Nice change

If you want to make enemies, try to change something -Woodrow Wilson

Well, my good run has lasted far longer than I expected, and in fact it's still going strong! In the last 3 weeks I've suffered only 2 losing sessions for less than $400 summed. For the month I'm averaging a 13.5BB/100 winrate and a lovely $2k over EV. So I really cannot complain at all at the moment, and am enjoying being able to put lots into my savings account for a potential future mortgage.

I realise it's again been a while since I last posted anything, but I have been quite busy of late. Not only does my kungfu continue apace, but I've also started learning parkour or free-running with these guys, and have been doing a little organisation of a stag weekend. That, along with an incredibly entertaining and addictive show known as The Wire have kept me pretty well occupied. And let's not forget the demanding hours that being a professional poker player entails. ;)

Anyway, I was thinking of doing a series of posts under the theme of Becoming/Being a Professional Online Poker Player. I know there are like a million how-to guides out there from really well known players, but as always this is as much for my benefit as anyone else, and hopefully hearing it from someone who wasn't playing from when they were 6 or who went from micro to nosebleed stakes in 2 years might be of use to lots of people. I was planning to break it down into the following categories:

• Understanding the game
• Enjoying the game
• Learning patience
• Being adaptable
• Limiting financial risk

Are there any other categories that would be useful to anyone? Drop me a comment and I can certainly accommodate.

Anyway, hope all is well in life and at the tables, and I sincerely hope that you have a good run of luck too. After all, it makes a helluva nice change.

Swing when you're winning....

What you risk reveals what you value. -Jeanette Winterson

So yesterday was quite an extreme day for me work wise. It started with my rivered full house losing to rivered quads, and proceeded to proffer several coolers, bad beats and I'm sure a few instances of bad play on my part. However, about 2 hours in when I saw I had lost nearly 2k I asked myself: am I in any good games, and am I playing well? I decided that the answer to both was a firm yes, and I continued to play. It turned out to be a good decision:













I managed to hit a few hands against the fish at the bigger tables I was playing on and not only did I erase the 2k debt but managed to make about $800 profit for the day.

I ran well again today, with loads of donks playing terribly against me and me staying lucky enough to not get unlucky when the money went in. In fact, this month I think I'm on a bit of a heater, running at about 12BB on average at my $1/2 and $2/4 games, and life once again seems easy. Of course it won't last, but I like the periods where I can pretend that winning will always be this simple and it won't be long before I'm driving my dream car....

To help my savings along I decided to withdraw some of my hard-earned cash from UB earlier today. After using their payouts software and being told I could not withdraw money because I hadn't made a deposit in the last 6 months, I mailed the support staff with my request. See below for my mail, their response, and my incredulous reply....

Please can you accept this email as a request for another payout of $XXXXX (in the equivalent £ sterling) to my home address via "Cheque by Mail." I tried to make a withdrawal this morning but as usual I was denied being cited 'no deposit'.

As you can see from my account history I have made several withdrawals in the past and once again require to do so. Please initiate the withdrawal immediately.

If you have any queries please contact me.

Regards, Damian

Dear Mr. Kowalski,

Thank you very much for your response.

We will gladly assist you by submitting a manual request for you in the amount of $XXXXX USD. Unfortunately, we are not able to request a different currency as our customers can when they request the payout on the site. <--- what?!? you can't manually do what the software does? ?

If you would prefer to have the funds sent to you in GBP, you can make a deposit to your poker account for as little as $10.00, and once the 48 hour time frame has past since your deposit you can go ahead and request your payout through the site by going to:
Cashier > Payouts > Request payout method > Drop down menu for currencies. <--- and why exactly would I put money into my account when I want to take money out???

If you would prefer to proceed with the manual request for $XXXXX USD please let us know and we will submit that for you.
We apologize for any inconvenience they may have caused. We are looking forward to your response.

Best regards, Diana
Payments Department @ UtlimateBet.com <--- yes, she did in fact mispell 'Ultimate'. Nice one.

Hello Diana.

Are you telling me that you will not provide a certain service to a customer because as customer I can request that same service via the site's software? A yes or no answer will suffice.

If the answer is 'yes', please forward this mail along with my request for the equivalent of $XXXXX in pounds sterling on to your manager while you go and look up the definition of "customer service".

