Vic Strongman 2014

Hey Vic,

Welcome to the English blogs

People never truly leave poker. They are only on holidays and always seem to return.

Are you playing NL25 Rush again now that FTP is back or have you moved on somewhere else?

Nice hair

Laz

Hey Lazz,

Thanks for the welcome : )

I am currently playing in Prima (microgaming) nl20€ regular 6m games, 6-9 tabling. I have the bankroll to move to 50, but I want to stay on the cautious side and get a decent sample to make sure I don't have a huge multitabling leak (I've never been one to multitable, max 6, or 4-6 rush ♦).

So far things have been good, tho I didn't put in much volume, because of exams in uni Tuesday and Wednesday, but I will make up for it as I am free to do whatever Fri-Sun

So far the biggest mistake I've found myself doing was paying off people that take lines that make no sense - the advice I give my students to crush the micros applies for me too, if I am to play some hands on nl20:D

At least I am not the only one that does it:

$0.10/$0.20 No Limit Holdem
Prima
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG eiksikt ($19.50) 98bb
UTG+1 Hero ($22.16) 111bb
CO liavon777 ($21.60) 108bb
BTN FlyToTheMoon ($21.20) 106bb
SB simyds ($21.72) 109bb
BB _psIX_ ($6) 30bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.30, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 Q♦ Q♠
eiksikt raises to $0.60, Hero calls $0.60, 4 folds

Flop: 6♣ 8♣ 6♦ ($1.50, 2 players)
eiksikt bets $0.80, Hero raises to $2.20, eiksikt raises to $5.10, Hero raises to $8, eiksikt goes all-in $13.80, Hero calls $10.90

Turn: 9♣ ($31.30, 2 players, 1 all-in)

River: 10:heart: ($31.30, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $31.30
eiksikt shows
5♦ 5♠
Hero shows
Q♦ Q♠

Hero wins $37.34 (net +$25.84)

eiksikt lost $19.50

I also ended up playing a couple of BOTS in Prima in the NLHU Blaze tables (20€). My first session I wanted to chill a bit and see how blaze HU works - there were 2 separate tables where the "bots" were sitting (i didn't know they are bots at the time), not playing each other, but giving me instant action.
I played them for a bit and thought those are really really bad players, so I should play as much as possible against them, but it was getting close to 7am and I was dead tired, so I ended up only taking ~3bi with them losing ~7.
I gave up and went to sleep. To my surprise, when I woke up, bot players were still sitting at their tables, still not playing each other and still giving me instant action. I started smelling something fishy. This repeated in my evening session as well.
By now I knew for sure they are bots and was making up some pretty funny ways to maximize my value against them:

They both had different ranges,
but 4-5% 3bet. I would min4bet if I want to, as they folded to min4bet as much as vs regular one.
I would bluff cbet with 1/3-1/4 sizing (aimed at folding air only), as they would never fold any piece OTF, and never fold 2nd pair or better to barrel;
I would overbet - overbet - shove when I have strong hand

-----------------------------------------------------------------
example:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
$0.10/$0.20 No Limit Holdem
Prima
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero (BTN) ($38.14) 191bb
BB ($20.42) 102bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.30, 2 players) Hero is BTN 10:diamond: 7♣
Hero raises to $0.40, BB calls $0.20

Flop: 8♣ 7♦ 7♠ ($0.60, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.40, BB calls $1.40

Turn: A♣ ($3.40, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5.80, BB calls $5.80

River: 4♣ ($15, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $14.40, BB goes all-in $12.82

Final Pot: $40.64
Hero shows
10:diamond: 7♣
BB shows
3♦ 8♦

Hero wins $41.42 (net +$19.42)

BB lost $20.22

-----------------------------------------------------------------
this would be my standard value line, as their cbet was 13 for bot1 and 22 for bot2
-----------------------------------------------------------------
$0.10/$0.20 No Limit Holdem
Prima
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
BTN ($31.16) 156bb
Hero (BB) ($27.88) 139bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.30, 2 players) Hero is BB 4♠ 4♦
BTN raises to $0.40, Hero calls $0.20

