My Best Moment Playing On Poker Stars

I can easily imagine all the “my best finish” or “my biggest cash” moments that are being shared all over the twitterverse with hashtag #WBCOOP as we speak. For what else can be a tourney player’s best moment playing on a poker site but bink!ing that huge payday, making his or her way through thousands of punters to be covered in glory and cash?

But my own WBCOOP entry won’t be like that. One simple reason really – my biggest ever cash on PokerStars was a damp affair in which I neither covered myself in glory nor felt particularly good. As big cashes go, it was rather… disappointing. I mean, obviously the money was good, the best ever, really – and in hindsight it sort of felt okay. But while it was going, it was miserable and torturous and I didn’t really play all that good.

Here’s what happened – I’d won a few SCOOP tickets during last year’s WBCOOP and although I was still primarily a SNG player, I was hell bent on duly using them. I didn’t win anything major during that SCOOP, I’m not sure if I cashed even once but while playing one of the $11 events for which I had a ticket (my bankroll didn’t allow me to play higher than $3.50 at the time),  I also registered, out of budget, for the Big 4.40.

Now that was a dubious decision in itself – the $4.40 starts at an ungodly hour, 12:30 am my timezone and I’d already put 4-5 good hours of play for the evening. But my girlfriend was night shift at work, I had high hopes of lasting the $11 SCOOP so why not give the Big one a shot? 20 minutes later I was out of the SCOOP and ready to just call it a night and get some sleep but it wasn’t to be – I was stuck at the $4.40, slugging away through a horrid 10 hours of battling sleep and my own desire to just get it in with 72o and be done with the whole thing.

I couldn’t wait for the synchronized breaks to go on the balcony and breathe some air in hopes of waking up a bit; I drank loads and loads of tea (but no coffee) so I had to pee a lot too; I even stooped so low as to play the Hot $5.50 which also starts at some unwholesome hour of the night. That whole ordeal ended with me finishing a damp 6th, for almost $1k (which quadrupled my bankroll, admittedly), on my way folding A5 on an A-high board in a family pot for the life of a shortstack. That’s the only hand I remember of that tourney – folding like a wimp what was the best hand, scared that I may get bumped 7th or whatever. Not. My. Best. Moment.

No, for my best moment playing on Starts we’d probably have to back a few years – to the $200 freerolls that the site initiated as promo tourneys for Bulgarian players. I won the third or fourth one I played and I can quite vividly remember the feeling of exhilaration and elation upon stacking that last donk heads-up (I’d never been heads-up before) at 3am and then not sleeping at all for the next 4 hours before I had to get up for work, making plans for my sparkling awesome poker career that was surely to follow on the coattails of that $30 cash.

But really my hope is that my best moment playing on PokerStars is still to come. It might be tomorrow, it might be the day after or in a month, three or a year or more. Isn’t that why we keep on playing?

Zombie blog

Easter is just around the corner so, as a good Christian (I’m not), I’ve decided to resurrect this blog.

Now Jesus’ Resurrection only lasted a couple days before he ascended to a better place but here’s hoping this blog’s destiny would be rather different and more pleasant. Here’s hoping that, like a proper zombie, this blog will stick around for a while, arms outstretched, feet a-stumble, craving brains.

Of course, what’s really just around the corner is not Easter but the WBCOOP, the annual blogger’s championship hosted by PokerStars in which I plan to take part if they’ll want me. Last year was quite the coup (heh, classy) and I managed to win a few SCOOP tickets. While playing the SCOOP, in turn, I won my first “big” score – 6th in the Big 4.40 for almost 1k.

It’s been a rather eventful 8 months since I last posted here. Since then I’ve ditched the SNGs (after a short and not hugely profitable dabble in the 9-man STTs) and focused on playing solely MTTs. I’ve topped that almost 1k cash with a chopped 1st/2nd in a the $5 1-UP on Tilt. Yes, Tilt’s back, yay!

Looking for ways to improve my play, I’ve started playing backed on Stars – with the backing comes a fair bit of coaching which has been tremendously helpful. I think my game is improving steadily and my coach thinks we’re about to start printing money soon. I hope he’s right.

I’ve started playing $20+ tourneys on a regular basis on my own dime on Tilt, where I’m slightly less than breakeven but already made my first top 5 in a second chance tourney. I’m hoping for better and more consistent results as I find my feet in these, as the quality of play really isn’t that much better than in the $5s, though there’s definitely a higher percentage of “regs” (i.e. exploitable nits).

Of course, a lot of things haven’t changed. I’m still a bankroll nit, and not taking a lot of shots; I’m still tilty when in discomfort; I still thin value bet more often than is healthy and triple barrel calling stations now and then. Poker is still my one and only source of income and though it’s a hard living, I’m plugging away at it, still hoping to reach the heights of the game in time.

