I guess we got it wrong all along : it was never about picking a fight with the old lady, crushing her like no tomorrow and stomping her till the end of times ; no, no no folks, but taking her on a midnight stroll, gently sliding her hand into ours and boogying underneath the madness of the twilight skies :




"young man... young man, do you wanna dance?"




WTF, are we really going there




Jesus ****ing Murphy




More PG/family friendly, thank god





Slightly better...






getting there...


You see, it was never about conquering souls, cracking records or being results orientated, it was about the dance, the sweet movements while establishing a grooving pace to stroll along in this lifetime baby





hummm, much better In a virtual world, you would dance with this one, wouldn't you


If we did crush the first 2015 Old Lady/challenge :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...weeks-1535509/

she came back with a vengeance in 2016 :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...016-a-1579002/

Getting smacked in the face by a cold deck does bring perspective to the game... and to life, mainly. And lets be frank, I chose this lifestyle after all . The ups. The downs. The medium-funky-sideways-swings. But in the end, it is not about the results. It is about mental balance. Being free. Becoming a better person. All of which will be touched upon in this thread, which will put less emphasis on the results (despite having some updates and graphs), then the journey.

This thread will act as a sorta journal, which will natural enhance its potential lifespan, giving its lack of self-imposed pressure... I will also do a ton of movie reviews because, well, I highly enjoy them and I feel they act as a good writing exercise while simultaneously introducing some hidden gems to you folks But in the meantime, this post needs some thread savers after the cringe-worthy pics you guys were just exposed to











Let the journey continue...

Been subbed to your poker and travel threads for a while now, great stuff, good luck

nice to see the old lady again

i read in your other thread that you're playing NL 100 on unibet,just in case that you don't know they're raking NL100+ with 20% more rake then all other sites (beside of the .fr sites),was also thinking about playing on unibet but after i read how much they rake and how less i get back i didn't made a account.

Hurdles

Adversity comes in different shapes. Perhaps that fellow sitting across the felt from you not only stinks of unjustified arrogance, but his X/Ring aggression is taking you for a loop... Perhaps you are your own worst enemy, forever injecting your play with entitlement and tilt issues... Perhaps variance is a grade A bitch, persistently ****ing your plans to conquer the world on the flop, turn or river... When I look back at my play in 2016, during a period that has seen me smacked in the face by a cold deck, a hindsight grading can gravitate towards a solid composure in dark times, or inclined to spewing. Both are true. No one can maintain complete mental balance during a stretch of 300k+ hands of run bad. No one. But this post is not about the virtual adversity, but about life obstacles.








Travelling the world. Writing a novel. Running a modestly luxurious hotel kitchen. Playing poker for a living. All endeavors that, while relatively unflashy, few, in his surroundings, envisioned your truly to accomplish. What were your personal obstacles folks? Accomplishments?

The next step of my journey, will be to make a few $$$ with my writing. Not exactly sure how this next endeavor will shape itself, but even low 4 digits yearly (obviously supplemented by poker) would be a dream grind schedule, me thinks. Something in the line of 20h poker, 15h writing, 5h studying and 15h meditating weekly would be my dream scenario.


Movie of the Day


I once had this annoying ignorant fellow proclaim "how can one enjoy slow movies, they give me such a headache". Unfortunately, his words stuck with me like a nauseating taste in my mouth, one that is better off puked then digested...

The snail-like pace initiated in The Invitation slowly focuses on the disparity of the characters, zooms in on a dinner party, slightly hints on a nebulous and anguishing past incident, settles for an uncanny atmosphere...





Oscillating in between madness and the surreal... Horror and a thriller... Unnerving dialogues, creepy beliefs and distressing personalities... it is indeed a fine line that the characters walk upon, and more so when the nature of the latter remains undefined...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-mp77SZ_0M

Run good all

Anomalies

God the games are fishy on the weekend Hit a nice heater, manage to run good, get my 70-30s to hold up and even came up with a sweet 15% suckout in a 225bbs pot : +900$ in 3h.

Not too sure if the dude was a bot or not (I am leaning towards yes), but had this fellow time-bank fold both his BB and SB, miss out on his CO and button (it was 4 handed), only to once again post-fold his BB and SB Rinse-repeat. Seemed very suspicious, to say the least... I mean, who else but an automated bot would set monies on fire like that... There was 3 regs and that bot on that table ; not a dream scenario by any means, but when a player is dumping 1.5bbs every 4 hands (so -37.5bbs/100), how can one walk away...