Flop: 7♠ 4♣ K♦ ($0.60, 2 players)
Hero bets $1.50, BTN calls $1.50

Turn: J♠ ($3.60, 2 players)
Hero bets $6.30, BTN calls $6.30

River: A♥ ($16.20, 2 players)
Hero bets $19.60, BTN folds

Final Pot: $35.80

Hero wins $35.18 (net +$7.58)

BTN lost $8.20

-----------------------------------------------------------------
They had ~5% 3bet, but folded anything less than JJ+ AK
-----------------------------------------------------------------
$0.10/$0.20 No Limit Holdem
Prima
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero (BTN) ($20.70) 104bb
BB ($45.40) 227bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.30, 2 players) Hero is BTN J♦ 8♣
Hero raises to $0.40, BB raises to $1.40, Hero raises to $2.40, BB folds

Final Pot: $3.80

Hero wins $3.80 (net +$1.40)

BB lost $1.40

-----------------------------------------------------------------
This would be my standard bluff sizing on any street, as they folded based on street bets, not sizings
-----------------------------------------------------------------
$0.10/$0.20 No Limit Holdem
Prima
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero (BTN) ($28.85) 144bb
BB ($42.88) 214bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.30, 2 players) Hero is BTN 3♦ Q♠
Hero raises to $0.40, BB raises to $1.40, Hero raises to $2.40, BB calls $1

Flop: 8♣ 5♥ 5♣ ($3.40, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.30, BB calls $1.30

Turn: 9♥ ($6, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: 4♠ ($6, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.50, BB folds

Final Pot: $7.50

Hero wins $8.53 (net +$3.33)

BB lost $2.30

Glad to have u back in the poker world Vic.
Feel free to contact me anytime if u want to discuss poker or not poker w/ someone
Good luck , sure u ll be climbing limits pretty soon
Regards ,
Dany.

Hey Vic,

Welcome to EN Blogs

Really glad to have another succesfull player's blog around, I'm sure many will learn along while reading it.

I'm in for the journey,
Keep us updated please

Kind regards,
Fran

Thanks for the responses guys : )

@tarantaleo - Thanks for the warm welcome If I am not mistaken I remember you as the guy that I've played with nl10 live waay back in the day ♦ ♦. It is really motivating to see you progress so much while I was slacking, so I've got some catching up to do

@FRANKIE - Thanks you sir! I hope to be successful indeed after my hiatus, but hey, if anything pokerstrategy blogs is the place where one can see for sure that hard work pays off!

I actually am not rushing to update my blog on purpose, usually when I get overly excited about something I end up overdoing it at the beginning and then getting bored/demotivated and stopping, which is why I have decided to start it slow and cap myself to 2-3 updates per week

I will post my weekly review tomorrow as I am still grinding it up today, but so far so good. I managed to hit my target at nl20, ended up beating it with 9.88bb/100, and just took my first "shot" at nl50. I say "shot" because it feels weird to call it so, considering I probably have most of my career hands on that limit (as a matter of raw # of hands, for me it probably goes like 50(rush)>25(rush)>100(regular) ), but it is part of the overall process to prove my discipline going in this.

As far as building up my habits goes, well it is not going very well, but I am learning A LOT in the process, and I actually think about being totally honest with you guys in this, with my weekly reviews, goals and workarounds for the problems that I find.

As an old tradition that I often used to do, I will finish this up with a song that I've been loving recently

^nice song, when you come to Croatia, I can meet you to 2Cellos

glgl

subbed!

laughed at those bothands.

Hello sir,

How did the nl50 'shot' go? I'm playing nl20 on microgaming too and I've been thinking of taking 1/2 tabling shots at nl50. Have you experienced much of a difference between the limits? My wr is ~8bb/hh on nl20 so I'd like to think I'm good enough for at least b/e but any bit of info wouldn't hurt!