I’ll also still blog intermittently, and try to be funny or at least non-cliched. I’ll see you tomorrow with my entry for the WBCOOP.

Live @ Casino Capitol

So last night I stopped by one of my local casinos for a regular scheduled tournament with a 45 BGN (around €25 or $30) buy-in 6000 starting chips and 20-minute levels – that is to say, a deeper than normal structure giving more options for play than the usual turbo-ish crapshoots in the casino.

Lately I’ve been feeling more confident playing live, playing more hands and attempting more moves. I think I have figured out most of the types of players one meets at such a tourney and in general they tend to respect aggression and let you get away with stuff. Moreover, I don’t feel as intimidated playing postflop with some of the cash sharks that play the tourneys, mostly because I’ve gotten better in choosing playing positions.

All that said, I still make at least a couple of mistakes every time I go out and play – although I have patience in abundance and I’m not afraid to fold, every now and then I’ll spazz out a whole bunch of my chips and put myself in an awkward spot stack-wise. It’s a leak I definitely should be working on but unfortunately my financial situation doesn’t exactly permit me playing live more than a couple of times a month. I would want to make that a couple of times a week when I have the bankroll for it.

The relatively good structure and relatively small buy-in attract a good crowd for that particular tourney. The casino has 5 tables available for tournament play (the rest are for cash) and last night they were all full, with a lot of reserves and latecomers making up a total of 60 entries and a prizepool of 2400 BGN (€1200 or $1600) to be awarded the first six finishers. Through the first two hours (6 levels starting from 25/50) we were still playing 5 tables so the eliminations were few.

While the blinds were still relatively low to stack-size, I opened a lot of pots with all kinds of junk (a C-bet against one opponent was generally enough to take it) and more or less stayed around average stack throughout. In my first two pots I flopped two pair and a straight but I only managed to win small pots with both as my opponent in both gave up easy (I later exploited that by taking pots with a single bet against him even when whiffing). However, making these strong hands early was an indication that it won’t be my night; I generally prefer getting lucky flops in the latter stages of the tourney, when it usually gets you a double-up.

I won quite a few small pots but blew away these small gains with two moves against an unknown older player who looked to me for all the word to be your typical nit – he should have been giving up when 3-bet but either he had a big hand both times or he had (quite rightly) figured me out for an aggro monkey and didn’t believe me. I only played more than 1 street in 1 hand that I was pretty happy about:

The Villain was a newcomer, one of the regular cash players who had lost quite a lot and admittedly steaming came to play the tourney late. I knew him from a previous tournament and had a pretty good idea for his style. He’s a young guy, maybe 24-25, with an expensive watch showing he does well in the cash games. He’s a decent player, always comes in with a raise and especially likes to punish limpers. His main flow is that he thinks he’s too good – arrogance is never a good idea at the table and he openly shows his opinion of everybody else. While he is probably right thinking he’s better than most players, this trait leads to him underestimating the rest, who may be at his or better level of skill.

After sitting at our table, two or three spots to my right, he started opening a lot of pots and was given a lot of respect by everybody but those who played cash with him. There’s a weird pride thing going on between cash players when they sit at a tournament – they want to win every pot and show how good they are, which isn’t really a good strategy for a tourney. So Villain had opened 3 of his last 4 UTGs and I was relatively sure he didn’t necessarily have a big hand there and was looking to 3-bet him light when again he opened from UTG and I looked down at AK off – this was the last hand before the break.

Now I usually hate AK and tend to avoid stacking with it preflop, as it is essentially a drawing hand. However, I didn’t want to just call and have to play it with a couple of other guys who would limp behind me; I also thought in his steaming state he could 4-bet me light so I decided to re-raise. Blinds were 150/300 and I had around 8,000 in my stack, villain had just doubled up to around 11,000. He had opened for 650 and I made it 1,600 to go. Everybody else folded and he called. Now this call can mean a lot of things, but I put him on suited connectors or really any junk that he just wants to outplay me with, so a very very wide range which however excludes all big aces (he had stacked with AT earlier) and bigger pairs (TT+) with which I expected him to re-pop me.

Flop came XX8dd with no picture cards. He checked, which I for some reason missed and so I stood there for a couple of minutes thinking he had hit something and was tanking about it. It turns out he had checked and I had looked like a fool so I quickly checked behind (in that two minutes I had developed a pretty solid plan to induce a bet from him on the turn and play for stacks). Turn was a Queen and now he bet out 1,900 in the 3,600 pot. I immediately stuck all my chips in and he folded it right away.

