Although i used to do it myself quite often, shot-taking with 5-6 buy ins is pretty pointless. Mentally you can't play at your best for obvious reasons and 5-6 buy ins is nothing anyway if you hit a rough patch. I'm sure you know this already though. 40 buy ins is ideal for 50nl 6-max nowadays and a decent shot would be with 15-20 buy ins before moving down if need be. Be patient and gl.

Decided to drop back down and at the moment 3 buyins down. This is epic as it seems the easiest thing to do against me is flop trips with low offsuit cards when you call a 3bet against me or turn a set every ****ing time I check after I hit. Seriously are people just folding to every raise? I am now 9 buyins down in the space of less than 1K hands and there wasnt a thing imo that I could have done about any of them, the graphs posted very rarely have 5 buyin swings let alone 10, how is that possible? Should I just pray to the poker gods every single night in the hope that I run good or simply not put hardly any money in the pots unless I have the nuts.

Agreed on the graphs, unless they are all uber nits. I posted a hand in my thread, I had AA, a whale called me to river with A high, yet still got some comments how badly I spewed the river. Even if you agree the river is a spew A high FFS! I should be 3 or 4 BI's up a session.

Yeah I dont get it. Ive played against a lot of them and they never show up with anything but the goods. They must be so disciplined to simply fold most of the time when they are facing a raise. I just cant do it, like the one where I flopped bottom straight and faced a raise and then a shove, Im thinking they both could have a set or Tp with a SD but no, one has the second nut straight and the other the nut straight. No word of a lie the non variance players must be making a fold there otherwise their graphs would have the same spikes that mine has. How people can play so much volume and not have a 10 buyin downswing in a month is beyond me.

The thing I am struggling to understand, and I am fully aware I am an average player, is the question, is that all there is to the game? wait for the nuts and then value bet? Because if it is, I don't want to play, there isn't any skill.

Thats one of the thoughts in my head at the moment. Apart from small bluffs, light 3bets and cbets, we are simply betting when we have it and folding when raised and we dont have the nuts or at least second nuts. That dosnt sound too much fun and especially seen as though Zoom is simply a nuts fest when everyone seems to be the top of their range especially at FR which makes some of the Zoom FR graphs even less believable where they dont have swings.

Im going to give it a go just playing really straight forward exploitable Poker and simply folding to every raise and not putting my stack in without a nuttish hand and see how it goes. Bluffing will be kept to a minimum and Im almost going to play as though Im not using a hud and thinking everyone is simply raising for value. Hopefully try that for a couple of days and see which I think is working.

I don't want this to be too much of a love in, but that's why I have always followed your threads Mart, because you want to improve in all aspects of the game.

this so much.

i disagree with this, 6max zoom is incredibly spewy, should be able to just tighten up and look for value.

FR is not that nitty, and those who are that nitty are just too obvious for us to be worried about.

Pretty sure the players your questioning are just better than you in a number of different ways. They don't win month after month without ''skills'' as you and the above poster put it.

Their main skill no doubt is the ability to play long hours and not tilt. This skill is something you clearly lack. You also lack discipline in BRM. If these are things you don't want to incorporate into your game then this story will just repeat itself.

As for knowing when to call a raise etc... it's purely player dependent there is no answer to the question. Chill out, be patient, build a roll. Alternatively, take shots, hope to get lucky, probably bust roll. GL either way. And i'm not tryin to be a dick I'm just stating the obvious.

I was only taking shots because I was adequately rolled imo. I felt 28 buy ins was ok to take a couple of shots. I was clearly wrong no?

All I am is disputing is some of the graphs that are posted, i have been doing that for a long time though to be honest. I stand by what i said and claim BS at anyone who plays 100K hands or so in a month and dosnt have at least a 10buy in DS. You would have to run hotter than the sun for that to happen imo.

I dropped 8 today in 1K hand and would love to say that I had spewed some of them off but I honestly cant, i doubt many people would play the hands I did differently so whats the secret? How do we get these non spiked graphs?

You can shot take whenever you feel like it, it isn't up to anyone else. I just found from my experience it rarely ends well as even if had gone well this time it probably won't when you start shot taking at the next level with a similar strategy. 8 buy-ins in 1k hands is ridiculous btw. You should post hands.

Theres really no point, they are mostly coolers apart from 1 where i flop Tp+nut FD and the villain raises a super dry flop in a 3bet pot. I probably should just call his raise instead of getting it in but i talk myself in to thinking he could have worse TP or worse FD but shows up with a set.

Back to NL25 for a while and just trying to keep it simple again. I need to take as much variance out of my game as possible because when im running like this I tend to start playing like a clown. I just wish I could have the happy medium that some players find but for some reason my style does not fit to that.

Full Tilt Poker is pleased to announce the return of the Black Card program, which launches on Monday, July 1st.

As a Diamond status player, you are one step away from earning your Black Card; simply achieve a 500 Full Tilt Points average over a 100-day rolling period. Once you've attained Black Card status, you can convert your current and future points directly to cash at a rate of $1 for every 200 Full Tilt Points:

Current Full Tilt Points balance 401928.78 FTPs
Points balance value $2009.64

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A further reward offered to Black Card players is the opportunity to opt in to our exclusive sponsorship program. You'll earn double Full Tilt Points for all your play while participating in the sponsorship program, and can claim a spot on our Black Card Pro team if your performance is good enough.