Thx for chiming in man and following

Hey Pronto, how are you? Still playing some live pokerz in Cambodia?

I saw a graph about the Unibet rake vs Stars and noticed that it is inflated on Unibet, but 20%, really... I will have to look more into it, but I had kinda dismissed it (I know, it sounds fishy...), since I am clearing the deposit bonus and doing good at the tables there... Also, as soon as I get back to Canada next month, Bovada will become my main site most likely, as there is enough traffic for the speed games.

still in cambodia,but now in phnom penh,and lost so much here in livepoker that i decided to play a little bit more online where i have the better hourly and don't need to play with 200bb+ stack (doesn't make fun to loose lot's of 400bb+ pots )

regarding unibet i just saw on there website that they rake on NL100+ with 6% and 3€ cap,all other sites i played on are raking with 5% and most of them also with 3€ or $3 cap and i still get way better rakeback percentage than on unibet..

i can imagine that the table is full of fish with now tracking possibility,but i'm not sure if that make up for the incredible high rake..

Yeh, NL100 rake is higher than at PS. But the loyalty scheme pays out more and the games are softer, so effective rake almost certainly isn't as high as it is on PS.

Seasonal Swings

In case you guys don't remember or miss the life of MTTs, a few examples of variance, close to the bubble :

82<18%
55<45%
45<55%
72<28%
25<75% (I 4bet shoved A3 from MP vs aggro fish OTB when BB was sitting out and got snapped with AK )
20<80% (KK vs AA vs fish ). Such were my 6 bustouts today...

Anybody miss playing MTTs Anybody miss running colder than Santa in his underwear :





Fortunately, I ran hotter than a Santa babe in her underwear in my 100z cash games, scooping 6BIs in the process :





And why not 2 of the same :




+200$ in 4h. For the next 6 weeks until I get back to Dawson, my grind will consist of 25h of playing and 3h of studying weekly ; the rest of it will be dedicated to enjoying the last of my time in Vietnam with my gf



Sorry to hear about the bad variance in the live gamez... I thought about popping in Cambodia for the APT, if it happened to coincide with my travelling schedule... I remember more than 1 night spewing some chips at Naga World, drunk out of my mind And also remember cleaning this drooler out of 4k, at 8 am Glad to hear that online is going well for you



Darn Andrew, you are quite on the ball, chiming in in 2 of my threads now I think I speak in the name of quite a few people when I say thx for being so transparent : all this honesty is quite refreshing in these dark online poker days (so mad at 888 at the moment ...).

As far as the graphs are concerned though (which I had seen before), I think that despite PokerStars still being the Golden Reference in the online pokerz world, numerous players trying to find an alternative to Stars, will not only compare your rake to the latter, but to other options like Ipoker and Party etc. that do offer a lower rake and decent if not higher RB. This said,

1- Any plans on making your rake more competitive in the near future? And...

2- You randomly popped in at my 100z table yesterday (UnibetAndrew was the nic anyhow...), played an orbit or 2, payed your blinds and left ; were you just checking on the software?

Anyhow, I have been appreciating Unibet and do see it as the future of poker ; great job man

yeah i'm also thinking about going back to snooky for the time of apt,wasn't there the year before,did they have a cashgame round which was higher than NL200?

at naga i played until now only ~4hours,lost all my money in riverking



that's the point..stars getting worse and worse in every sense,and i had other sites/networks in mind with my last post..



@UnibetAndrew

i know you don't want to many regulars on your site and everything is a little bit different because of that,but tbh 6% rake for NL100+ seems pretty much out of line for me,even in this day's

Yeah, I am still on the fence with Unibet, as sure, the games are definitely soft, but so are the games on Party, on 888 (but alas, not playing there anymore for the life of me... or at least barely), Bovada... But I am definitely enjoying the site so far.

About the APT, I just messaged a French buddy of mine who says the APT is June 15-23, and 2-5 cash games are very likely, with 5-10 a strong probable.

Outlooks

Three of my biggest subtle qualities I inherited that clearly made me predisposed for a future in poker, are my calm demeanor, my sheer will power and a keen knack for awareness in critical moments. You see, when all crumbles in the world, when an incident brings to a halt the expected turn of events, I am at my best. When everyone else is frozen by a radical of string events, I take control. Life slows down. I see all possible outcomes. Meditation, yo. +300$ in 20 minutes (might just take today off...).