He may have hit the flop but the Queen was scary enough for him to think I had AQ and hit it; or he may have been trying to steal it, or he may have had a small pair – either way, because of his low opinion of everybody else on the table, he couldn’t possible put me on a move there so I was fairly sure that unless he had a set I was okay – and even if he decided to call with top pair or the flush draw, I had outs or had him beat 😉

That hand gave me a pretty good stack plus a lot of confidence but after the break the blinds started catching up and chips started flying across the table, with eliminations coming thick and fast. That meant a lot of table balancing during which I was moved twice in a quick succession. Attempting moves at the new tables got me down to 14-15 BBs but I found a good double up squeezing JJ from the blinds against an early open and 3 calls; one of the callers decided he had the odds to call off my squeeze for all his chips with A4 suited and I was in for a sweat. A Jack in the window gave me a huge lead but the first four cards out were all hearts – neither of us had a heart in his hand but the chop was looming ominously. Thankfully, the river was an Ace and I was home and dry.

Just a few hands later however I made a big mistake which basically cost me a deeper finish. From late position I was the fourth limper with my 55, when the shortstack to my left pushed all his 11BBs in. Everybody folded and I thought for a while and decided I should call – I knew I was flipping at best but another almost double-up (there was a lot of dead money with the limpers and antes) would have given me a pretty dangerous stack. Shortie had woken up with 99 and all of a sudden I was in the danger zone.

Two orbits and another blind level later throughout which my best hand had been Q7off, I was down to 5 BBs. I resisted shipping it with 82 off  and 64 off when it was folded to me in late position. In the meantime another of the shortstacks had pushed 85 off from UTG and sucked out on the only caller’s QQ; so when I myself saw 85s in middle position, I announced that I’m “trying the magic of 85” and shipped it. Most of the guys behind me “saw through” my speech and folded, thinking I must have a monster – but the button, who had a lot of chips and knew that I am quite frisky, decided to look me up with AT.

There was an Ace on the flop so now my cards weren’t live but the turn gave me a gutterball and a flush draw – neither completed on the river however and I was out, once again beaten by my own mistake. We were down to two final tables, so I think I finished 15th or 16th or thereabouts. Not bad, mind, but a bit disappointing after I played a pretty solid tourney and didn’t suffer from card-deadness. I didn’t see Queens, Kings or Aces but four pairs of Jacks and a couple of AKs were ample compensation.

All in all, a decent experience and hopefully I can follow up on that with a final table or an actual cash later this month.

Quest for Gold Star

So, we’re through May, the most successful month in my fledgling poker career, both in terms of net winnings and ROI.

Best Month Ever

May was dedicated chiefly to MTTs, what with SCOOP taking place in the first two weeks of the month. Although I didn’t manage any deep runs in the SCOOP, I binked a 6th in a Big $4.40 I registered during one of the midnight $11 events and that $4.40 brought me my largest cash ever, almost $1k. That nearly doubled my available bankroll and definitely eased my mind, so I felt much more relaxed playing the $7 SitNGos.

That showed in a remarkable 44% return on my investment in SNGs through the last two weeks of the month and another close to $500 in profit. With that, and with my Silver Star status in peril, on the last day of the month I decided to go up a level and played enough $15 SNGs to carry me through the 750 VPP milestone for the third month running. I am well bankrolled for the $15s, with over 120 Buy-ins so I’m confident I can handle the 20 BI swings that I have come to expect every time I go up a level – at least financially.

Emotionally there’s always the potential for a huge meltdown as $300 (20 buy-ins) is no less than 2 minimum monthly wages in my little country and I’m still not past the point where money doesn’t matter to me when I play. I expect that I’ll be able to handle the opposition sooner rather than later as I don’t see much of a reason for the quality of play to be better at $15 than it was at $7.

What’s in Store for June

However, in order to avoid bouts of laziness throughout June, I’m embarking on a new Quest – to get a Gold Star status for July. It doesn’t give that much in terms of benefits and I’m not too keen on playing the Saturday night VIP free-rolls but having a goal like that is always very motivating and I’m pretty sure it will keep me from slacking. My June schedule is pretty heavy, with no less than three 5-working-day weeks planned and I hope I don’t get burnt out before it’s through.

Even with such a schedule though, I would still have some difficulty reaching Gold Star at my current pace. It seems the SNGs I like – the 27 and 18-person regular speed – don’t run often enough for me to be able to constantly 4-table in 3-hour sessions so I’ll either have to add STTs or more turbos. The 18-person turbos run very often but they’re more or less a crap shoot. Still, if going into the last week of the month I’m, say, 1000 VPPs away from Gold Star and my profit is OK, I could easily play 40 or more 18-man turbos a day so that’s an option.

June will be definitely exciting, as $15 seems to me like the landmark level where, if it turns out I’m as successful as I was on the lower buy-ins, I could have a safe haven to always come back to and grind up if taking shots at higher levels doesn’t work out. A 20% ROI should be enough for me to live off of comfortably at this level so I’m really looking forward to achieving that after the first weeks of getting to know the play.

