Update

It's been a while since my last post... The last time i tried to post i wrote a big story and when i submitted it something went wrong and everything i wrote was lost. Since then i stopped posting for a while but i'll will try now to post a couple of posts every week.

A lot has happened since my last post. I'll try to explain in short what happened.

First of all i managed to qualify for the 300k gtd tournament on party which i sometimes try to qualify for. I qualified two times before but in the main tournament i didn't even get close to the money. This time was different. After hours and hours of poker i finally managed to finish in a 15th place out of (i believe) 1179. I won 2300$ with this spot which i cashed out for the most part.

In real life I sometimes play in 10euro rebuy and 50 euro freeze out tournaments which are organised here and in a 1-2 euro game with some poker people i got to know during these tournaments. Normally I dont play 1-2 euro but some of the people who play in the game are not that good. To keep a long story short, after one of the tournaments i started playing in a 1-2 game and after a couple of hours of play i lost 300 euros.

A day later i was following a course in Utrecht and since i heard that they host 2-2 euro games there i went there after i finished my course and checked out the poker there. Quickly i found out that i had to wait a couple of hours for the sng tournaments to end before the 2-2 tables would be opened. Because i didn't want to wait that long i decided to play in the 5-5 game again. I've played this limit in the casino in Amsterdam as well but i dont really think i have an edge here but i gave it another shot anyway. I bought in for 500 and i think i didn't even last 2 orbits. First i walked into a straight while i hit my second pair on the turn. Second someone sucked out on me with a flush. I immediately left the casino, while i didn't play bad i just walked into a big hand and got 1 suckout and with such a limit i dont want to put another 500 on the table.

In another 1-2 session with the people i know from the local poker tournaments i lost again another 400. Basically i lost most of the money i won in the Saturday 300gtd.

Meanwhile the 15up/5 down challenge is going up and down but latelely it is going up. Right now my BR is $784.42 although $100 of that amount is still left from the tournament win. But i also played in some small tournaments like the qualifying tournaments.

To keep working towards a clear goal i will update my targets to be:

Target BR: $1500
Point of failure: $450

I will post stats and graph later.

Good luck on the tables!

Going down!

Yesterday began good. At some point i was 90$ ahead and i stopped for a moment. Later i began playing another session in which at some point i tilted....

I started out with AK wich i limped from an early pos. Button raised and i called, flop didn't bring much and he made a c-bet, turn q we checked, river k. I checked again, he made a 8$ bet and i called, he had KQ.

Then i got a 89s, i flopped a straight on a board with 3 clubs, someone bet, i raised, he reraised, i went allin, he had the nut flush on the flop. Then i tilted and made some dumb moves. I quess i was just too tired when i played that last session. In the end i was left with -20$ for this challenge, from 137$ up to 20 down :(

I guess i learned again... not to play when tired, drunk, in a bad mood etc.

3rd day of the challenge about to start.

Results of the first challenge day

Yesterday was kind of swingy but i still managed to go up 1 buyin. Here's the graph and the sessions i played:












A couple of hands:

$50 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, August 14, 17:32:09 ET 2007
Table Table 130249 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 3: NLFish ( $41.39 USD )
Seat 5: amosimo ( $67.11 USD )
Seat 6: banana_cow ( $49.58 USD )
Seat 2: Rekop1177 ( $54.26 USD )
Seat 4: The_Man__Who ( $50.75 USD )
Seat 1: windem ( $10 USD )
amosimo posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
banana_cow posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
windem posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to NLFish [ Ac Kd ]
windem checks.
Rekop1177 raises [$1 USD]
NLFish raises [$4 USD]
The_Man__Who folds.
amosimo folds.
banana_cow folds.
windem folds.
Rekop1177 raises [$6 USD] <--- Hrmmm
NLFish calls [$3 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, Ks, 5c ]
Rekop1177 bets [$5 USD]
NLFish raises [$15 USD] <--- He can bet whatever he want i've hit tptk, Raise!
Rekop1177 raises [$20 USD] <--- I dont give this much thought and move all-in
NLFish is all-In.
Rekop1177 calls [$9.39 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9d ]
Rekop1177 shows [ Ad, As ]a pair of Aces.
NLFish doesn't show [ Ac, Kd ]a pair of Kings.
Rekop1177 wins $81.03 USD from the main pot with a pair of Aces.