@FRANKIE - 2Cellos are really awesome! If I come to Coratia I will be sure to "randomly" time it with one of their performances

@holmeboy - the "shot" went terrible; You know how it feels sometimes - lost all flips, my queens ran into kings, my kings into aces and my flushes overflushed; even the one 5b-shove bluff vs aggromonkey ran into aces. I did a few unsuccessful barrels too. All in all lost around 10bi in a matter of two sessions

I had some life runbad too, internet stopped 4 times during a session :/ But I feel like I didn't tilt. I did feel bad during the session, but after I reviewed some hands, I felt much better knowing that the majority of the plays that costed me those buyins were actually the proper ones. I did find some poor plays as well, but I think I managed to learn from it so all is well in cakeland

More importantly, here is how last week's goals/habits went:

So, let's start with Tha Goodz:

I stretched almost all days (6/7) - Can be better, but I Feel really good about this. I actively began stretching in the morning instead of drinking coffee, which I think is really healthy and also helps me use coffee more efficiently for when I really "need" it.
I successfully managed to link my "Vision" to brushing my teeth - every time I brush my teeth I do it mechanically and think about what I want to accomplish in the longterm and how will that make me feel. I think this is really important to keep at, as it helps me give purpose to the smaller pieces in the present
I meditated most of the days (6/7) - I am pretty happy with this; I want to eventually learn to meditate for longer time and learn to do it under different circumstances (right now I can't do it without headphones and near-perfect silence)
Analyzing a hand 7/7 - I decided to start it small, to make sure I can keep this as a daily habit. I do most of the days analyze quite a bit more than 1 hand, but for now I want to keep the "requirement" to a minimum, to make sure I can be consistent at this for at least some time
drink a cup of tea 7/7 - I love tea. I almost never drink tea. Why? Because I am lazy - lazy to go buy it from the storer; lazy to boil water; lazy to prepare it. This is why I decided to try this as a habit. So far so good

The Bads:

Read a book - I love reading all sorts of books, mostly fantasy and scy-fi (think Game of Thrones, Foundation series, etc), but the more time I spend on the computer, the more I slack in this department. It is not that I don't have time to read a chapter every day, I simply find all sorts of excuses to spend my time before sleep with other mindless internet activities. Well, no more of that! The first week went pretty bad, with many fails; but since Friday (till today included) I found out my solution - I downloaded the book I wanted to read on my kindle. When I have a huge tome I sometimes don't feel like carrying it around but with the e-reader I always have it with me and read every time I am out for a walk, or traveling to uni and back, so I actually both do something I love and on top of it, I do it in time that mostly is lost otherwise anyway, so even tho I failed this week with 3/7, I found my solution here!

Brushing teeth - You will also see it in this week's graph later on - i simply don't have this habit. For whatever reason since I was a child, I always had the habit of brushing my teeth once per day - either in the morning or in the evening. Almost never twice. So even tho it probably sounds silly to most of you, it is a big thing for me. I am still to find a 100% way of making sure I keep up at it, but for now all I have is to keep trying.

POKER:
I failed my goal of 25 hours by a bit less than an hour, which on it's own is not a big deal. The problem is the way that my time was allocated - Monday - when my motivation was very high and end of the week - when I simply had the deadline breathing down my neck. It is an awful habit, one that probably a vast majority of people have - to do things in the last possible minute, the last possible day before the deadline.
Ways to combat it? I will look to set a daily minimum from next week.

Absolutely the same is true with the videos, where at least I managed to cover my bare minimum program.

Analyzing (general) ranges is a whole different thing. I love poker math. I don't know why, but calculating 4bet calling ranges out of position and figuring out the +EV check/ship textures makes me fell nice. The problem? I can NEVER get myself to start doing it. I always find ways to procrastinate, always a better thing to do - even other things I don't like doing suddenly become appealing to me simply because I don't want to sit down and start...

Having figured this out, I have a few possible solutions (a friend of mine was a great help in coming up with them) that I will be trying in the next few weeks:

- Set an appointment with myself - say, every day 2pm - time for calculations. No other planning, no distractions, no nothing.

- Do it with somebody else - if I ask somebody to do this with me over skype, it will be harder for me to "slack off", knowing another person is waiting for me

- Donate - every time I slack off of doing this basic (and important) thing, have a certain percentage of my BR shipped to charity.

I will see which one of these will work best as a motivator and keep you guys updated

P.S. Geez, this post is super long. Better leave it with a song before the blog police comes for me!

dunno why but this tune is super catch, makes me smile and sing along ^^

"Just a man nothing more,
nothing less but none the less"

Just found this old jewel in my VODs collection. It is a bit long-ish (~10 min) but it shows an extremely interesting study that is somewhat linked with all of us and is presented in a really fun way

"The surprising truth about what motivates us"

Brb re watching it myself now

Welcome back, buddy!

Solid posts ITT