Hey

Probably this blog will be long, so I'll be writing here in this very first post:

1. About me
2. What you can expect in this blog
3. Goals and Challenges

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===== 1) ABOUT ME =====
===================

Some days passed after my first gigantic post here at 2p2, lot of reading, not much play, but dreaming a lot.

So, yeah, you can call me caquitows (the only one in the world and lifetime nickname)! I'm 29 years old (1986')
You can find me at Pokerstars, Full Tilt and 888. I have some accounts in other poker rooms too with the same screen name, but I just don't play at those anymore.

In my gigantic and earlier post, I said that I was a mediocre player. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I have a little edge. I was a student of Math and Statistics in 2005-2010 but I didn't concluded my studies due to my marketing online career (working on, user behaviour and BI with web analytics). I started playing poker at 2010 with SnG's, after that I started to play cash games. 2013 I was a reg at NL50, NL100 and NL200. By Oct 2014, I played off the BRM and moving up from NL25 to NL1000, turning $200 into almost $8000 in five days and playing only with the mobile app at PS Zoom tables. But I went busto after three days.

I suffered from depression in 2014. I quit my job, my wife and my city (Sao Paulo). I'm better now

Poker for me was entertaining, it was challenging, after 1 year, the game lost the fun for me and turned into a escape from reality. Now, for me, poker it's just a game like any other. But I think that people don't know how to lose in the game and not be pissed. For online, I think that is more serious...

My biggest pot won until now (2014/10/24):

PokerStars - $10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $1,886.39
SB: $1,064.00
BB: $1,000.00
Hero (UTG): $2,181.54
MP: $1,367.31
CO: $2,171.45

SB posts SB $5.00, BB posts BB $10.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $15.00) Hero has 9 T

Hero raises to $30.00, fold, CO raises to $90.00, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls $60.00

Flop: ($195.00, 2 players) T J 9
Hero checks, CO bets $125.00, Hero raises to $570.00, CO raises to $2,081.45 and is all-in, Hero calls $1,511.45

Turn: ($4,357.90, 2 players) 3

River: ($4,357.90, 2 players) Q



=======================================
===== 2) WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THIS BLOG =====
=======================================

- I'll be playing mainly NLHE cash games, but it doesn't mean that I won't play tournaments, PLO or Razz, for example.
- Focus on the Results and the FUN factor of the game.
- I'll be reviewing the poker room, traffic and general things (poker related, of course).
- I won't answer in which stakes I play, but I'll try to respect a basic Bankroll Management. So figure it out what I'm playing, it's easy.
- MY TIME here is: GMT -3, BRT/BRST (yes, I'm from Brazil!).

=============================
===== 3) GOALS AND CHALLENGES =====
=============================

Starting bankroll at: $100

STEP GOALS:

[] reach more than $100 until Oct, 2nd;
[] Buy Pokertracker 4 until Oct, 2nd with the POKER MONEY

CHALLENGES:

[] 25k hands until Oct, 2nd;

LIFETIME GOAL:

I really want to live playing poker and poker related things. After some time I realized that I'm more like a entrepreneur and sportsman (I used to row 2006 and 2007, won 1 regional championship and 1 club championship) than a push-button worker or whatever...

The results from Friday, Saturday and Sunday (today):
Played at Full Tilt



Friday:

Final Bankroll: $102.74
Hands Played Accumulated: 699

I started playing at Full Tilt now, just because of the recent changes (no more table selection and Players Club). I think we have here one positive side and one negative side. The negative side is that we can't mass-multitable, it doesn't have enough players to do that! But the positive side is that the games are A LOT softer than before (I considered that Full Tilt was more difficult to play than Pokerstars).

I opted to be on the Players Club. We are here to play poker and have a good time

I played a bit of PLO, but sucked on the first hands.

I took some shots at the $1 Jackpot SnG, but just lost unfortunately :/

Saturday:

Final Bankroll: $110.43
Hands Played Accumulated: 907

As Friday, Saturday had like 4k users when I was playing. I started playing 23:13, but for Friday it was 22h. One thing to mention: I'm NOT USING HUD.

Sunday:

Final Bankroll: $143.44
Hands Played Accumulated: 1.701

Standard play, some fancy plays. I'll be rehearsing some video footage of my gameplay to show some fun plays .

I woke up early today, it was 9:00 I think. 15 minutes after, I was playing . I saw that Full Tilt reached 14k users at 12:00, but I think that most of them were tournament players, because I really didn't know where were them.

I played and won a satellite for The Daily Dollar with some FTP's (that I collected long ago) in the afternoon, but FUUU, the tournament just started! I tried to play focused, by I was too tired.