Movie of the Day

"C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui tombe d’un immeuble de cinquante étages. Le mec, au fur et à mesure de sa chute il se répète sans cesse pour se rassurer : jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien.
Mais l'important n’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage."

rough translation : "It is the story of a man falling from a sky scraper of 50 stories. The fellow, during his fall and in the hopes of comforting himself, repeats : up to now, all is well, up to now, all is well. But what remains important, is not the fall, but the landing.".

La Haine (100% on Rotten Tomatoes) introduces 3 characters from different ethnical background : a Jew, a black and white that remain resilient in the face of criminal temptation.





But sometimes, destiny remains inexorable.




The role that brought notoriety to Vincent Cassel. He was still a decade away from Hollywood though...





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk77VrkxL88


Run good all

Whos the white in La haine if it isnt the Jew? Just curious haha cause I love that movie.

I guess this should probably belong in the main Unibet thread so I'll try to stay out of back & forths in this thread after this post.

Then it's down to effective rake, which is about game quality as well as rewards. I don't think either of those sites win there.

Our rake is a 25-33% of that at any other site at NL/PL4, and 40-50% at NL/PL10. It's also significantly lower at PL25 and PL50. I think that's pretty competitive. We have low rake at these stakes because those players can then move up faster and will churn less frequently. That makes all of our games softer. That's our overall strategy and I'm pretty happy with it.

Nope, wasn't me. The alias "UnibetAndrew" is on the blacklist, so someone did it by replacing the I with an L. I've blacklisted that alias too, thanks for telling me.

I do sometimes play a few hands, but it's going to be at NL4 unless there's a good reason otherwise. Mostly I do it to test something or other out - the downside of being on this side of the fence is that I can't seriously play on our software. It's quite frustrating because we made the software we'd like to play on.

Thanks!

5% to 6% doesn't mean the rake is 20% higher because not every hand hits the cap. The graphs I made are from actual rake paid over a million hands per stake, and the PS ones use a similar methodology. The reason that graph shows the rake as ~20% higher is that it's comparing to PokerStars' cap, and NL100 is the game they rake the least relative to us.

That's the stake where we look worst against PS, but we look better at several other stakes.

Then we come to effective rake. If there's higher rakeback on one site, that comes into play. Then there're other promotions, and then there's game quality. We beat PS on all of those.

Finally, most poker players don't know what the rake is. The fact that I have to make graphs by looking at 1m hands per stake shows how obscurationry rake is as a payment model. It's much better for us to have this rake level and use that money on promotions etc.

Live Pokerz

As stated in my travel thread, live pokerz will be my main focus moving on. Of course, I will supplement it with online, most likely in a 70-30% ratio... My personality is more suited for the live grind. For the sake of making a list (because I love lists ), here are the biggest distinctions imho :

- Social Interaction : considering a place like Dawson has been my first home for over 15 years now, it goes without saying that playing live with people I love has an endearing grounding effect.

- Lower Variance : the difference in between being a 100bbs/100 winner (25bbs/h+) and having a ROI of just over 100% in the weekend tournaments (50$ rebuys, as opposed to 40% online and 4bbs/100 in 100z., is considerable as far as the balance of mind goes.

- Lower Volume : Of course live pokerz is not impervious to stress, yet nothing mashes my brain more than 6h str8 of 550 hands/hour But it doesn't matter whether form of poker I am indulging in, as meditation is sorely needed after a session ; nonetheless, I knew that online would no longer be a full time option going into my 40s...

- Live Tells : I rarely play more than 6 tables online (and never more than 8), so barring some tilt-induced-prompt decisions (that rarely happens, God forbid), I usually take my time before acting. This said, live pokerz offers the luxury of sitting back, observing your opponent, replaying the hand, contemplating about life, your gf and what socks to put on in the morning , which greatly plays in my favor, given that I frequently get "into the zone".

Visiting different Countries : If you guys remember when I first started my travel blog, I was gearing up for the WSOP in Paris. I have since played live in Cambodia, the Philippines, Vancouver, Alberta and Tampa, but do plan on diversifying furthermore my destinations by combining tournament events with travelling (perhaps Brazil next winter...).

