the limit and move up to higher levels - because you're better than those obstacles which have put you down - they are there on the close to constant level of toughness and you...you become tougher and tougher with each passing session - so who's gonna win in the end?
On another note - if you make some donkey move, don't cry about it and feel stupid. Don't feel ashamed of what you did and how it ruined your session. It's a valuable mistake and mark it somewhere in your head, just to keep it in mind for the future sessions. You donked one stack but think of how many stacks you've saved yourself in the future - because now you know you made a wrong move and okay, fine...you've learned something new about yourself, let's move on!
- Anyway, that's all from me for now, see you folks later gl at the poker tables
glad to see ur back. ur really fascinating. it's cool how u unapologetically do things ur own way & how ur so honest about it.
how do u come up with such entries? have u got the main points written down before u start? or in ur head? or do u make it up as u go along?
why did u say in an earlier entry that leaving enough BR for NL50 is gambling? why wld it be gambling/any diffrent fr NL20 if you have the BR for it?
sorry i have so many questions. ur just too interesting. i have a gazillion more but i dont want to annoy you too much. 
btw, i like ur thinking that improving is inevitable. it means there's hope, even for us lazy people. ♦
I never write down main points before I start - I'm too lazy to do schedules, plans, etc. Rough guesses of what I'll do next is as far as I go
Hmm, I'll have to re-read what I wrote before to answer that question about NL50 and hmm, I don't mind questions, actually I love 'em 
Hmmm so yeah, anyway, I'll be back later to track down that NL50 thingey in my blog you asked about
Awesome penultimate post, dude. Loving your writing and observations. Especially that, when we make a foolish move we shouldn't worry about the money we just lost as a result of it, but rather the money we will save in the future by not doing it again.
-Tim
ah, purple-momma-fizz, I found the sentence you asked me about (the nl50 gambling thing)
So basically, I'm low on money and just because I want to earn money in poker asap, doesn't mean I should scrap my pockets to build up a minimum bankroll for NL50 in hopes of quickly earning more money - which would allow me to withdraw part of it and keep the rest on a poker platform.
Obviously, that would be gambling as I wouldn't be able to handle financially losing money at the poker tables. That's pretty much like BRM - you can be Phil Ivey skill-wise, but if you don't have a proper BRM - you're gambling with your money.
Hmm yes, it seems I have a knack for making simple things complicated and apparently that side of me has successfully complicated yet another thing which was in fact simple as this - if you can't handle the bad side of variance, you are gambling and should move down a limit, disregarding of your or your opponents' skill level.
So errm, yeah, hope that's been clarified now - if not, don't hesitate to say so and I'll try to explain the explanation and the subject of that explanation.
Back to business, or should I say bragging and moaning. After my rise to $456 I naturally had to fall down to $303 just for the sake of making my poker days on Titan Poker more fun. So today, I did two sessions, one 1-2h long, other 20minutes long (at best).
1st session got me up to $414, 2nd to $446, so I'm happy and had enough of Titan Poker for now. The reason I'm writing this is because of one hand that's itching my brain.
I'm still lazy to import hands so you can either live with it and read the rough description of the hand, you can skip the entire hand-related part or, you can slap me and try to make me start importing hands - which probably won't work at first, but hey - who said anything in life comes easy
Preflop:
Donkey-me(UTG+1) KK raise to 4BB, folded around, Hero(CO or something) raises to 10BB, the men in blinds fold, Donkey calls
-I decided to flat call because we were both 200-250BB deep or so and I could smell aces, but figured I might hit a king so why not make the call! I obviously didn't want to re-raise him right there because we'd end up going all-in preflop and yeah, with that deep stacks, that would be pretty crappy for me.
Flop:
Jxx (x represents irrelevant crap)
Donkey checks, Hero bets 2/3 pot, Donkey calls
-Jack high flop, in a way it's great for me. I know he doesnt have JJ+J, he could have QQ but less likely cuz of very aggressive bet on flop (the way he moved his hand when he put in the chips, it was just so sharp and confident).