Results from today


Today is holiday. Independence Day!

But it was not like USA, with aliens and stuff... Just kidding

I did 3 sessions today, the first one was almost an hour of playing, but I made some really bad mistakes, but I managed to recover and win some hands.

The reason for the bad plays: I was trying to record and play at the same time. I started to play looser and like a loser . It was just a test to see if I could record the screen and me at the same time without problems. But I'll have to buy another external HD to do this...

The other two mini-sessions I did it was just to kill some time. And for that my friends: THIS IS THE FUN I WAS TALKING ABOUT . It doesn't matter if you win or lose in the game, but rather you like to play the game and feel enjoyed/satisfied with it.

On the first session I started playing at 14:00, Full Tilt had 10k users at that time! I wish I could play in these hours on weekdays . But on the last sessions it was like 8k and 6k users.

As I said in the previous post, the games are softer. But I mean, have a lot of casuals and some people that knows how to play. But hey, I think I have an edge here . It's different from Pokerstars that I feel like I'm being stalked by bots and hardcore grinders wherever I go starting from NL2!

Final Bankroll: $172.07 [72% || $100 is the goal]
Hands Played Accumulated: 2.799 [11% || 25k is the goal]

Lifetime graph:

... and one more thing ...

I'm 4 tabling, with 2 tables of Rush Poker and 2 tables of regular cash games. I set the goal of 25k thinking about to play 1k hands per day, but I think that won't reach it there, just because of time (and that's why I don't often play tournaments)...

edit: I said on another topic that I would work on a program to calculate the FPP's earned by the current system of Pokerstars and the Step System. I failed . Saturday I was cooking beer

I was a little anxious to play poker, maybe the anxiety influenced my play. I did some terrible calls knowing I was beat. I managed to recover and stay positive, but I saw that I wasn't playing my best, so I stopped.

I was thinking in going up a level when hit $250, so it will be more space for bluffs.

Yesterday the traffic was like 5,5 to 6,6k users at 19:30 yesterday. I tried to start another session at 23h00, but it had only 2 users at the NL5 table!
And I didn't wanna play NL2 or higher stakes... so I went to bed.

After the failed video test, I'm going to make a simple video of me playing The Deal. It will certainly occur this Friday, so the day after we'll have a video in my Youtube channel! It would be cool if I hit the royal flush!

Final Bankroll: $182.10 [82% || $100 is the goal]
Hands Played Accumulated: 3.278 [13% || 25k is the goal]

Yesterday results:


Heh, yesterday was good and bad . Good because I could play 1k hands without seeing over time and bad because the result in the end was not so great. I was playing great, got some pretty good hands and I could seize the good spots and oportunities. But when the graph starts to fall is when I started to get some really bad beats (flush vs two pair on the turn, we go all in and turns the full house for the villain, for example...). But whatever, poker player's life

If you see, I would have beaten the goal if I had had stopped in the middle of the session, but I wanted to continue playing.

The traffic at Full Tilt varied between 6k to 8k users between 18h30 ~ 21h00 again. Yesterday I sent some e-mails to support asking some things. One of them was about The Deal. I asked about the odds of hitting the hands at the game, and the chances are equal in hitting the normal poker hands, I mean, it's just one deck and the same probabilities to get each poker hand applies. And the other question was about the program rewards, The Players Club and Edge. In short, Players club offers some exclusive tournaments and Edge the cash back (or rakeback if you prefer...).

I changed to Edge now, not because of the rakeback entirely, but I'm not so into tournaments. So, I think Edge is better for me, as with this reward program I can buy Coins and at the same time have rakeback of my cash game plays...

In one of the e-mail I found out a future plan for Full Tilt that it will probably rollout in October. But not big deal.

Final Bankroll: $184.52 [84% || goal: $100]
Hands Played Accumulated: 4.436 [18% || goal: 25k]

Lifetime graph:

Crap, it was a disaster HUE HUE HUE HUE . Yesterday like the day before yesterday was similiar, but now I'm $40 behind!

I played my "average" game, I couldn't seize some good spots and even folded AA preflop because I was thinking about in another hand in another table that was an insta-fold (I didn't have time to press the TIME button, but whatever...)

I encountered may LAG guys playing with some naughty hands (K4s hitting flush on the turn, I had bottom two pair on the flop and called the river bet, played awful this hand) and they seize the opportunity to seize me. When I was writing on my blog yesterday (I just translate it to here), I was reviewing my hands in Poker Tracker for not making future mistakes.

