Snakes will smoke

We made some steady progress in NL5 in the last few days, it seems safe to say that I beat this limit.
NL10 still seems a little terrifying to me, though...

I did gather my courage tonight and decided to take some baby steps in this limit, just a short session of about 200-300 hands. It went well, actually, I made a profit of around $15, bringing my bankroll up to $437.

There is no real reason for me not to play at this limit now, I guess. $400+ is indeed a huge bankroll for NL5, and still quite comfortable for NL10. I'll keep playing, and hopefully keep my tilt in check this time. Wish me luck!

Also, I played my very first Badugi tourneys yesterday! What a fun game this is. Some of you may have seen my posts about this in the "Other Poker Variants" forum. No winnings so far, but I guess finishing 88th in a freeroll of about 2000 players is not a bad result for my first game ever.

So, are you guys going to watch the Super Bowl? I definitely plan to do so, but I have to go to work next Monday, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to watch the whole game (it starts late at night over here in Europe).

Man, the Broncos are getting their ass kicked!

Maybe its a good thing my Ladbrokes account isn't up yet, I probably would've bet money on them...

That was just brutal. Good thing I'm not a Broncos fan.
43-8... no comment, man.

Well, it's almost 04:00 AM over here. I better go get a few hours of shut-eye now if I don't want to fall asleep at work tomorrow.

So here's the situation with Ladbrokes:

Up until a few days ago, every deposit option except Paysafecard was grayed out, because I think I once made some attempt to pay using this method, which was aborted.
I contacted customer support about this, which didn't fix the problem. Two days ago, I talked to them via live chat, and they were able to help me immediately.

Now every deposit option is available to me again, but it doesn't really help matters. Ladbrokes does accept PayPal, but unfortunately not from German customers. Traditional bank transfers are another option, but it doesn't seem to work with USD. Naturally, credit cards are an option as well, but I don't own any.

I tried opening an account with Neteller, but it failed due to some weird error on their website. Besides, I've heard bad things about Neteller and Skrill. Some people say it's not safe and it charges unreasonable fees.

Ironically, it seems like Paysafecard might be the best option after all. I talked to some clerks at a local lottery counter about this today. They told me that they only sell this stuff, they couldn't give me any information about potential fees or withdrawal methods, so I decided to wait until I can gather some more info about this payment method.

Life can be tough if you don't own a credit card...

I'll probably open a thread about this somewhere else at one point, but if anyone who has been using Paysafecard happens to stumble upon this post, I'd be grateful if you could help me out and give me some info on how to withdraw using this method, and any fees that may occur.

Hey buddy. I just stumbled upon your blog. Interesting thus far and very well structured and presented (your English is brilliant, I wish I had such a good grasp of a foreign language) I guess that has something to do with your university course.

I will add you in the community section in case you ever want to talk strategy / do some sweat sessions etc. Look forward to your next few posts. I might even start my own blog although I tend to run out of steam with them.

Originally posted by muel294
Hey buddy. I just stumbled upon your blog. Interesting thus far and very well structured and presented (your English is brilliant, I wish I had such a good grasp of a foreign language) I guess that has something to do with your university course.

I will add you in the community section in case you ever want to talk strategy / do some sweat sessions etc. Look forward to your next few posts. I might even start my own blog although I tend to run out of steam with them.

Thank you!

It's nice to know that there are people who actually read this stuff.

PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $12.55 (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 100.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
SB: $10.33 (VPIP: 42.86, PFR: 42.86, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
BB: $23.07 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 5)
Hero (UTG): $14.55
MP: $6.85
CO: $10.23

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A♦ J♣

Hero raises to $0.30, fold, fold, BTN calls $0.30, fold, fold

Flop: ($0.75, 2 players) A♥ A♣ J♦
Hero bets $0.40, BTN raises to $0.80, Hero calls $0.40

Turn: ($2.35, 2 players) K♥
Hero bets $1.00, BTN raises to $2.00, Hero raises to $5.00, BTN calls $3.00

River: ($12.35, 2 players) 3♥
Hero bets $8.45 and is all-in, BTN calls $6.45 and is all-in

Hero shows A♦ J♣ (Full House, Aces full of Jacks) (Pre 60%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)
BTN shows 7♥ 9♥ (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 40%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)
Hero wins $24.11

Speaking of full houses aces over jacks, check out the bad beat I laid in today's session:

PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $13.68 (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 3)
SB: $5.75 (VPIP: 34.48, PFR: 17.24, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 31)
Hero (BB): $10.00
UTG: $17.56 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
MP: $10.20 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)
CO: $10.15 (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 27.27, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)

SB posts SB $0.05, Hero posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has J♣ A♦

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to $0.30, Hero raises to $0.90, SB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80, 2 players) 8♠ J♥ A♥
SB checks, Hero bets $1.10, SB calls $1.10

Turn: ($4.00, 2 players) Q♣
SB bets $1.90, Hero raises to $4.00, SB calls $1.85 and is all-in

River: ($11.50, 2 players) A♣

SB shows 9♥ T♦ (Straight, Queen High) (Pre 36%, Flop 33%, Turn 91%)
Hero shows J♣ A♦ (Full House, Aces full of Jacks) (Pre 64%, Flop 67%, Turn 9%)
Hero wins $10.98

I think I have a new favorite hand.

I'm beginning to feel a lot more comfortable at NL10 now. My last two sessions went quite well, with a profit of $25 last night and $20 today. This brings my bankroll to about $486, so unless I get hit by a particularly nasty downswing, NL5 should be history.

I should stop playing five card draw, though. It seems like I'm spewing chips left and right in this game. Luckily, it's only a few dollars, because I always choose the lowest stakes available.

Good news, everyone!

After tonight's session, I managed to bring my bankroll back to $500 for the first time in 2014! Things are looking up this month; I say this calls for a toast.

I know quite well how fast it is possible to lose all that money, and I'll definitely make sure that I'm fully concentrated in my next few sessions. But for now, let's celebrate - beer's on me! (or it would be, if we actually were in the same room and not on the internet )

Lol. I'm going to have a beer today, so I'll certainly have one (or more) as a celebration of passing that milestone.

Cheers

Laz

Are you guys short on cash right now, by any chance? If so, you should consider playing me at Badugi some time.

I just went to a $0.25/$0.50 fixed limit table with ten bucks to spare, and somehow managed to lose them all before my pizza was ready.
Badugi is a fun game all right, but I guess I'll stick to tourneys (or, better yet, freerolls).

Enough donking around, let's get back to Hold 'em.

Back from my Hold 'em sessions.

No good news this time, I'm afraid. I lost a total of $40 over the course of the night.
I guess I'll skip the beer this time and get straight to the Jäger.

Just kidding. There is nothing to worry about. I played my normal game and just got unlucky this time, losing four big pots despite getting my money in as a favorite most of the time (there was also one coinflip, and one instance where I pushed a set of jacks against a rivered straight).

I was already expecting something like this to happen in the near future, you can't always run great.

I trust this is only a temporary setback.
Stay lucky, everyone!

Dear NL10 players,

Please stop rivering me with your overplayed draws.
It's getting old.

Thank you.

Kind regards,
Harrier88

Yesterday was quite a stressful day, for all the wrong reasons. As if there is a "right" reason to be stressed...
I actually do have some poker related stuff to talk about, but for now, I just need to vent a little, so bear with me.

Recently, I set up an account at Poker770 because we were having some new free money offers over here. The money arrived yesterday, though I was initially a little surprised to see only $10 instead of the advertised $45, but as it was quickly pointed out on the forums, some of the $45 are part of a deposit bonus. (Thanks Lazza and TinoLaan)

Fair enough, I planned to make a deposit anyway. So I visit the cashier menu and try to make a deposit using giropay, which is the method I have used in the past whenever PayPal wasn't available (which is most of the time). I noticed that giropay is apparently owned by Skrill, which I didn't remember seeing the last time I used giropay, so I guess they have been bought out by them or something, not that I care. After putting in all the data, I was eventually hitting a dead end. I don't remember what the problem was exactly, but the deposit didn't happen.

When I checked my e-mails, I noticed that I have officially opened up an account at Skrill in the process, without even knowing it. WTF? Well, good to know, I guess. I tried to make another deposit and got a little further, until I got to a window which I can only assume is the confirmation window. Unfortunately, there has been some kind of script error and about 90% of the window was obscured and therefore unusable.