Weaker Competetion : Live pokerz play is obviously the laughing stock of any respectable online poker and I mean, just think about the math : how does someone like me averaging 25 hands/hour at 1-2$ make a better hourly than averaging 550 hands (albeit much less lately) and slightly higher overall stakes online +200$ in 6h. I dropped about 600$ in MTT buy-ins in the past 2 days, but 100z is thankfully compensating for them

Movie of the Day


Ever wonder what an anti-capitalist-fantasy movie would look like?




Branded has a very interesting narrative even for those that would not care much about an anti-consumer stance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ5p7l1hNuQ

Run good all

Moving On

Well, there seems to be no end to my MTT run bad : was 2nd in chips yesterday in the 109$ Kangaroo, only to lose a 88% and 80% favorite to finish 9th (paid top 8 ).





Down 1200$ in MTTs this week (only cashed 2) , but still booked a decent 1.3k in winnings in 28h My tournament play is rapidly improving, as I am investing more time on refreshing those common ICM/preflop spots. Will take the next 3 days off.


Vincent Cassel being the white. But I don't know man, I am pretty blind when it comes to people, to be honest... Never quite understood why Jewish folks were so persecuted throughout history... But anyhow, thx for following, and speaking of Cassel :


Movie of the Day


My favorite western of all time certainly doesn't come from your standard-industry-favorite Clint Eastwood background (despite having Unforgiven and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly both cracking my top 5 Western list...), but stars the previously mentioned Vincent Cassel in a mostly unknown flick.





For once, the Indians are not portrayed as the enemy, but uncharacteristically act as guidance for our hero through his shamanic/spiritual journey. And perhaps more interestingly, the hero vs villain showdown is not done underneath the dusty settling sun in a gun dual, but through an Ayahuasca trip.







Don't let the bad ratings misguide you, this movie is simply magnificent. Uplifting. And a must see for anyone who has previously indulged in psychedelics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZWkejObSj0


Run good all

The Good Ole Days

You guys remember the excitement of being a noob in the pokerz... When the NegrenHellmuth of the world displayed on tv seemed bigger than life itself...When X/Ring-triple-barreling-shoving with air felt like the most gangsta move ever ... Or when reading about Stu Ungar calling with T high felt like some sort of God-sent-otherwordly-talent (I do it close to 50 times a year nowadays )... When exploitative play felt like a way to outsmart your opponent until the end of times, you know, the whole "he knows, that I know, that he knows that...) ... But then came GTO, and all charm was lost in the process





Oh, I miss the novelty of it all! I remember a (bad) player in Dawson who was utterly shocked when I told him that I was going to study at least 5h/week (which was a lot of the time) for the upcoming month, only to see him reply :

- "What!?! What the hell do you study during all those hours "

Yeah, training site videos, nash equilibriums, GTO software (how many hands a second does poker snowie play again? More that has ever been played by humans throughout history in a mere virtual second... ) has killed the romantic lure of the poker dream.





Sure, I still enjoy playing poker and mainly indulging in the freedom that the lifestyle provides, but at times contemplate on those days of looking up to the known pros and wondering how they got to master these poker secrets that escape us mere mortals (even if most were/are absolutely terrible and still don't know a thing or 2 about a thing or 2





-200$ in 3h. Decided to grind a little after watching the Raptors crush the Pacers. , but got overset on the final table bubble of the 109$ kangaroo with 25bbs effective Oh well, whatever, I have been happily immune against variance for a couple of months now

Not sure if I will use this thread as a sort of challenge when I get to Dawson... Something like 40k in 4 months would be a nice challenge, yet I am hesitant to increase the self-inflicted pressure by making my results so transparent once again... We will see.

Run good all

True Equity

After getting my AK cracked by AK aipf this WE (got 4 card flushed, obviously ), it got me thinking about the worst all-in preflop bad beats one can take... I think AA < AA remains the nut worse, given that a HUGE part of your preflop equity in holdem comes from the monstrous favorable odds of big pairs (even if getting AA cracked by AA is more likely than AK < AK in terms of equity (not frequency)). Of course, we all remember the Drinan aces cracked in the One Drop :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR52zv1GqBY

AA getting cracked by AT-AK remains a nasty one, but still a dog emotionally wise to AA < AA, me thinks...