The great of writing and put the session in my blog regularly after the session forced me to review my errors in Poker Tracker and make better studies with my hands. Spots that can be improved and, of course, to not make future mistakes.

After the losses at the cash game (Rush and regular tables), I decided to play the Jackpot SnG. Started at the $1 and I decided if I win, I'd move to the $2.5. I won the $1 that was a $4 prize . Went to the $2.5, and won again! This time was $5. And I thought "Play or don't play the $5 Jackpot?". After 5 minutes I decided to play. "After all, what could happen? Lose what I gained in these Sng?". And voilà $10 cashed! In the end my $1 turned into adding $10.50 into my bankroll (123.53% of ROI HUE HUE HUE ).

Today is Friday! (Any Rebecca Black fans? ) I'll make the first recording of my adventures playing... The Deal. Ok, I know that it's not playing poker AT ALL but, I would like to show something different that people already do out there. Not just for the Deal.

I'll leave the tournaments chart but it's not so fascinating for tournament players. Most of them are freeroll!

I don't think that I played so well, I'll study more about the game!

There was a fun spot that I'd like to share with you bro's:





I tried to play 2 Jackpot's of $1. The first one I tried to make the "grinding up" the Jackpot's like I did the other day. But I failed. The second try too

Full Tilt had like 6k to 7k users . I'll try to play one of the "avatar" tournaments today (I already played! - you can see my results going to my site/blog). I'll be producing the video playing The Deal, hope you like it!


ps. I wrote and translated less for this post, if you want to check out what I wrote more, you can check at my site/blog.
ps2. But I made sure that what I'd like you to know I put here

Posted my first video about poker in my Youtube channel!

It's in [Brazilian] Portuguese, not English this first time. If you wanna see something different, just tell me here, PM me, contact me at my site, which you prefer.

Hello! How was weekend?

I know, I know... today is Tuesday, but I was too tired to write in Sunday and yesterday was holiday in my city.

You can see a little bit more in my blog, not relevant to talk about it here.


And two funny hands

Full Tilt - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: $5.02 (VPIP: 19.23, PFR: 19.23, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)
Hero (BB): $5.63
UTG: $5.77 (VPIP: 60.00, PFR: 30.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
CO: $9.82 (VPIP: 29.74, PFR: 16.04, 3Bet Preflop: 3.16, Hands: 351)
BTN: $6.10 (VPIP: 29.80, PFR: 16.72, 3Bet Preflop: 6.20, Hands: 617)

SB posts SB $0.02, Hero posts BB $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has 9 J

UTG raises to $0.15, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.32, 2 players) 7 2 6
Hero checks, UTG bets $0.15, Hero raises to $0.35, UTG raises to $5.62 and is all-in, Hero calls $5.13 and is all-in

Turn: ($11.28, 2 players) 7

River: ($11.28, 2 players) J



==

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

MP: $4.23 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)
CO: $5.68 (VPIP: 23.66, PFR: 17.20, 3Bet Preflop: 6.90, Hands: 93)
BTN: $8.57 (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 3)
SB: $12.44 (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 19)
Hero (BB): $8.70
UTG: $13.42 (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)

SB posts SB $0.05, Hero posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A Q

fold, MP raises to $0.40, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.30

Flop: ($0.85, 2 players) Q T 8
Hero checks, MP bets $0.85, Hero calls $0.85

Turn: ($2.55, 2 players) 5
Hero checks, MP bets $2.98 and is all-in, Hero calls $2.98

River: ($8.51, 2 players) 2

Hey, after this post I'll be posting a content here before I'm posting in my blog/site. You'll be the first one's to see!


I think that's funny what goes around comes around. With interest.

The FALL and RISE in my chart is against the same opponent (great call station). Check it out what happened:

Full Tilt - NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

UTG: 89 BB
MP: 100 BB
CO: 46.3 BB
BTN: 123.2 BB
Hero (SB): 91.2 BB
BB: 294.8 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q J
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (4 BB, 2 players) 5 T Q
Hero bets 3 BB, BB calls 3 BB

Turn : (10 BB, 2 players) 5
Hero bets 7.7 BB, BB calls 7.7 BB

River : (25.4 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero bets 21.8 BB, BB calls 21.8 BB



Some hands after...