If the answer is 'no', then kindly send me my money as requested. As a long standing customer of UB I do not expect to have to take further action simply to make a withdrawal like I have done countless times in the past. Get this sorted now.

Regards,Damian


I'm glad to say they have since got back to me with an actual helpful reply, but I'm still stunned by the lack of thought and service offered to me from a site I've been using heavily for about 4 years now. Still, at least they offer a good selection of fish.

Selective aggression

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -Albert Einstein

As a professional poker player, you rapidly become acquainted with your individual strengths and weaknesses. Because I have a highly competitive nature, I want to try and win as many pot I enter as possible. Sometimes though I end up trying to win every pot I enter, and the law of averages (not to mention common-sense) dictates that this cannot be.

Trying to 'buy' pots, whether through constantly leading with weak hands or bluffs or by check-raising with semi-bluffs (especially on the turn), is bad for many reasons. Not only will you lose lots of chips on each hand to calling stations and solid regs, for the rest of the session you also lose one of your best weapons: fear. With a correctly balanced strategy of calls bets and raises, your opponents be unable to read the strength of your hand. In keeping with human nature they will be afraid of the unknown. If you are seen to always bet however, they know you cannot always have a hand and so are much more likely to call you down with medium strength hands.

That means that while you are in hyper-aggressive mode, you will only be able to win a big pot by showing down the best hand, and never by getting your opponent to fold. Strikes me as similar to trying to eat a steak with a knife but no fork. Bluffing and semi-bluffing are tools that I regularly use, and though I probably succeed about as often as I fail for a net profit of zero, I firmly believe that I get paid off a lot more with my good hands because I employ both quite often.

So, as all good players know you need to pick your spots to be aggressive as a simple blanket approach is decisively destructive to your game. A variety of factors must be in effect for an aggressive play to succeed. Calling a big 3bet with 22 preflop against someone who has 300BBs is a terrible idea if they will check call every street without the nuts. Representing a straight on a 346 7 board after you 4-bet preflop could prove costly. You need to know not only your opponents stack size but also their tendencies both before and after the flop, and what your image is and whether your range in a given hand would connect with the flop.

If you are against a tight player, and there is a scary flop, and there is a reasonable chance you hold a hand that now has them crushed, you can represent it. If you suspect your passive opponent had a draw on both the flop and turn and the river bricked out, you may go ahead and bet with your air if you know they are unlikely to call. If you suspect someone of squeeze 3-betting light, you can call and try and take it away later in the hand if they play straight-forwardly after the flop.

With all of these scenarios though, sometimes you just have to pass - do NOT call every raise or 3bet preflop just to try and outplay your opponent on later streets. Sometimes it's ok to fold a suited connector on the button. Simply dumping 66 to a 3-bettor can be a sensible move. Occasionally folding to a small bet on an XXY flop will save you money in the long run. Good players will notice if you always raise or float on certain board types and exploit you the next time. I know I do. So, be careful and balance your plays and you can deny them that opportunity.

Will leave you with some hands where I used some selective aggression and it paid off nicely - but again I have to stress these are not moves I'd often make....

#1 NLHE $2/4 Deep 5-players
Seat 5 - Villain ($922.50 in chips)
Seat 6 - XXXX ($373.75 in chips)
Seat 1 - Hero ($942 in chips)
Seat 2 - XXXX ($1,285.70 in chips)
Seat 3 - XXXX ($1,260.10 in chips)
Villain - Posts small blind $2
XXXX - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [9c 10c]
Hero - Raises $14 to $14
XXXX - Folds
XXXX - Calls $14
Villain - Raises $54 to $56
XXXX - Folds
Hero - Calls $42
XXXX - Folds
*** FLOP *** [9h 4c 3s]
Villain - Bets $77
Hero - Calls $77

Here I float the rainbow flop with TP and a backdoor flush draw.

*** TURN *** [9h 4c 3s] [Kh]
Villain - Bets $110

On the turn he bet so weakly that I decided to raise, representing a set or turned TPTK because the K is such a good card: it kills QQ-TT, and though he may have had AA or even AK, he has to be scared of my smooth call on the flop followed by a raise when a K falls.

Hero - Raises $240 to $240
Villain - Folds
Hero - returned ($130) : not called

There was also a chance he was squeezing light, and I may in fact have had the best hand.