Euro 2012

There will also be excitement outside the poker tables, as the Euro starts in a week’s time. International football is pretty boring but there are a couple of good teams, and as always when Bulgaria isn’t playing, I’ll be rooting for my beloved pathetic England. They stand little chance of even going through the group stage but I love an underdog 😀 Roy Hodgson is by no means an inspired choice as manager of the team – his teams play boring solid football and his tactics seem a tad outdated to me.

Though not inspired – or inspiring – he may just turn out to be the right choice to give England a chance of reaching the latter stages of the tournament. They have a pretty good defensive unit, albeit lacking Rio Ferdinand (and thank God for that, I’m more than happy that he’ll be able to rest this Summer and be in top notch form for United again next season, hopefully restoring his partnership with Vidic), and should they rely on absorbing pressure, they could pose a threat through their pretty decent wingers (Ashley Young & Alex Oxlade would be my first choices, with Danny Welbeck up front) on the counter.

That said, hopes before the tourney are rather muted, not least because of the heap of injuries in the past weeks. If I had to put money on it, my choice for winners would be France or Russia (if they can be bothered to suit up and play 6 matches in a row). Neither is favourite (so the odds will be good), but I can easily see all the favourites (Spain, Holland & Germany) floundering and opening the door for a solid experienced team like France or an inspired dark horse like Russia to win it.

Spain’s core players should all be pretty exhausted from tiki-taka-ing their way through 50+ matches this season; not to mention that they’ve been doing the same for 6 years already and someone (why not Ingerlund?) should be able to stifle them and nick it 1-0, Chelsea vs. Barca style. Holland are rather fickle and their arguably best player, Roben, tends to hide in the big games – they also have a pretty tough group so could even be the big surprise early drop out. The Germans have a fine young group of players which however doesn’t have the winning mentality of the great Deutschland teams. Their core Bayern Munich players lost a penalty shootout for Christ’s sake – whoever thought that could ever happen?

All in all, it should be at the same time tedious and interesting and I’m looking forward to the Euros, as well as the rest of June 🙂

A graph

As promised, I’ve kept this blog clean of graphs and stats so far but, as this is a monthly report, I’ll indulge my inner nerd and post some results from May for desert:

Pretty decent ROI, I should think. Here’s also a smooth rising graph for the month’s winnings:

And, since this is the last (barring a need to return to them) of my $7s, here’s stats and graph for them:

I’m pretty happy with the stats – 20% ROI is great I think, and I especially like the fact that the graph shows the learning curve – a lot of fluctuations early on and a much smoother rise as the level progresses. Truly the mark, in my opinion, that the level is beaten. Or that I have been incredibly lucky of late 😉

Anyway, that’s it from me, cheers!

That extra bit

You know that first time you hear a song and instantly it’s clear this will be one of your favourite songs for years to come? It’s uncanny and impossible to know how that happens but I have a theory about what makes a song great.

It’s that extra bit, an extra je ne sais quoi that makes it different than any other song and makes it special in your very heart. Recently I’ve been infatuated with Canadian electronic duo Purity Ring who last year produced a whopping total of 3 songs, all of them pretty good. This year though, in anticipation of their first album, Shrines, they released a fourth single named Obedear and the second I heard it I knew it will be one of my favourite songs forever. There are many things that make it special but I think the exceptional bit is right here in this piece of lyrics:

Build it into
pinnacles and shrines
of some,
some ghastly predicament in mind
you’ll find
leaves us plastered to a bed of hairs
We’ll
be all coiled up near the bottom
with my chest, unbare it

Right there, in the word “predicament” there’s an extra syllable; among a whole text of 2- and 3-syllable words a fourth syllable that stands out and draws attention to itself and gives a sort of consciousness to lyrics that lack it otherwise.

Adding that extra flavour, an additional something to make or break the rhythm, to embelish the flow of a work of art is a big part of what constitutes, for what my opinion is worth, genius.

Now it’s difficult to ever call a poker play ‘genius’ – poker is a game of mathematics and probabilites, yes, but in that respect it is pretty much a solved equation, it can hardly be the work of genius to correctly assess your chances of hitting an open ended straight on the river – but a few days ago I had a breathtaking encounter with a close approximation of that, watching the $10,000 SCOOP 2012 Main Event-High Final table highlights show.

Half of the show is really only a preamble to the real deal – as the table winds own from 9 to heads-up. The standout performer throughout is a player with the colourful monicker GripDsNutz, behind which plays American pro Nick Grippo, with close to $2 million in previous tournament winnings. He was very involved, and aggressively so, from the word go, and more or less naturally ended up in a heads-up battle with Sp00led, whose identity is, I think, unknown.

The battle started with a hefty lead to Grippo but after a couple of flips they were even. Sp00led managed to get three streets of bluffs from Grippo when holding AK on a king-high but very wet board and that hand more or less established a pattern of Grippo being the relentless aggressor and his opponent calling off. Oh, the valuetowning! Time and time again Grippo value bet his second and third pairs on the river, only for Sp00led to be tempted to call with lesser made hands or even A-highs. A beautiful sight to behold and a truly inspirational performance from the American, who ended up shipping the thing for about $750,000 after a 3-way deal.