The good thing about having played the speed games for the past year or so, is that it made me somewhat impervious to the swings and nasty bad beats. I remember Gus Hansen once mentioning on Poker After Dark, how he considered AQo vs AA aipf, for example, as a flip Of course, during those fishy years of mine, it was lost upon me how a standard cooler hand should be viewed as a flip (being on the good of bad side of a cooler), moreso then in direct equity terms. And how this train of thought can be carried to a macro level. To the extent where all-in equity is a marginal indicator at best of how good or bad one is running. I guess what I am trying to say, is variance can never be understated, even if run bads remain overstated by recreational players... (and directly correlated to the size of their ego ). -100$ in 3h.


Movie of the Day


Warning : the next flick is quite the mind bending cluster****, so engage at your own risk





After the Hollywood success of Prisoners, Denis Villeneuve retaliates with an obscure movie once again starring Jake Gyllenhaal :





You ever feel like something is desperately wrong in the world... In you? That some dark and nebulous outside force is slowly creeping in the shadows... Or just that something is not right... inside and outside. And what if you happened to stumble upon an exact replicate of yourself, and that he/it had a sense of belonging that escapes you... an obnoxious arrogance.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r98msNRZYUY


Enemy will never garnish more than a cult following, but for those of you that will let this gloomy film creep upon you, that feeling is bound to settle in for a long time, I guarantee it


Run good all

Unwarranted Tilt

Where does this raging-tilt come from? I am only 40 minutes into my session, I haven't encountered an otherwordly tilting bad beat, yet all I want to do is click the raise button until the end of times, 3-5bet jam with KJs, 99s, even 4bet bluff K9o OOP ffs... Perhaps a certain sense of entitlement has settled, instilling me with this false assertion that the recs monies should be mine, all mine ASA ****ing P, yo





Thankfully, since my level of awareness is reliable enough, it doesn't take me long before putting en end to this self-destructive urge : I quit, only losing 50$ of equity damage in the process : +100$ in 1h.

Part of it is this existential anger is intrinsically human : we are alone down here, fighting decay, old age and injustices meanwhile trying to find a purpose to all of this, jesus ****ing murphy ; another aspect to this momentarily tilt, me thinks, is a craving for action : GIVE IT TO ME, GIVE IT TO ME RIGHT ****ING NOW





Not always evident to emotionally dissect ourselves - sorta speak - and to keep our calm... Like a meditator buddy once said, "there is so much shiit inside of us", a realization that is not always easy to come by, as we prefer to paint ourselves with saintlier colors (show me 1 arsehole fully aware of how obnoxious he is ) This said, and I know a lot of you have read this before, but lets conclude with King niche's degen post, which remains the nut tilt-induced fable on 2 + 2 :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...6&postcount=41

quote : "one time i was sitting in my house on my own i had just split up with my gf who was a crack head but she was nice.. the room was dark i was surrounded by bottles of piss half eaten sandwiches i even had a crust behind my ear i was quite sad because i was busto and heartbroken i thought maybe we would make it work and she would be my main squeese anyway she left me for a crack dealer..so at this point im feelin like ten dewey heart aching empty busto feeling and linger tilt from stacking off with a flush draw because some crotch monkey over bets the pot and i run into the swinging blade and throw up 2 clanging bricks and I just punch my ****in monitor almost put my fist through it and then i kicked my coffee table but not like a regular person no no no..i have to hit it as hard as I can with my ****ing shin!!!! wtff was i thinking im not van damme or some **** that hurt so bad i collapsed in agony and started crying i just laid there whimpering in agony sobbing and eventually the pain eased off but i had blood running all the way down my leg..i just laid there on the carpet for 2 hours staring into space i even knocked one out while laying in the recovery position i felt so lazy like a lazy slob and i smelt so rank like chinese food in a dumpster for days..i eventually get up im wearing stripey boxers and half of them is up my ass ive got my ass cheek showing but i dont care i sit at my pc and watch some 200/400 on betfair wishing i was in the game..i kept sitting at a table hoping i would have cash in my account i actually prayed to mary magdagascar..i check my emails and boooom titan poker have put free money in my damn account!!!!!!!!!!!!!! woooooooooooooo..it felt like a blessing. Its like 5 dollars..so I go straight to max but in 5c/10c or some BS where u get nit on nits and I run that **** up to 20 in no time, then I but in at 25/50 and I hit a big overset and and I make some decent bluffs I get my stack to 145..at this point im thinking ok just play this mother****ing cool dont be a degen waste of lung capacity but i say *** it i will take a shot at 2/4...