Full Tilt - NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players

BTN: 792.5 BB
Hero (SB): 103.5 BB
BB: 118.7 BB
UTG: 78.8 BB
CO: 109.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T T
fold, fold, BTN raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, BTN calls 7 BB

Flop : (19 BB, 2 players) Q 5 T
Hero bets 14.6 BB, BTN calls 14.6 BB

Turn : (48.2 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero bets 41.4 BB, BTN calls 41.4 BB

River : (131 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero bets 38.5 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 38.5 BB





Yesterday the traffic was normal for Full Tilt, between 4k to 6k between 19h30~20h30

Final Bankroll: $199.29 [99% || goal: $100]
Hands Played Accumulated: 9.440 [37% || goal: 25k]

In my site/blog I briefly talked about ending the session when winning, to try to avoid losses like when it happened in September 10th.

This post is for you that is struggling with volume of hands played, win rates, etc. "Winning statistics" overall.

Before I go into what I really want to say, let's go back of what poker really is.

"Poker actually isn't about winning or losing. Poker is about making the right decision" - that's what Doyle Brunson says in the Poker After Dark intro. And of course, everyone wants to win.

So, in order to win, we have to win .When we should stop, if a "cash game is just one long session that we take some breaks"? When we are winning, obviously!

If we were playing in the real perfect world, we would be break-even ALWAYS. As we not live in a perfect world that's why we have winning players.

If we continue to play, probably we'll lose after "a big win". We have more chances to lose. And if we lose, what happens?
For example, you have a BR of $1000, you are up $250 more playing 10 tables and to reach that $250 you played like 1,000 hands. But you know that this big hit it's because you got some great hands, it wasn't blind steals and re-steals. If you stops playing here, great, you'll have a final BR of $1250! But not, you continue playing, because "you are hot". Imagine that you lose this $250 after 300 hands. You got unlucky with a few hands against terrible players. As I said earlier your $250 was like $0,25/hand and what you lost is about $0,83/hand down in this short period of time. You know that playing your standard and if things go your way, your profit is like $0,05/hand, so you would have to play 5,000 hands to reach that again. It'll take time and effort, two things that if you are not in a good mood and focused the game will crush you.

Of course, I'm getting a statistic that we don't use often in discussions ($/hand), but it's to make easier for you to see the evaluation of when to stop your session.

That's why:
1) we play with a basic bankroll management
2) if you don't want to experience long period of break even results, you should stop your session when you know that you reached your max profit for that moment.

If you want to win, worry about "the green line" (your $$) going up by hands played. The other one's will help you to adjust your play and predict if you are going to win or lose in the long run.

If you are a winning player, go to your poker room and SMASH your opponents.
If you are a losing player, go to your Poker Tracker and see what you are doing wrong or how the opponents are taking advantage of you.

I'll be posting a "part 2" of this, writing about the focus on the game for a winning session.

Hope you like it! Let me know!

Yesterday I made a video (PT-BR again bro's, not EN! ) playing the Jackpot SnG at Full Tilt, if you want to check it out, just go to my blog/site

Reached the goal, but I won't stop playing. Probably we'll have more videos of me playing Jackpot's, SnG's and tournaments.

Final Bankroll: $212.63 [112% || goal: $100]
Hands Played Accumulated: 9.722 [38% || goal: 25k]

Very nice thread :P Subbed

heyeyeyeyeyeyeyeeyeyey

Very happy to know that! Thanks man!

Hey bro's, I discovered that my heart is REALLY WELL! Take a look at the sessions chart! I decided to play completely off my BRM, breaking some rules that I set for myself.

What do you think lost all my progress in just one day, after all that chat in the previous post?

Let's continue about decreasing the volume and increasing our edge...

... What is the good of playing with all the math on your side, if you are not with your head on straight? I mean ... in the sense that you're focused, on what you're doing. This is your greatest advantage over your opponent. Wins who is careful in the action!

Yes, some people have a quick thinking, seeing statistics during the game (famous HUD) and deciding tricky hands in a matter of seconds. But I believe that most of people are much less multitaskers than themselves think they are.

And for most amateurs, they will play in more of auto-pilot when adding more tables to play at the same time. And more on the "standard plays" they play. And that's it. Everything turns into a cake recipe. And the cake wilt and we see that "poker online is rigged", "we only play against bots in this poker room". If you want to WIN at poker you just need one opponent, so, why you don't study him in order to win? (I'll leave you for a deep reflection/thinking time before you proceed...)

And you make your action plan (are you doing this right?) and you got unlucky. I'll tell you one thing: if Mr. Tilt knocked on your door, stop playing and go answer the door.