In the SNGs I play, heads-up is, money-wise, the most important part of the game, as the money jump is over 30%. Obviously, getting to the heads-up part if important too but losing mano-a-mano hurts your payout the most. So I’ve been working most vigourously on that part of my game, as well on actually making it there with the best possible chip situation. Emulating what Grippo did to poor Sp00led is not an easy task, mostly because I’m nowhere near a good poker player, let alone a genius. But I thought this was pretty good for a valuetowning effort heads-up:

Poker Stars $6.45+$0.55 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t300/t600 Blinds + t50 – 2 players

Hero (BB): t17938 M = 17.94

BTN/SB: t9062 M = 9.06

Pre Flop: (t1000) Hero is BB with 5 K

BTN/SB raises to t1200, Hero calls t600

Flop: (t2500) 5 5 6 (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t1250, Hero calls t1250

Turn: (t5000) 9 (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: (t5000) 8 (2 players)

Hero bets t6562, BTN/SB folds

Final Pot: t5000

Hero mucks 5 K

Hero wins t5000

This is one of the first hands we played heads-up and I thought, with my slightly crazy image I had created for the rest of the tourney, I might try to lure him into calling me light, as this looks like a bluff. He didn’t bite, but the trap is set – he has to wonder whether I was value betting or bluffing with the overbet there.

Poker Stars $6.45+$0.55 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t300/t600 Blinds + t50 – 2 players

Hero (BB): t14826 M = 14.83

BTN/SB: t12174 M = 12.17

Pre Flop: (t1000) Hero is BB with 4 6

BTN/SB raises to t1200, Hero calls t600

Flop: (t2500) 9 9 4 (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t1250, Hero calls t1250

Turn: (t5000) T (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: (t5000) 4 (2 players)

Hero bets t2000, BTN/SB calls t2000

Final Pot: t9000

Hero shows 4 6 (a full house, Fours full of Nines)

BTN/SB shows 5 4 (a full house, Fours full of Nines)
Hero wins t4500
BTN/SB wins t4500

The second part of the trap is in place, too. A value bet on the river for under half the pot. So that probably means last time around I was bluffing a missed draw, as obviously with a strong hand I don’t put it all in. A couple of hands later and trap is sprung:

Poker Stars $6.45+$0.55 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t400/t800 Blinds + t50 – 2 players

Hero (BB): t15676 M = 12.06

BTN/SB: t11324 M = 8.71

Pre Flop: (t1300) Hero is BB with T 3

BTN/SB raises to t1600, Hero calls t800

Flop: (t3300) 4 4 8 (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t1650, Hero calls t1650

Turn: (t6600) T (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: (t6600) 8 (2 players)

Hero bets t8024, BTN/SB calls t8024 all in

Final Pot: t22648

Hero shows T 3 (two pair, Tens and Eights)

BTN/SB shows 7 7 (two pair, Eights and Sevens)

Hero wins t22648

On the flop I’m really drawing to a flush which doesn’t get there. However, after he gives up turn and river, I think its fairly safe to assume that my pair of tens are good there. And with the overbet he should be tempted to put me on a missed draw, whereby a small pair or even Ace-high should be calling me a lot of the time. On the flip side, he could of course have trips of some sort or a bigger overpair but I don’t think those give up both latter streets.

Anyway I was happy with my play there and though I still haven’t got that extra bit, I’m working on getting it 😉

We’re okay

Last night my girlfriend and I were woken up by our whole building’s violent shaking. I quickly realised it was an earthquake – just a few hours ago we had read about the strong earthquake that killed 7 people in the region of Bologna, Italy, where we spent a week vacationing in January.

It’s an awful thing, being shaken into waking up at 3 in the morning (is that even morning? I don’t think so), and doubly so when your whole building is moving violently and things are falling to the ground. It didn’t last too long and all that fell was a couple of books so I decided it wasn’t that strong after all. We bravely stood under the doorframes for the next few minutes and, having lost a lot of sleep in the previous two nights for various reasons, couldn’t really be arsed to do the proper thing and go outside to wait for the whole thing to be over.

So we took the aftershocks (twenty of them, as I later found out, but we only felt about three) back in bed, waking up again and again to the same horrible sinking-your-stomach-feeling that the whole world is about to break up and one of a slew of heavy things on the shelf above are heads will actually fall down any minute and cause serious brain injury to one of us. It didn’t and gradually the fear became bearable and we were able to get back to sleep peacefully. Until my mother called up at 8 in the morning to check if we were okay and ruin my sleep for the third day in a row. Yes, mom, we’re okay.