KK are a possibility but I feared the Aces the most and yeah, with jack high board I just wasn't ready to let go of my kings.
Turn:
Jxx- and a new x joins the board
Donkey checks, Hero bets 2/3 pot, Donkey makes a donkey call
-A new crap card changes nothing, even if it was relevant, I could never bluff him away by representing a straight or something. I decided to call still because the board was still J high and I was still beat only by pocket aces - and I was still a believer my golden king would deliver me some assistance on the river.
River:
Jxxx-and another x
Donkey checks, Hero bets all-in (roughly potsize), Donkey calls
-So basically, I had half or perhaps bit over half of my stack in there (not sure) and with a possibility of KK as well as highly unlikely QQ, I decided to call and see what the future brings.
One second into the future and poof, I was shown ze pocket aces!
This hand pretty much made me lose roughly $60, which was what I made in the first 30-45minutes of my session. A lovely feeling honestly, to lose xxx pots you won in a single hand. Could I avoid this hand? I personally don't know, on J high board, it's hard, very hard to fold.
I called because I was ready to feel the pain of losing a deep stack to a sort of a cooler. I can't let go of my hand on the flop, on the turn also and the river, so much money is in the pot that it also becomes difficult to fold what has a decent potential of being the best hand.
So what to do here? Personally, I think I should trust my instincts next time - flat call for set value and act like my KK was JJ rag on flop when I miss my set and simply fold.
I made 3calls postflop knowing I may be very likely against aces and I lost my stack because of it - it's tough, really tough
Mind Thoughtulations - Chapter 4: In quest of discovery
I failed to mention one little detail in my previous long post - what makes NL2 and such limits so beatable? People folding and letting you have majority of the small pots.
I mean if you raise with AJ/AQ/AK, how many times do you get to the turn? People mostly fold to your cbet. What these small pots do is pretty obvious. They soften your bad beats by giving you a constant flow of money into your pockets.
Imagine these small pots are like a small coin machine next to you in a cash game. And this coin machine pops out a few coins every x seconds. It always brings you money, so in the long run, when you lose let's say $5, you still gained $0.20 from your coin machine at the same time, thus making your loss a bit smaller.
What happens as you progress? You have to fight for the pots more and more, you have to alter your play with made hands, etc. For example, what is the most noticeable change? When you hit a hand, you have to make sure you get paid for it as much as you can. On lower limits, it won't kill you if you don't get paid off huge by your strong hands.
...Oops, hold on a second...Actually, I haven't thought about it this "deep" until now - in my head I just got to the point at which I concluded I need to increase my small pots winrate. So....anyway, back to the topic....
On lower limits you soften your losses by winning lots of small pots, as your opponents get tougher, you soften your losses by winning big when you hit something. Now I've been thinking, is there a way to increase your small pots winrate on "higher" limits as well?
I'm not sure what I'll discover eventually - maybe I am slowly evolving from a TaG-donkey into a LaG-donkey. I haven't read any books and my laziness+ego don't allow me to read ps.com stuff so yeah, I've pretty much reached a new point in my poker career and I'll see where it takes me.
I don't care if there is an answer lying somewhere around this site, I'm currently building my own game and my own game currently tells me I need to figure out a way to win more small pots. If I turn into a LaG player, I won't know it and I'll probably deviate from your typical LaG opponent because I hate stereotypes and nothing kills me more than when ppl categorize me - seriously, just shoot me in the left leg or something, but don't confine me in a lame definition.
So...to summarize for now. As long as people buy it, raise+cbet and steal small pots. If people stop buying your bluffs, start betting stronger when you hit a hand (it pays off so much on NL5++ on PokerStars). As for me? I don't think I'll try to loosen up my play, I don't have the skills needed to play a wider range of hands, as I'd move out of my comfort zone.