Consequently, I tried using a different payment method called Sofortüberweisung; there aren't many other alternatives if you don't have a credit card. Turns out this method of depositing is also owned by Skrill, and I got to the exact same obscured window as before.
Just a few hours ago, I tried again in order to make a screenshot of the window to show customer support tomorrow, but now I just get a message saying I have made "the maximum amount of failed deposits". Either way, I'll have to contact support.

WHY THE F*CK IS IT SO HARD THESE DAYS TO MAKE A DEPOSIT AT A POKER ROOM??
Why can't everyone just accept PayPal? They charge high fees like the vultures they are, but at least it's easy.

Anyway, I figured since I now apparently have a Skrill account, I might as well try to use it to finally make a deposit at Ladbrokes. Surprisingly, it worked on this site, but I had to skip the personal identification check on Ladbrokes because it wouldn't accept my ID number for whatever reason. I contacted support about this, and they told me that I could send them a copy of my bank statement and scans of my ID instead.

To add insult to injury, I had to make not one, but two trips to the bank, because I stupidly overlooked the message that flashed for a split second on the display of the account statement printer saying that it didn't print out all the statements yet. So I walked all the way back home, only to realize that the last documented transfer was from October 2013...

Also, I can't access my poker account on Ladbrokes yet. All it says after putting in my password etc. is "Please contact customer care", so I guess I'll have to contact them yet again. I'm getting so sick of this...

So now I have one account at Poker770 that I cannot deposit on, and one account at Ladbrokes with a successful deposit but no way to access it. And since it's not even verified, they could probably suspend it whenever they see fit if I were to use it.

Rant over. Sorry that you had to read all of this.

Let's see how this develops tomorrow; I have a feeling I haven't heard the last of this...

Many thanks to all the moderators who have answered my related queries on the forums!

Hopefully, I'll soon be able to actually talk about poker again. ♠_cool:

All right, I sent the documents to Ladbrokes, let's wait and see. I'll deal with Poker770 whenever I can be bothered to do it.

Like I said yesterday, I have some poker related stuff to talk about. Let's start with the good news.

I tried playing some NL five card draw MTTs recently. Those tourneys were quite enjoyable, and I even seem to do all right in them. I finished ITM in my very first tournament, 18th place out of 350-400. The prize I won isn't really worth talking about, it was $3.90 ($1.10 buy-in). Still, not bad.
There was one situation where both me and my opponent had a flush with AK as high cards. Don't remember the other cards, but he won. You don't see that in Hold 'em!

Speaking of Hold 'em, here are the bad news: Last Saturday, I was determined grind my bankroll back up, but history repeats itself. Just like back in late January, I had no idea how to handle my opponents' aggression after one or two coolers and donked of over $20. My other NL10 losses last week were mainly due to bad luck, but this time, it was entirely down to bad play.
I played another session later that evening when I was a little more concentrated and won it all back.

Earlier today, however, I was having the worst session I can remember. After 300 hands, I didn't win even one single showdown and ended the session with a $26 loss because I was on monkey tilt. Now my bankroll is back below $400.

What a crazy week that was... first went up $100, then down $100.

I can't even put my finger on what the problem is. I think I played too nitty recently, which caused me to eventually lose patience and call bets and raises without much of a plan.

I guess it's time to take a break for a while and do some studying on theory. I'll come back when I have some concept of what I'm doing...

Hmmm... still no response from Ladbrokes. If I don't hear from them until next weekend, I'm gonna contact them again.

Didn't play any Hold 'em in the last two days because I was working. Besides, I'm still on my break.
Conveniently, right after my decision last Monday to spend more time on theory, I discovered that our German community was starting a live coaching series aimed specifically at Zoom players that airs every Monday evening. Pretty good timing!

Last Monday's coaching didn't actually talk about poker yet, but focused on the most important stats any Zoom player should include in their hud. This made me realize that the hud I was using could use a bit of an overhaul. The only postflop stats I had were C-Bet Flop, Fold to C-Bet Flop, Went to Showdown, and Won Money at Showdown. No wonder I was making mistakes.
The new and revamped hud I made, inspired by the coaching, now includes information about my opponents' betting behavior on all streets, how they react to bets out of position and how likely they are to donk or float, as well as more detailed preflop information based on their exact position.

I played a few hands that night while I was setting up the new hud, and actually managed to scoop up ten bucks while doing so. I don't think that the new hud played much of a role there, I was just lucky to pick up some good hands against opponents who were overplaying their top pairs. Nevertheless, I'm sure the extra buy-in will come in handy.