The next day, as I watched the panicked news coverage of the 5.8 earthquake (peanuts for places like California or Japan, but rather strong for our region where there is a lot of seismic activity but it is usually much milder) and read all the facebook messages and status updates, I realised pretty much everybody had been as afraid as I was – and a lot of people even more so. Some had slept in their cars, parked as far away from possible falling buildings as possible. Some had stayed out, talking to their frightful neighbours all night. Some had stayed in 24/7 gas station cafes, as if that’s the safest place on earth.

A friend of mine called during the day and when I asked him if he’s alright, he said he was fine physically but his self-esteem had suffered a bit. He always thought he was very manly (and he is, in a lot of ways) but that night, as the earthquake shook him up from his sleep and the aftershocks kept him out of his home, he hadn’t stopped trembling with fear for hours on end. I told him it’s okay, everybody is afraid of earthquakes. It’s an evolutionary thing, the same way everybody jumps up at loud noises behind them. The adrenaline rush of fear can save your life in such situations and it doesn’t make you any less of a man to be afraid and feel sick in your stomach.

What makes you more of a man is how you react in an event like this, how you handle fear. Do you run for your life or help your loved ones and even strangers? Do you curl up in a ball on the ground and give up or do you follow safety instructions? Do you cry like a little baby or try to stay calm and collected, despite the surge of all kinds of chemicals through your body that tell you it’s okay to cry like a little baby?

Tilting on the poker table is, in many ways, like being afraid during earthquake. Everybody tilts. It’s near impossible to prevent the sheer rage that follows pushing all in with your set of kings only to be called by Villain’s gutshot who then goes on to river a flush. All the mental exercises in the world won’t stop you from hating yourself for making that mistake that you knew you were making as you were making it – but you still made it, despite your better judgement screaming in your head. I’m saying, everybody tilts.

It’s not shameful to feel tilted or steaming; what separates the better players is the way they handle their tilt. Take a minute to breathe, do something else, go for a walk. Some players don’t even need to do that, they just don’t let the feeling of tilt lead them to making more mistakes – that’s where the mental exercises kick in.

I myself still don’t handle tilt properly. I yell at the monitor, I thump the desk with my girly fists, I walk around to no avail. I open the windows for fresh air to calm me down and at the same time I open up my ranges (instead of shutting them down) and play as many pots as I can, to get back into it, to get back at Villain who’s so unbelievably stupid oh my GOD calling with fucking bottom pair on that board and rivering the trips; what the FUCK I’m gonna teach him a fucking lesson JESUS CHRIST look at him, 60% VPIP what a calling station… That’s how I handle my tilt. I guess I’m still not man enough.

Oh, and that earthquake – a few old houses went down, a few people with heart conditions went to see the doctor and a lot of people got very very scared but nothing major, really. We’re okay.

What a month it has been

So, this is my new blog in English. Straight on the river has been suspended, in light of the pending Bulgarian legislation that will make things much harder for poker players in that country.

However, I still feel the need to share my thoughts and progress in my quest for poker glory which, for various reasons, I haven’t been able to in the past month. And what a month it has been!

Grinding

About a month ago I was in rather rough & uncertain waters – in late March I had moved up a level to the $7 multitable SitNGos (MT SNGs) on Pokerstars and it wasn’t going well. I wasn’t getting anywhere near the return on investment (ROI) I was hoping for and I relied on in order to be able to pay the bills; I wasn’t getting any proper rhythm, with constant interruptions and hindrances in my way; and I knew this could be the make-or-break month for my fledgling poker career if I didn’t make it out of it in OK shape.

For the past few months I had been trying to write my own tools for analysing my and my opponents’ game. I’d gone a little way along but it was taking too long and, frankly, I’m a crap PHP developer, so I decided to just suck it and do as they all do – so I downloaded the Holdem Manager 2 (HEM) trial version, with view to purchasing it if I was happy with it.

Boy, was I happy with it. There is a valid argument to be made that SNG players can’t benefit as much from a HU database as cash players do because the game is mainly down to push/fold ranges lategame but even so, having one makes a world of difference for me. Now, on the lower levels ($1.50 and $3.50) which I got through relatively quickly, I don’t think I needed HEM for the reason that there are only two types of players playing down there – regs and non-regs.  I won’t call non-regs “fish” firstly because that’s an arrogant and overused epithet, but mostly because even regs on those levels aren’t formidable opponents and could easily be qualified as “fish” if one were so inclined.

Regs on the lower levels are primarily Russian and Ukrainian, with a smattering of other East European & former Soviet Union countries represented as well. What that means is that they are heavy multitablers (20 tables+) and as a consequence they are very very tight in order to avoid having to make many tricky postflop decisions. They care about that money because it means something to them and are serious grinders.  This is a very exploitable strategy, and with the non-regs on these levels being generally easy to play against (just stack them with anything that beats top pair top kicker (TPTK)), all one needs to do is to colour-code the regs (all of them ranging from rock to nit) and play ABC poker against the rest of the field. No real need for HEM or any other HUD, thought undoubtedly it can’t hurt if you have one.