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Good luck at the tables,

The Black Card team


Seems a good way to get my points changed and might increase some traffic on FT because just had a look and theres only 70 players in the NL25 zoom 6mx pool and NL50 isnt even running.

Wish i had of put more volume in on Full Tilt now lol. Only have like 6k points, not even diamond anymore. This is probably the worst time of the day btw for the FT player pool. I'm sure rush runs comfortably at a better time of day. This should definitely get more players there, though a majority will likely be regs. But if there anything like the zoom regs i doubt there is much to worry about lol.

Sent them a polite email asking them to reinstate my Black Card status and I will transfer my play. Whether they will is another thing seen as my volume is less and Im a couple of levels below where I was at. I seem to remember getting BC pretty easily at NL100 but Im not sure it will be that easy at NL25. I might have a play to get an idea before deciding what to do. I guess I can use some points to buy tickets or simply transfer some money across. Points seem more attractive because I will still be earning points and money while playing which is almost a double bonus especially getting rb as well.

On the slight meltdown Im still pretty determined to make a go of it at 6max Zoom and just need to continue to build strength in the good habits that I was doing at the begining of the week. Its frustrating at times because it feels like I either run good or bad which unfortunatley translates in me been a little scared to play when running well and then starting to spew after I have dropped a few buyins when Im running bad. A happy medium would be great but I do contribute to my own downfall at times.

Ive also gone over the big hands from yesterday and theres probably about $70 that I shouldnt lose if I played with my witts about me. I had one with bottom straight where I bet the flop, get check/raised then another villain shoves. I think I should find a fold there if i am honest. I think a good player folds but a fish loses and chalks it up as variance when they both show better straights.

Another one I check/raise a drawy flop, a good board to raise in my opinion and hit a straight on the turn but it puts 3 to a flush on the board, I bet villain calls, the river puts 4 to a straight on the board beating mine. I convince my self he cant play the better straight that way and I dont think he plays the flush that way either. I bet the river which I thought is now pretty bad as nothing worse can call and he then shoves. I should save $24 right there by folding as I would say theres not much that I beat that he plays this way. I think my flop and turn play is good but it just happens that the villain had a hand but i should be able to find a fold.

Nice poast.

Taking my time getting through the blinds videos as I dont want to just fly through them and instead Im having a first view and then watching again and then taking notes on them. Once Ive got through them all I will probably watch them again and pull some hands out of my DB to go through where I could play as suggested which will be pretty good as by then I should have started implementing some of the stuff in the videos.

Its a pretty cool sense of achievement when you pick a good spot for a certain play and it comes off. There has also been a bit of discussion started by YF in the FR forum on general blind play and its quite interesting just how passive people seem to be in these spots and just how completely different the videos suggest playing. The explanations as to the why we do x are quite good as well and its easy to see why i were making so many mistakes in playing so passive in the blinds.

I know Im playing in the zone and showing progress when I can get AA all in pre 200bb deep against KK and watch a K hit the river and my reaction is "Oooh Rivered". On top of that it was over an hour ago and Ive been playing ever since and still managed to play really well in the session.

This is also my second day of not checking results. I really want to have a look but so far so good, early on I had a count in my head of how much I might be up but after that hand and stacking people a couple of times then losing a couple of decent sized pots i really have no idea where I am at. The side effect of that is that all my decisions are poker based rather than getting results based at times.

Quick update on my progress in regards to my blind play. Last month at NL25 my blind loses were -24bb/100 in the SB and -60bb/100 in the BB so I was leaking pretty badly in those positions.

This month so far Im at -22bb/100 in the SB and -30bb/100 in the BB. So far it seems Im making good progress and my play on the whole in those positions seems a lot better and I feel a lot more confident about what I am doing. Will be intersting to see how I fair the rest of the month but on the face of it so far the course should pay for itself quite quickly.

Had one of those days yesterday where it didnt seem I could win for toffee, ended up dropping just over 3 buy ins but on the whole didnt do much wrong. I played a big 3 way pot with 2 pair where I probably should have found a fold and got caught thin value betting in to rivered better hands but I was quite happy with those bets.

Tilt wise theres not really much showing up at the moment and the work with Elliot is paying off and I think because I am more confident that I wont tilt I also have a lot more confidence in my Poker game and dont have to make the silly plays like calling just to make sure and obviously a side bonus of that is that my WR has gone up drastically as my play has got less and less spewy.

im really pleased to say that I am enjoying playing poker again.

Ive now cleared the PS bonus and will probably start trying to clear the bonus over at FT in the next couple of days too which will give me an idea of where I would be at in trying to get Blackcard to try and release my points that i have there.

6 max is the way to go these days, glad to see you back

Thanks. Yeah really enjoying playing 6max and poker on the whole which is nice after the reality being that I probably havnt enjoyed it for what could be 12 months or more.

How is Poker treating you?