so I pick the easiest table luckily for me they are all easy and first hand I shove with the doyle brunson just for good luck everyone folds secnd hand i get AA..I shove I get 2 callers an Iwin and im oer 400 i say**** this and i goto 5/10 witha short stack what else am i suppose to do..i run this upto 3k pretty easily and step up to 10/20 and in 3 hours I have 13k..then it happened..I GET KING ****ING KING and some guy called han solo (TILTED) raises me to 30 dollars I re raise to 180 He raises to 550 I call planning to shove any flop flop comes AAA ..he says to me in chat I HAVE IT and bets the pot im like wtf ..thats areverse reversal bluff damn *** he must have it **** i cant fold i felt my heart speed up kind of like a panic attack how can i fold this my dad is in my ear saying DONT CALL he has the 4 of a kind im like no dad let me play my own damn hands why cant you go and play poker with otis redding always ****** interfering ..and i start arguing with him cant believe i have gone from 5 dollars to over a 20k pot in just hours..I call and he flips over QQ..I FIST PUMP LIKE IM OHN MACKENROE SHOUTING NOW WHAT NOW WHAT DAD HE DIDNT SAY **** TURN QUEEN RIVER QUEEENNNNNNNNNNN>>OMFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG I MWAS SO ****IN MAD I STARTED SPITTINGup BLOOD FOAMING UP ...PUNCHED MY SELF in teh side of the head AND STARTED SHOUTING AT MY DAD INSIDE MY HEAD IM LIKE **** OFF LEAVE ME ALONE GET OUT OF My HEAD.. OMGG IM BUSTO AGAIN I FEEL LIKE A WORM WHO HAS HAS BIN SHOVELLED WHEN THE GROUND IS COLD OR MABE STUCK HIS HEAD IN A TURD..I FELT LIKE SUCH A ****INg DEGEN I COULD HAVE PLAYED 5/10 with 13k so easily and made decent rake and maybe found me some new pussy easily when i tell em im back to being a pro...first i burnt my hand on the stove on purpose omggg i was so wasted i went out in the backyard stark naked i started climbing the trees and just trying to get back to nature and forget the damn poker..loking back id lost my damn mind that pot had eloctrocuted my noodle..it started to rain and i looked so pathetic i couldnt even get a crack whore to stay with me and I had a big hemmaroid and my white pastey body stood out under the grey sky i must have looked like a sagging bag of milk...

..all i wanted to do was grind for 18 hours a day and fester in my own filth and live the life of a poker pro grind on the mind till i die make my tomb a house of cards.. i wanted to give up so bad.. now i was busto and i couldnt see a break in the clouds or any hope the next day when i woke up i had to masturbate just so i could get out of bed i browsed 2+2 and went back to bed for 3 days..I didnt even get up to go peepee i just pissed the bed because i was busto and nothing else mattered..i kept reminded myself that atleast i nwasnt the fat sloth puppet in that movie seven where he gets locked in a bat cave and is made to eat spaghetti till his guts spill open..but this didnt make me feel any better..
whats urine and the smell of a cheesy ritz cracker ass crack when you lost a 26k pot? i didnt give a **** about pissing on myself by that point..i could of had a milllion dingelberries attatched to my ass i wouldnt have cared...i was so upset the lowest point for so long even lower than when i talked myself out of a guy giving me a BJ for $100 I just couldnt do it..i felt lower than when my mom force fed me flowers..I almost killed myself on day 2 when metallica came on the radio..i dont know how I ever made it out alive..i always swear to this day it was just the hope of being back in action someday..it lifted me out of the bottomless pit and gave me reason to live and breathe..never quit guys..not even when they are dragging your face through the ****..there is always someone worse off than you..like a guy with a glass eye with a fish in it....keep grind on the mind" end of quote.


Run good all

Helpless

The sentiment of feeling powerless is perhaps one of the most emasculating experiences for men : we like to be in control. Of ourselves. Our surroundings. Dominant. A helping hand for our lady. Top of the world baby It remains an illusion, of course, and one that is often denied at the tables.

Variance is a bitch and has more than once slapped some grown alpha male into submission. A bit of an unfortunate for these types, as not only are they drawn to da gamez of da pokerz, but oftentimes suck balls at it I am not one that takes pleasure in seeing others crumble underneath the pain - most definitely not -, as the millions of flops, turns and rivers seen has put me through some existential angst and if anything, I have experienced more loss (in relative terms) than anyone I play with in Dawson, and thus always have the big picture floating in the back of my mind. But yesterday was a different form of powerless feeling.