The preflop minraise and min reraise was suspicious. But even if i would have called the flop i would have trouble laying my hand away on subsequent bets. Should i call and payoff small bets and fold bigger bets on the turn and river? Should i raise and fold to a reraise? i guess i could have minraised and fold to a reraise on the flop.

second hand:

$50 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, August 14, 19:21:57 ET 2007
Table Table 130249 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 3: NLFish ( $90.09 USD )
Seat 6: banana_cow ( $45.17 USD )
Seat 4: Samwisepoker ( $73.36 USD )
Seat 1: DickyWicked ( $66.68 USD )
Seat 5: foggy55 ( $63.33 USD )
Seat 2: pjferr ( $50 USD )
Samwisepoker posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
foggy55 posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
pjferr is sitting out
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to NLFish [ Kh Qh ]
banana_cow folds.
DickyWicked folds.
NLFish raises [$2 USD]
Samwisepoker raises [$4.25 USD] <--- Ok ... im in pos. let's see the flop
foggy55 folds.
NLFish calls [$2.50 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, Ah, 9s ]
Samwisepoker checks.
NLFish bets [$3 USD] <--- c-bet
Samwisepoker calls [$3 USD] <--- since he reraised from the SB i put him on
a big PP which he wont just let go
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4c ]
Samwisepoker checks.
DickyWicked: i want $4580.54...
NLFish bets [$4 USD] <--- i'll just fire again
Samwisepoker calls [$4 USD] <--- at this point i convince myself he just can't
let go of his hand.
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
Samwisepoker bets [$10 USD]
NLFish raises [$25 USD] <---- what was i thinking??
Samwisepoker is all-In.
NLFish folds.
Samwisepoker shows [ Ad, Ac ]three of a kind, Aces.
Samwisepoker wins $108.36 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Aces.

Another stupid hand:

$50 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, August 14, 14:59:59 ET 2007
Table Table 126400 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: car_cc ( $9.28 USD )
Seat 4: JNandez87 ( $99.71 USD )
Seat 5: biomeggi ( $55.89 USD )
Seat 6: PokerDman ( $51.61 USD )
Seat 1: NLFish ( $62.16 USD )
Seat 3: Indy75 ( $31.66 USD )
JNandez87 posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
biomeggi posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to NLFish [ Ah 6s ]
PokerDman folds.
NLFish raises [$2 USD]
car_cc folds.
Indy75 folds.
JNandez87 folds.
biomeggi raises [$6.50 USD]
NLFish calls [$5 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8s, Kd, 2d ]
biomeggi bets [$7 USD]
NLFish raises [$18 USD]
biomeggi raises [$28 USD]
NLFish folds.
biomeggi shows [ Ks, Kh ]three of a kind, Kings.
biomeggi wins $64.74 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Kings.

Sometimes i reraise these flops with air to pretend i have top pair and hope my opponent has QQ, or JJ, AQ or something and folds. Something i should try to let go and even if i want to play a bit tricky it might be better to just call and see how he plays the turn...

There were also alot of positive hands too ofcourse but i have the feeling i could have won a lot more yesterday. and 50$ for 1000+ hands is not very good.

Let's see if i can prevent some of those mistakes today.

About me + Start of the challenge

First a little about my poker history. I've been playing poker for about one and a half year now. I've started out on tournaments, sng's and low limit nl holdem and i've wasted lots of money. Mostly in tournaments with way too high buyins for a player just starting out. In that period i also played limit tournaments in the holland casino with a 60 buyin and optional addon. I never won a thing except for the occasional money finish in an online tournament.

Later on i also started playing the NL Holland casino tournaments in amsterdam and after a couple of tries i managed to win 3200 euros by splitting the first and second prize with some other guy. I think that basically made up for all the losses i made up till then.

I can say that i´ve paid a prize to learn the game but now i´m beginning to think i can beat the 50 NL game ( and hopefully the 100 NL game ). Since a couple of months i'm using pokertracker and am actively tracking my game. Right now i play low limit cash games and an occasional tournament.

In a moment i will start the 15 up / 5 down challenge.

Current BR: 577.25
Target BR: 1327.26
Point of failure: 327.25

I'll try to post some key hands after each day. I'm not that great of a player yet so this will really be a challenge for me. Feedback on any hands i post will be appreciated.

The game is No limit Texas Holdem 50 NL, the cadillac of poker... 2 tables.... here we go!

First Post!

I've finally decided to go ahead and actually make a blog after having walked around with this idea for a couple of months. Im not really sure what things i will write here but i'll start out with poker mostly.

After reading a post on geronimo's blog about a poker challenge i've decided i would join him starting from level 3 ( 50 NL ).

The challenge is to play poker at a certain level until 15 buyins are won. After that we move up a level. When 5 buyins are lost we need to move down a level.

Basically this game can go on endlessly until the high stakes are reached but i'll see how far i will go. Tonight i'll start the challenge and i'll post the updates to this blog.