I think I can get back to grinding Hold 'em next Friday, or possibly even tomorrow, but only if I feel ready.

PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): $14.65
SB: $8.25 (VPIP: 31.58, PFR: 21.05, 3Bet Preflop: 37.50, Hands: 20)
BB: $16.68 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
UTG: $11.70 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
MP: $8.20 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
CO: $20.15 (VPIP: 34.15, PFR: 21.95, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 42)

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has K♥ A♦

fold, MP raises to $0.30, fold, Hero raises to $0.90, SB calls $0.85, fold, MP calls $0.60

Flop: ($2.80, 3 players) 3♥ A♠ 4♥
SB checks, MP bets $1.80, Hero raises to $3.60, SB calls $3.60, MP raises to $7.30 and is all-in, Hero raises to $13.75 and is all-in, SB calls $3.75 and is all-in

Turn: ($24.80, 3 players) 9♠

River: ($24.80, 3 players) 4♦

SB shows 8♥ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)
Main Pot [$24.70]: (Pre 15%, Flop 38%, Turn 21%)
Side Pot#1 [$0.10]: (Pre 29%, Flop 43%, Turn 25%)

Hero shows K♥ A♦ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)
Main Pot [$24.70]: (Pre 67%, Flop 58%, Turn 76%)
Side Pot#1 [$0.10]: (Pre 71%, Flop 57%, Turn 75%)

MP shows 8♣ A♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)
Main Pot [$24.70]: (Pre 17%, Flop 4%, Turn 2%)

Hero wins $23.68

Is this why A8 is called "dead man's hand"?

So, yeah, I decided to play some Hold 'em today, mostly because I had nothing better to do. To my surprise, it went exceptionally well thanks to hands like this, and I was up $40 after only about 250 hands. At that point, I ended the session because I suspected to be on "positive tilt". You know, the one where you are not on top of your game anymore due to euphoria, instead of anger or frustration. Feels a lot better than regular tilt, but it can still be damaging.

Could this be a new beginning for the Snakes? Time will tell...

As if Valentine's Day wasn't already a depressing holiday for me, I got absolutely destroyed on the virtual felt today. There was one minor loss, and two severe losses. Needless to say, my bankroll took quite a whooping, and I'm down to $387 now, despite a $10 bonus by Pokerstars.

On the plus side, I believe I handled my tilt pretty well. Most of my losses today were the result of extremely bad luck, anyway. Swings and roundabouts, I guess...

I don't plan to move back down to NL5 yet, but one major losing session or a couple of small ones would be enough to make me take that step. I'd say $350 is the last boundary, I'm definitely moving down if I get below that.

By the way, I still have about $10 in my tracked William Hill account, and I would welcome any suggestions of what to do with it.

I don't really like William Hill, so I wouldn't even mind cashing out, but $10 is such a low amount that it hardly even seems worth the effort of withdrawing it.
The lowest Speed Poker stakes are NL5 (Euros, not USD), and there is not much I can do with less than two buy-ins, even though I'm singletabling over there.
If all else fails, I could just go busto at a Blackjack table, but I think I should at least generate a few StrategyPoints with my last dollars. Maybe I could play a few SNGs like in the good ol' days, or give the new Twister games a chance (already played a few of them, didn't really like it, but whatever).

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Hey Harrier88,

1) Play Twisters
2) Score the biggest jackpot game
3) Ship it
4) Cash out
5) Ezy game
6)
7)

Laz

Well, what do you know, Ladbrokes finally responded and informed me that my account is now all verified. That also took care of the login issues I mentioned before, so my Ladbrokes account is now fully usable. It took me more than a month, but we're finally there.

I'm not sure yet how withdrawals are gonna work, but the way I'm playing recently, I probably won't have to worry about withdrawing money anyway.

I decided to keep only $40 in my poker account and move $10 to my sports betting account. Ladbrokes is the only poker room I know that accepts sports bets from German customers, so I better take advantage of that. I even won about $3 already by betting on a soccer game.

And how is my poker account doing? Well, I tried playing some Speed Poker, even though the lowest limit is NL5 and I'm not rolled for it, and pretty much broke even after a couple of sessions.
Next, I gave regular NL2 tables a try, and impressively managed to lose $10-$12 within a single day. Maybe I should move down a limit or two, and play the stakes I can actually beat.

Oh, wait.......