I had already lost my connection a couple of times (to the tune of -15$), yet wanted to push on, as the games were very good and I was cruising along with a happy momentum. When a bad reg opened to 4$ UTG, I happily defended my BB with 44

Flop (8.50$)
A64

Gin The bad connection didn't matter anymore, as long as I could fast play this and GII ASAP... I check, villain bets 7.62$, I raise to 22$, he flats. I wish he could of shoved and I thought he would (he only had 35$ behind), but he had the good presence of mine to see a turn and fold and most likely fold to a potential /call anything else...

Turn (52.50$)
A64 6

What a wonderful life ; I... lose my god damn connection, run down the hall to get closer to the router... wait... wait... 10 seconds... 20 seconds... 35 seconds... the connection comes back, I see villain bet a mere 1$, the action comes back to me, I am frozen, helpless, and watch the potential 82E get pushed in the wrong direction








Honestly, sure I felt entitled to that money and was hit by a slight sentiment of loss, but the past few months have left me numb to the bad end of variance, so it felt more like this :




+300$ in 2h. Obviously not putting in lots of volume lately, but might put in 6h today


Run good all

Blowouts

When I GII AK vs AJ in the BIG 82$ close to the money, I told myself I would jump off the balcony if I lost yet another 75 < 25% deep in a tourney

-200$ in 4h


Darn, that Raptors game 5 was the sick-sicko-sickest comeback I have ever witnessed by this team, especially considering the stakes Had it been a regular season game, I would of given up at the start of the 4th quarter when they were down by 13 points. But I calmed down, told myself they realistically had roughly a 4-6% chance of winning this, which is just a 2-3 outer with 1 card to come after all, something that I witness a few handful of times per day... (granted, with a WAY bigger sample size though...).


Hand of the Day

What is your range here? I have just sat down on a Party 100z table, villain is an aggro fish (80/70/30 over 10 hands), I have just called his double barrel on the previous hand with A high (and was right), so I feel that his range is at a tilting-peak-high in terms of wideness when he snap-shoves 82$ UTG I look down at 77 in the CO and go solidly in the tank... I am of course ahead of his range and would snap-off in the BB with perhaps 55+, A8s+, A10o+ KJs+, but in this case, I have to worry about 3 players acting after me... I think my calling range here is A10s+, AJo+, 77+, sounds right?

I will not be in serious grind mode until June 1, so hope you guys are enjoying my writing stories/style as poker updates of 1-2h of play can be quite lol

Run good all

dunno why you play (up to $82?) mtt's when you beat cashgame up to nl100

hourly should be better in cashgame and even if you make a few dollar more in mtt's imo it's not worth the variance..

have now my 2nd month in a row were i'm slightly up/slightly down (pre rakeback) in online cashgame,and after getting frustated realized that this is nothing compared to my mtt swings,where a two month (~1.6k mtt's) downswing is nothing than the usual up and down of a grinder..

tbh i played them only because i was capable to get in way more hours because the basic play was way more simplicity then cashgame..

imo mtt's are way overrated in comparison to cashgame when it's come to hourly,and everyone who is capable to make solid winnings from cashgame should stay with cashgame instead of mtt's..

Off the Wall

Yeah man, my somewhat-approximated-attempt-at-a-poker-grind lately is quite off the wall





There is no wisdom behind my MTT selection, except the one induced by acid flashbacks






lol My grind went from having 3-4 33$ to force me to have longer sessions while supplementing my 100z speed games, to adding a couple of 55$ (that I have historically crushed) and a 109$ (soft field) after the cancellation of RB on 888. So MTTs went from being a non-factor, to a significant part of my grind (as attested last week : -1500$ in MTTs, +2800$ in cash). But anyhow, Stars changed their tournament schedule last week, cancelling in the process the 4 x 33$ I previously played, so I impulsively registered for that BIG 82$.

I totally agree with you : my schedule is scattered at best, but is not one that I am looking to sustain. In all honesty, from here until June 1 when I get to Dawson, I would be content with grinding 40-60h and making 2k. I will spend a lot of the next month in between flights, on the road, catching up with family and friends, so pokerz will consist of randomly opening a few 100z tables whenever I have some spare time. I have cashed out 100% of my roll on 888 (outside of a 300$ pending NBA sports bet), 90% of my roll on Stars (will not be playing MTTs in Canada) and will just be grinding Party (my longest active site), Unibet (going pretty well and even started taking successful shots at 200z) and soon to be Bovada, which has the potential to become the core of my online grind, given the Zone 100z speed games are soft... Since I plan on playing 80% live in the future, online will solely consist of 100z (and hopefully more 200z), like you suggested.