On the $7s, however, the picture is starkly different. Most regs here are from the UK, Australia and Canada and multitable only 2-6 tables. They are willing to 3-bet you light, are happy to play a lot of postflop and, once the going gets tough, readily adhere to ICM principles. There is a multitude of different styles on display and not a little relatively strong opponents who can hold their own. The distinction between reg and rock here is vital and this is where HEM comes very handy, even displaying the most basic stats – VPIP, pre- and postflop aggro and 3-bet %.

I’ve been making good use of those and gradually managed to post a handsome 20% ROI, finishing April well ahead and affording myself my first poker salary. Albeit a meager one compared to what I used to make before, it was a great psychological moment for me, as it meant I wasn’t completely deluding myself into thinking this could actually work out and I may never have to go back to wageslaving for the corporate world.

So am I now a pro?

A lot of people equate being “a pro” with being good at what you do. I’m not one of those people. You may suck at washing dishes but if you are being paid to wash dishes at a restaurant, you’re a professional dishwasher and that’s that. In the same vain, I may not be a particularly impressive poker player and I’d porbably get my ass handed to me if I went and played cash in my local casino – but if my sole source of income is poker and I pay my bills with poker money and poker is all I do all day long, I don’t think there should be any doubt about my status as a professional poker player.

That may not continue for too long, maybe it will turn out that’s an unsustainable dream and all my luck’s run out and in a few months I’ll have to find a “real” job but for now I’m happy playing poker for a living and, if we need to put a label on it, to be a pro.

SCOOP

May started with a focus on MTTs in anticipation of the poker feast that is the Spring Championship of Online Poker. Almost none of the tournaments on offer were within the constraints of my strict (overly so) bankroll management but thanks to the WBCOOP in March, I had freerolled a few tickets into SCOOP – I had a couple of $11 and $5.50 tickets available to me. It turned out there was only one $5.50 tourney scheduled (the action hour rebuy) but I decided to play both 2-day $11 NLHE events (#8 and #27). I managed to satelite my way into event 1 ($27 6-max) and traded my FPPs for tickets into event 2 ($27 NLHE) and event 7 ($7.50 Heads-up).

In none of these events did I last more than 4-5 hours, though in most that meant surviving 15 thousand people or more – unfortunately never enough to even get in the money. However, while playing these events I managed to bink! my biggest cash ever – a 6th place in The Big $4.40 for over $900. After 10 hours of gruelling night-time play I was literally minutes away from my first 4-figure payday but couldn’t quite muster it and a couple of badly played hands cost me.

Still, I was more than happy with that result and very glad I decided to play the SCOOP.  It’s given me what I think would be vital experience for future similar series and binking that 6th almost doubled my bankroll and definitely gives me some breathing space for the months to come.

The SCOOP is not actually over yet and I may still play the $27 6-max event tomorrow, if I manage to satellite into it. The Main Event is, unfortunately, out of my reach.

What next?

Well, there’s a couple of weeks left in May during which I’ll hopefully play 8 or 9 solid days of $7 SNGs. So far this month SNGs have been very profitable for me and I hope to retain that form in the coming sessions. Depending on results and basically if I feel confident to have beaten the level with a decent ROI, I’ll then venture into June one level up, to the $15s. I am not expecting the level of play to be much harder there, though with summer starting there may be less games to be had. Still, a 120 buy-in bankroll should be more than enough for me to take a shot, and obviously I’ll have my usual stop-loss measures in place in case things turn sour.

I don’t intend increasing the number of tables I play anytime soon. Not before I hit a brick wall and am forced to play for volume rather than profit. As long as I see my game improving and beating the levels with the 4 tables I play now, I’ll be happy. My goal is to become a better player and to be able to transition to higher levels, not to grind out like a bot forever.

Live games

To that end I’ll also keep on going to my local casinos at least twice a month to play in freezeouts; and I’ll keep trying to qualify online for the Eureka in Golden Sands in June. At the start of the month I played a 45 BGN freezeout with a farily neat structure – 6000 starting stacks with 30 minute blind levels. Busted out in about ten minutes. 4th hand of the tourney, with blinds at 25/50, I raised to 150 from early position with QQ. A fairly active guy two seats to my left with whom I had tangled already reraised to 400. I thought about folding, as this early in a live tourney re-raise usually means Aces or Kings, but then thought that the guy may already be leveling me, so decided to find out where he was with a 4-bet to 1050.

He smooth called (I guess he would be priced in with something like AJ/ATs or a smaller pair for set value) and we saw a flop of 66Qhh. I checked and he checked behind. Turn came a K and I bet out for about 1200, leaving 3300 behind. He thought for a minute, then called. At this point I was pretty sure he had AK suited, probably of hearts and was licking my chops at the thought of value-towning him on the river.