In time I'll probably feel ready (and have a better bankroll) to play like a maniac and fight for more pots, be it small or big For now, I'll focus on fixing leaks in my current game, adjusting it, etc.
Take care folks and gl at the poker tables
P.S. I'm usually not a baby-loving-guy (it kinda annoys me how ppl drool over babies, how cute they are, etc.) but purple's baby looks cool, not sure why but it does - maybe that's my yet-to-be-discovered-baby-loving-side crawling from the depths of my soul and wanting to compliment a nice looking baby with a word or two...Well there you go my sentimental side, you got your 2lines of glory, now head back inside and let me get back to being a chaotic self-centered philosopher who also happens to be a ferocious donkey eating fish for breakfast (when luck is on his side).
Hey mate,
Nice blog, I was just wondering about that last hand where the guy 3-bet you with aces. I am playing NL5 atm and I have just adjusted one or two things in my game, namely making my pf raises 4x rather than 3x, and doing the same with my pf 3bets. Anyway, just when you were talking about that guys 3bet being so aggressive, but really it is only 2.5 times your raise, is that not more an indicator of aces than a large 3bet? i.e that old adage of weak is strong?
Cheers
hehe ty mate just to comment your pf raises - 4x raise is (personally) good as long as players are exploitable. By this I mean if players like to see the flop and fold if they miss, bigger raise preflop is a nice way to abuse their curiosity.
I switched to 3x raise when I reached NL20 (more like nl25-nl30 since it's euros/pounds) but I guess it's all very relative and depends on your comfort level. I like the 3x raise nowadays because it keeps the pot slightly smaller so I have more room to "play poker" - aka more money is left behind so I can bluff people out of pots or pull out in time and lose less, etc.
Anyway, since I play on titan poker, there are these cute little 2x,3x,etc. buttons to raise with. Now I'm not exactly sure right now how it went, but during the hand I was sure he pressed one of those buttons which makes a raise which indicates strength to me.
I mean the way he did it, it just smelt like pocket aces. I'd have to check this one but I think 2x button rounds up the raise to 10BB instead of making it actual 3x raise, aka 12BB. And yes, I know 2x button sounds weird to make 3bet with, but if memory serves me well, that's what it does.
So anyway, the guy would use the same button to 3bet me if he had QQ for example. If he had AK he'd maybe use the 3x button to make a stronger raise and try to take the pot down right there or create more fold equity on flop. So in short, since bet sizes are not done manually, his 3bet size couldn't pinpoint me his hand because he'd use that button on variety of hands - it was just my 4th sense telling me something is wrong this time ♦
Oh and btw don't hold me on this one about 2x,3x buttons, I'd have to check that out to tell you how much they raise precisely. During the games I just dont think about it, it's kinda subconscious
P.S. I keep forgetting: Titan Poker has updated its software again. I like the new skin, it's nice. Actually, software in general is great nowadays, however, I have 2 things to complain about:
1st: Tile tables just randomly scatters tables all over your screen and that preferred seat should be like auto-saved instead of having to click "sit here" every time you open a new table. (maybe there is such an option for preferred seat but I'm not aware of it, yet)
2nd: It's very annoying trying to write a note on a person when that little box for notes is on crack!!! Lemme explain - if I click on a person I want to write a note about and then hover my mouse over some other name, the name in the box I'm writing the note about changes to the person my mouse last ran across.
Also, if I write a note on a guy and meanwhile action moves around the table, so does the note box change to the person who currently has to act - which is hillarious!
The software is still too bad to multitable properly and I'm still too tired to multitable properly and I'm also now very much focused on fixing leaks in my game so I won't do any crazy multitabling - I'm mostly doing 7,max 8 tables (sometimes 9, but I like to leave that empty spot on my screen for the cashier so that I can look at it while I'm playing).
This naturally doesnt prevent me from 24-tabling nl2 on stars,hopefully soon nl5 if I get my bankroll up 
Huh, seems I'm off for now, hf folks and good night if you happen to be a European cuz it's midnight here