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero - Does not show
Hero Collects $500.50 from main pot

#2 NLHE $2/4, $1 ante 6 players
Seat 4 - Villain ($801 in chips)
Seat 5 - XXXX ($754 in chips)
Seat 6 - Hero ($1,075.50 in chips)
Seat 1 - XXXX ($729.70 in chips)
Seat 2 – XXXX ($510.20 in chips)
Seat 3 - XXXX ($1,577.30 in chips)
XXXX - Posts small blind $2
Hero - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [9h 9d]
XXXX - Calls $4
XXXX- Folds
XXXX - Folds
Villain - Raises $20 to $20
XXXX - Folds
Hero - Calls $16
XXXX - Calls $16
*** FLOP *** [6s 6c 3h]

Here the villain was 18/11, so very tight basically and deep stacked too. I knew I could take him off all but his strongest hand with an appropriate display of strength on this flop. So I decide to lead into the 2 other players.

Hero - Bets $52
XXXX - Folds
Villain - Raises $156 to $156
Hero - Raises $268 to $320

By firing into 2 players on an XXY flop and then putting in a big 3bet when he raised I told a consistent story of great strength, and he basically has to fold everything except the nuts and maybe AA. Given that I’d been playing well though my image was strong and he may even have laid that down.

Villain - Folds
Hero - returned ($164) : not called

Or he may just have been bluffing with QJs and I had him crushed! :-x

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero - Does not show
Hero Collects $376.50 from main pot

Foreign Opportunity

Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse -Thomas Fuller

WARNING: Non-poker content.

I was training kungfu the other night and my instructor asked the class who would be interested in travelling to Hong Kong in 2010 for the third Wing Chun world conference. Upon learning it would take place in Novermber, my thoughts immediate turned to my girlfriend Faye who has her birthday that month. As my instructor was unable to tell me exactly what dates we'd be away, I decided not to commit as I didn't want to spoil her celebrations. Now, although this seems considerate (or maybe well-trained!), in retrospect I think I had the wrong mindset.

When you are offered an opportunity - such as travelling to a foreign country to pursue a hobby or any other kind - your mind should be thinking 'Great that would be a terrific experience how can I make it happen?'. If you find yourself thinking 'Wow that's a long way away and might be expensive and I wonder if anything else might happen then...' then you have a decidedly negative thought process. After all, how many times do you need to be reminded that you only live once? When presented with a choice you should always choose the option that takes you down the road less travelled.

Some people spend their whole lives in one town with the same people doing the same things. Some of them are even happy doing it. For those of us with intellectual, physical and geographical horizons to expand however we should always seek new places, activities, cultures, you name it. I'm nearly 30 years old, but I hope that as a person I'm far from fully developed yet. I want to learn and grow, and aim to keep doing that until I die. To learn and grow however requires new input or being challenged, and that doesn't happen by repeating old experiences. So, after some time to think (not to mention a nice little ramble here) I'm going to commit to the trip to China. And I'm going to take my girlfriend. Sorted.

No Complaints

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of suffering -Helen Keller

I don't know what caused it, but I've been running like a higher form of life these last few weeks. I have been studying again, and although that must be helping I'm sure it doesn't account for an insane 47BB/100 winrate at 2/4 over nearly 4k hands. As you can see from the below graph, my results are quite a way over my allin EV, and you know what? That's variance, the sweet side for a change, and I'll take it gladly.

I still have trouble in some spots, namely my decisions on when to raise with strong draws. I'd appreciate any input on the following hand which I think I played pretty badly....

NLHE $2/4 Deep 3 players
Seat 1 - AggFish ($751.22 in chips) at 34/21
Seat 3 - TAG($562 in chips) at 20/13
Seat 4 - Hero ($828.15 in chips)
TAG- Posts small blind $2
Hero - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Jh 10h]
AggFish - Raises $12 to $12
TAG - Calls $10
Hero - Calls $8 --> decided to call here as JTs is an ideal multiway drawing hand
*** FLOP *** [Qh 4s Kh]
TAG - Checks
Hero - Checks --> hugely great flop for me to cr and hopefully get it in: chk to AggFish but...
AggFish - Checks
*** TURN *** [Qh 4s Kh] [2d]
TAG - Bets $28
Hero - Raises $88 to $88 --> here is where I make my mistake, raising when I have lost half my equity
AggFish - Folds
TAG - Raises $252 to $280 --> TAG puts in big raise (I'm thinking set of 2s or 4s at least)....
Hero - Folds --> ....and I can't call.
TAG - returned ($192) : not called
*** SHOW DOWN ***
TAG - Does not show
TAG Collects $210 from main pot

I really think I should have smooth called the turn and tried to entice AggFish along, but instead I put more money in too late and then got moved off a very strong draw. Thoughts?