Mr. Tilt can be a very bad guy, but he represents something else:

i) You are preoccupied with your short term results (your Aces being cracked against 94s)
ii) You are getting to much in 60:40 situations and obviously, losing.
iii) Or even worse: you are getting in 90:10 situations and keep losing again and again

That's why is always good to be playing within your BRM. In my opinion, BRM is the very first thing that you have to set the rules for not losing your mind AND your money. You can, for example:

- Make rules of stop-loss and stop-gain
example: Stop playing after losing X buy-in's in the level you are playing. / Or
Stop playing after winning X of what you think that is good for your session and your playing skills.

- Play with an amout money that you can afford to lose and lose in your action. Playing with at least 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 (or more if you want) times your buy-in at the level. I mean, if you want to play NL10 and wants to follow the rule of "at least 20 times", you have to have a bankroll of $200. For each table you play, ok?

- Stop playing after X minutes of play.

These were just examples. The important thing here is to follow your rules that you set for yourself. Play confortable! After all, you got some money for your pleasure. Poker is a game like any other, so it must be fun, you must enjoy your time playing the game!

"Ah but I get very angry". I'm a CS:GO player too. Played A LOT when I was broke middle of this year. You know what I did? I stayed away from the game and kept watching the pros play.

"But I want to win some money with this!". Other thing that I did it was study the game. Positioning, how to use each weapon, travel time, how to throw nades, tactics, strategies and how to predict enemies moves.

Look at that! Perfect analogy with another game that have nothing to do with poker. And you know that in a period of this blog (September 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th) I studied more than what I used to after the session just to get better. September 17th the results are:

Final Bankroll: $238.51 [138% || goal: $100]
Hands Played Accumulated: 10.232 [40% || challenge: 25k]

Do I need to say something else?

Yesterday I watched 3 episodes of the Pokerstars Shark Cage of the first Season. I really don't remember having so much fun watching people playing poker since High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark. You can search at Youtube

I watch a weekly video of "Piores da Semana" ("Worst plays of the week" in PT-BR) from "TV Poker Pro", a Brazilian channel about poker (at Youtube). It's hilarious!

Is there anything similar in English? Any poker related video that is fun to watch? Let me know!

Hello there!

Just for you to know that I didn't play poker this weekend. My followers at Twitter knew that I was doing. Beer

And today I spent with my family at my uncle's house and in a near beach.

Tomorrow I'll study what happened in my Friday's session, my longest session I've ever played! If you want to know what it happened, just visit my site/blog. I'll be posting only the results here.

Ah... and I posted another video playing the Jackpot SnG (PT-BR again :/ ) with a surprise ending (sucked, but funny )

Final Bankroll: $240.30 [140% || goal: $100]
Hands Played Accumulated: 12.465 [49% || challenge: 25k]

Now I'll be watching more of the Pokerstars SharkCage Episodes

Oh crap... the second session losing

But it's ok. In the first 600 hands I played against some opponents that were playing with hands like J7s, K7s, J5s... But nothing like some notes and coloring them for another session, it'll do the job. Some other hands got lucky on the river, nothing I could do... :/

As you can see in my chart, I've played AGAIN out of the BRM. I think that's a problem with players that played in higher limits. But I think that's ok, I think I have some great results here.

Another thing: I'm playing at Pokerstars now! That's because when I'm playing (like 19h~22h) the traffic in regular and Rush tables gets too low sometimes and the action starts to slow down.

Final Bankroll: $212.63 [112% || goal: $100]
Hands Played Accumulated: 13.929 [55% || challenge: 25k]

A quick session today, recovering yesterday's losses and getting a positive result.

Why the quick session? I don't know why, but today it was really bad to play at Pokerstars. I think that was my connection unfortunately :/ . At Full Tilt things go smooth, and today at Pokerstars, I couldn't play more than 3 tables at the same time! I even dropped out 2 times!

Lost with Aces too:



Uáááááááááááááá…!!! > : (

I know that a good poker player stays calm and go to the next hand... But my connection really pissed me off and I almost tilted.

I'll be watching the Pokerstars Shark Cage episodes until my connection gets better...

Final Bankroll: $247.20 [147% || goal: $100]
Hands Played Accumulated: 14.204 [56% || challenge: 25k]

Nhf, but the last hand is probably the worst played AA I've ever seen. Terrible literally on every street. Squeeze pre and don't go crazy on this board. UTG played bad, as well, though.

Gl otherwise

Hi there

Yup, I fully understand! I should have done that! I lost value pre expecting that the blinds would squeeze. I didn't put the stats, but I was expecting that they would squeeze after 2 callers - my surprise that neither of them did.

Thanks for the reading and feedback!

Last post in this blog

Got busted playing out of the BRM. Things didn't turned out for me, played bad... gosh, I'll have to gather some money to be playing again.