*****note******
I just finished typing this and it is lengthy. It consists of my poker background and recent hurdles. If you are only interested in the video link just skip to the bottom.


This is my first post ever! I have spent the last few months reading various posts of interest/watching videos on this site and on Cardrunners. Hopefully by uploading my own material it will allow me a starting point to becoming more interactive in the online poker community. I am just kinda shy and i don't wanna say anything stupid but the time has come so here it goes.

At the advice of my bestest buddy and poker mentor, I started off playing live at Argosy Casino playing $1-$3 and online small stakes cash/SnGs/MTTs. I played pretty tight and against weak players its easy to sit back and wait for a hand. I was clueless (and probably still am). After college i decided i would take a shot at the poker "biznazz". It didn't go well so i continued to work my suck job and play exclusively online.

After going busto a few times due to lack of bankroll management I would always play the 1 table satellite to the Sunday 100k for 70fpps on Pokerstars. The winner got a $10 seat in the Sunday 100k and i would simply un-register and take the tournament dollars to a $10 SnG. From there i would usually take 1st or 2nd and continue to play like this until i had about $50. From there i would play the $4 180-man SnG. I took a shot at this SnG probably 10 times. I cashed a couple times and final tabled once before i actually took down a 1st place in March of 2008 which yielded $216. Needless to say i was pumped that i won my first MTT SnG. Like 2 days later i got off work early and decided to take a shot at a bigger tournament. I took a shot at the $40k guarantee $27.50 buy in on Pokerstars. To my delight i took 4th and $2,700. I should have taken the offered chop but i was feeling too good about the situation so whatever. I was feeling unstoppable as i am sure many of you have felt before. Then as in most cases, the reality check to the nuts comes a short time later....

I was positive that since i now had a "good" bankroll i could play any game i wanted. I always went to the casino with 2 buy-ins, so why couldn't i do it online right? YEAH!!!! WRONG! lol. I decided to play $400NL 6-max. Oh Boy was I in for a treat. I played about 4 hours a day breaking even for about 2 weeks. To this day 6-max body slams me and its amusing looking back and thinking i was able to handle those games. Needless to say my bankroll shrunk in half. Due to fear and uncertainty, I decided to withdrawal $1200 and leave $200 online. Within a month i was busto again.

So its back to the drawing board. A short time later in August 2008 I did my AMAZING turn fpps into cash again using the same plan as explained previously. However, this time i took a different approach. Once i got to a $100 bankroll, I started playing $25NL full ring. It worked out pretty well yielding a slow but steady profit. Keep in mind i was still pretty clueless but had an OK understanding of what the hell was going on. then I joined Cardrunners and i can say with complete confidence that it changed my game around 180 degrees and put me on the right path. Not necessarily Cardrunners, but more particularly the $25NL video produced by WCGrider. I played about 90k hands and experienced a 20k hand break even/downswing hurdle during $25NL but eventually got through it.

I played $25NL until the first week of October 2008 and had 50 buy-ins for $50NL. Lately, my colleague and I have been thinking that a 50 buy-in requirement for ourselves might be a little too conservative, but i think everyone's comfort level is different.... so whatever. Anyway, then I moved to Full Tilt Poker to take advantage of the whole rakeback craze, which by the way is amazing. Following the instruction of Sixpeppers and Muddywatter on Cardrunners. I played $50NL until the first week of January 2009 . I had a $5000 bankroll built up entirely from fpps! YEEEEHAWWW!

Now comes my current situation. I took a shot at $100NL and realized a few things. I was playing like ****. I was running pretty bad. I didn't like the bigger swings. My confidence level was down. After about 10 days i managed to lose 5 buyins at $100NL and and another $500 experimenting at $50NL 6-max/ $50NL. I decided a break was in order to get my head clear and to study the game that we all love. I started playing again a few days ago and my play improved tremendously, however the results didn't show it. Coolers, bad beats, draws got there, etc. I was fine with that because i was playing better. I will post my graphs and stats below. This all leads into the video i recorded last night of my most recent session.






****for those of you only interested in the video******

Please bare in mind that this is my first attempt ever at making a video and first attempt at talking out loud trying to articulate my thought process verbally. It may be painful at times and i ramble at times about things that are irrelevant. Thank you for taking the time to read this and feel free to comment and critique.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DGK3FRC4

Just in case anyone runs into the same problem, the video didn't work for me when I tried playing it in Windows Media Player but it worked fine in VLC player. Entertaining video, not much I can comment on since I'm a complete newb.

Your introduction was very interesting.

I'll download the video asap.

downloading

nice results btw

Nice results, thanks for posting.
Downloading

sorry about the video file size guys. new to this...

and also i had a cold when recording, my apologies for the sniffles

nice stats i will watch tonight

dling

Welcome to the forums, that was a nice introduction. Regardless of what the video shows: you've come to the right place.

Bah, couldn't edit my post any longer. The only comment I have is about the 66 hand at about 19:00.

You dumped the hand correctly preflop, calling would have been horrible. After that you ended up contemplating if that was the right play. It most certainly was. There were no implied odds in setmining against a shortie, and even if you do get an overcaller, you have the worst possible relative position postflop. If shortie doesn't bet the flop, you're not getting value. If he does, you have to announce your monster.

Call and the players behind know to dump everything except made hands. (>50% of the time you're on the bad end of a cooler).

Raise and the situation is even worse, because now you've announced that you can beat the shortie and "want" to drive other players out. Again, you'd get action only from made hands.

Other than that, you seem to know what you're doing. On the hand where you got a set with 44 and spiked quads I'd say you got lucky that the other players were morons and were felting an overpair even after you cold-called a flop raise. You basically told the table that you have the best hand no matter what the others may hold.

does anyone have a link

http://www.cardrunners.com/members/s...eo.php?id=1040

but you have to be a Cardrunners member to view it. I suggest signing up for Fulltilt Pokers totally free poker program. If you do you have the opportunity to get Cardrunners and StoxPoker absolutely free.

Here is the link for the program

http://www.trulyfreepokertraining.com/

Hi.

Nice intro! Welcome to the forums.

Dling now.

// M

how would you have played it? should i lead out on the flop? i sometimes do this but i dont wanna scare my opponents away.

Once the flop hits, I have to agree that I'd try to play it the same, because the shortie just doesn't give enough profit to setmine. I'd need the original raiser to compensate for the preflop call. Check-raising over a bet and raise is just too strong. Flatting a flop raise is equally big giveaway but at least allows idiots to make mistakes.

I actually would have folded preflop.

The reason is again the combination of position and relative stack sizes in question. The EP raiser certainly offers enough implied odds but when the shortie enters the hand, your implied odds go down. You're going to act first postflop, and most of the time you can't expect to win much more than what the shortie has. His presence in the hand affects the play. Extracting out of position is difficult enough, you don't need a small stack in the hand crippling the action against full stacks. Sandwiched between the preflop raiser and a shortie... You might as well play your hand face up.

Effectively every time you give action against a shortie, you are telling the table "I have him, you don't matter, go away." Any action you get after such a proclamation is limited to big hands only. If the cold-caller had at least half a stack then I'd feel comfortable setmining OOP for the price given.

the video has vanished...

Rehost?