Sorry to hear about your 2 months B/E run bad Pronto Do you feel it is purely variance, or is the disintegrating state of the game taking its toll? (also kinda of dead season right now for the online pokerz...). Don't you get fed up with Phnom Penh? I spent about 3 X 1 month stints over there, but would end up degening up and getting bummed out with the place (was still drinking at that time...). And what sites do you play on?

I hear you about this run bad : I ended up 50k in the second half of 2015, only to make peanuts in 2016 Anyhow man, thx for the ITT I have been using this blog somewhat selfishly (given that it lacks in sheer poker volume), while still trying to entertain you folks with some digressive/creative writing -200$ in 3h (made 300$ in 1h, thought about calling it a day, but felt it was too short of a session )


Run good all

All Hell Breaking loose





Game 6 of Raptors-Pacers wasn't set to be a blowout win for the former team, nor were they even favored according to Vegas odds (+1), but losing by 18 was simply a bitch slap And one that I did not take lightly, as I felt this sensation of tilt slowly digging itself within me, eating me up like a mere carcass, before spitting out the bones and the half digested matter So of course, tilted like I was, I thought it was a great idea to pop open a few 100z tables and battle away on the virtual felt




My AK < KQ AIPF was a clear indication of things to come, and a blow that I did not take lightly, especially considering that villain, a hyper-aggro fish (53/37/18), has felted me more than once with his eternal sun run over the past year... So I thought it would be a good idea to 5bet shove 66 50bbs deep (not terrible, but still optimistic) and abide by other high variance routes





-700$ in 2h.

My laptop has been crashing on a regular basis (4 times today), so if it continues to do so (I am trying to fix the issue), I will be forced to take the next 2 weeks off from poker before purchasing a new laptop on Canadian soil... So might be away from this thread for the near future... To be continued...

Run good all

Same same, but different

Is this what running good feels like? Didn't have my computer inadvertently crashing on me... Lost my connection only a handful of times... Had my 95-98% equity hands hold up... Outside in Da nang, there was no nuclear outbreak, no revolution, no civil war, no zombie apocalypse, NOTHING that interrupted my session : +1000$ in 5h








Movie of the Day

I am always intrigued by Jim Jarmusch's movies, especially when he breaks down all the characteristics that makes a specific genre, exposes them in broad daylight only to redefine them. And such is the case in Dead Man where the hero, a New York accountant curiously named William Blake (after the poet), sets out on his anti-western journey, meets a native-American named Nobody, educated up in Europe - go figure - who guides him into the spirit world.





Of course, to make matters even stranger, not only does our urban settler become a sharpshooter overnight, but all this story unfolds with the psychedelic guitar distorsions of Neil Young in the background, as the music score is exhaustively composed of his electric rifts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsUx...A&spfreload=10

Run good all

Changes

It is intriguing that I do so well in online games where you cannot use a hud, like previously on 888 where PT4 did not work on the tables, yet still imported the HHs. It was a small obstacle - if any -, as I would subsequently review my sessions and opponents' patterns. On Unibet, huds simply don't work. Nor can you label or take notes on villains within the software. So note taking is relegated to the good ole note pad, a la live poker. Something I have a good amount of history with and excel at. Observing. And note taking. Old school yo And a style that favors playing in a vacuum and exploitatively. +500$ in 3h



We are moving tomorrow, so am leaving behind these little working headquarters that grew on me :





Movie of the Day


You ever had a dream where the sole purpose was to beat a certain overwhelming challenge... And what if the task was to escape the realms of the dreamworld, to simply wake up to a reality that seems so distant...





Richard Linklater takes us on a quite the existential ride in Waking Life, an animation movie in which the protagonist finds himself trapped in the dream realm and unable to access to the waking world. His only redemption lies in the philosophies of different characters offering on how to transcend the dreamworld. You have a scientist. A biologist. A redneck. An existentialist. All of which introduce new avenues to our hero.





Waking Life is an amazing journey, but not one that should be taken lightly, as it requires lots of concentration

Run good all