The River came the 8 of hearts, completing the flush draw and now I bet out, in my best impression of frustrated-and-ready-to-fold, for 600 leaving 2700 behind. He looked at me funny and jammed and I snapped, not thinking twice about it. What do you know, he turned over KK for the second nuts over my third nuts and that was it for me. Embarassing walk of shame to the casino exit and two days of going over the hand again and again in my head and I still can’t decide if I made the right call OTR. Does he ever jam anything that I beat there? I suppose AK hearts makes sense… maybe 88 though I dont see 88 paying off the turn that often.  Should I have just jammed the river instead of leading 600 and then calling off his jam? Should I not have 3-bet preflop but just played for set value? Lots of questions but I guess bygones should just be bygones and I have to hope that this ugly cooler made the poker gods redeem me by giving me smooth sailing in The Big $4.40 a week later for my biggest cash ever!

Football… bloody hell

April was going to be make-or-break not only for me but for Man United who lost their 8-point lead to local rivals City in the build-up to the derby at the end of the month. We (yes, I’m one of those annoying gloryhunters who use “we” when talking about their favourite team) lost the derby and then two weeks later lost the title, too, in heartbreaking fashion. Never have 2 minutes of football been so gut-wrenching for me (I was too young in 1999 I suppose and really the feeling then was one of elation rather than sinking), maybe apart from the two minutes 3 weeks earlier when we lost a 4-2 lead against Everton to draw 4-4 and set up the derby as the deciding final.

I cannot really begrudge City their title, as they fought for it blood and guts and all, and showed a true champions spirit to fight back in the face of adversity – drawing Sunderland 3-3 when they were losing 3-1 10 minutes before the whistle; doing one over Tottenham in extra time when they could have been one down a minute earlier; and most importantly that last game against QPR when they were losing the game and the title when normal time was up. I hope their fans relish it, as they’ve stuck with the club through thick and thin (mostly thin) in their travails between the Divisions; I hope they relish it because it will be their last for a while now 😉

I can’t begrudge them but I also can’t help wondering what if – what if we hadn’t gone chasing that game at Old Trafford when they lead 2-1? Maybe they wouldn’t have thrashed us 6-1 and the goal difference in the end would’ve been on our side. What if De Gea hadn’t made one mistake too many and allowed Blackburn to score a third in the 2-3 loss, again on Old Trafford? Maybe then we’d be one point up and champions now. What if the ref had sent off Baloteli for his brutal foul on Parker in City’s game vs. Tottenham and he hadn’t had the chance to get that penalty for them to win it in extra time?

These are all exercises in futility however, the championship is over and we have to look forward to the next one, hoping the team will be stronger and the young guns will have learned a lesson or two the hard way. We have a very exciting and youthful squad which should be able to continue rivaling City’s untold wealth for years to come, even though Glazernomics dictates buying smart and promoting from within rather than splurging petrodollars on proven stars. The Japanese guy is coming from Dortmund soon to slot in  central midfield and with Tom Cleverly coming of age and hopefully free of injury (oh how glad I am that Kevin Davies and his ugly Bolton were relegated!) and Scholesey still bossing the opposition in the big games, we’ll be fine in that department. I’d love it if we could get our hands on Everton’s Jack Rodwell who’s been out injured a lot this season but is a very promising young midfielder and should be realitvely cheap given Everton’s situation.

Patrice Evra should be getting more downtime with ageing, as he’s been a liability for us this season, so hopefully we add in left back; or even more hopefully, Fabio and Zecky Friars mount a strong challenge for that spot. The other spots in defence seem fairly solid to me. We should be adding an impact sub up front as well, where we’re losing Owen and Berbamagic, whilst Kiko Macheda and Diouf don’t seem to have the mettle to make it in the first team and Will Keane is still cutting his teeth with the Reserves and probably will need a spell on loan for a season or two before he becomes the force he seems destined to be.

It would be very interesting to see what City do in the market – not only in terms of buying (Hazard seems to be heading that way) but also selling. If Dzeko, Baloteli and Tevez all leave as has been suggested, they may have trouble in the beginning of the season, before the newcomers blend in. Chelsea & Liverpool will be recruiting new managers and with that may return as powerful enemies so it looks like an interesting summer ahead. Add the Euros to the mix (not to forget tonight’s Champions League final) and it might be a less than torturous couple of months before the next season comes to bring us joy and pain in equal measure again.

Long post, huh

So this has been rather a rant but I have been off blogging for a month – and what a month it has been! – so I could be forgiven for having a lot to say. I’ll try to keep this space relatively free of boring stats and graphs (maybe just monthly) and I won’t adhere to a strict posting schedule because from previous experience that becomes a burden very quickly. I’ll be posting when I have something interesting to say or just when I feel like it. Till then!