Slow Progress

Progress is not created by contented people -Frank Tyger

Well, I think today I made it back into the black for the month, or in other terms, I'm no longer paying for the privilege of turning up to work each day. Had a few good sessions this week, and thankfully few bad beats for the huge pots I've been in, and goodness me I'm grateful.

Have even been playing some low stakes PLO just to stretch my mind a bit, and I was playing pretty well I think. I even folded AAQ5, which surely shows that I'm progressing (doubters: it was utg and rainbow). I even think I've been playing well during my holdem games by making some good folds... but then who can ever tell when you don't get to showdown?

I have just borrowed Dan Harrington's Cash Game books from a friend and plan on powering through them asap, since it's been far too long since I seriously studied recent pro poker strategie for improving my game. I have also been trying to catch up with my reading in several poker forums, as you can of course never read too much, and have also been looking at different poker websites like pokerworld24.org to see if I'm missing out on any key information or deals. This site even caters for various european nationalities, and includes the rules for NLHE (or for the German speakers "Texas Hold em regeln").

In non-poker news, I'm just getting back into kugfu once again after meeting a teacher while exercising at my local park. I went along to a few of his classes and being suitably impressed I am now a member of his organisation and hope to be grading very soon. I'm really enjoying being very active once again, and I'm sure it's helping my game to be in good shape. Am even hoping to start parkour or free-running later this year, but might just find myself pressed for time on that one!

Anyway, hope the tables are treating you well, will leave you with a hand that showed me a new way to play A3o...

NLHE $2/4 Deep, $1 ante
Seat #6 is the dealer
Seat 6 - HERO ($800 in chips)
Seat 1 - XXXX ($397 in chips)
Seat 2 - NittyFish ($959.50 in chips)
Seat 3 - XXXX ($298.37 in chips)
Seat 4 - SPAZFISH ($569.95 in chips)
Seat 5 - XXXX ($162.50 in chips)
XXXX - Posts small blind $2
NittyFish - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Ks Kh]
XXXX - Calls $4
SPAZFISH - Raises $24 to $24
XXXX - Folds
HERO - Raises $88 to $88
XXXX - Folds
NittyFish - Calls $84 <-- cold calls a big 3bet, gotta be set mining here XXXX - Folds
SPAZFISH - Calls $64 <-- snap overcalls, no idea what he has doubt he has a big hand
*** FLOP *** [5s Js 4d]
NittyFish - Checks
SPAZFISH - Bets $276 <-- bets pot multiway, know I'm good against 1 opponent.... HERO - Raises $552 to $552
NittyFish - Folds <-- ...and now I know I'm not facing a set SPAZFISH - All-In $204.95
HERO - returned ($71.05) : not called
*** TURN *** [5s Js 4d] [7s]
*** RIVER *** [5s Js 4d 7s] [Qh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SPAZFISH - Shows [3c As] (ace high) <-- can someone talk me through his thought process? :-o
HERO - Shows [Ks Kh] (One pair, kings)
HERO Collects $1,234.90 from main pot

Anxious Times

Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained -Arthur Roche

Been a long time eh? Don't worry, I'm still here and still playing that cruel game known as poker to keep me living in the manner to which I've become accustomed: specifically few working hours with no commuting but also no pension!

Work has been pretty steady up until a week ago, and I'm doing my best to save for a mortgage. Alas, my first week of this latest month saw me over 5k in the red, and I'm still nowhere close to being in profit for the month.

I can't tell you how tough it is to face the game when you have such a large obstacle to overcome, but luckily for me I've had plenty of practice playing the day after losing several thousand, so I'm back at the tables and slowly making headway.

I did go on a mini heater this morning and scraped back a little, winning what must be the most BBs in a single hand that I've played for a long long while. Nothing fancy here, just got lucky that the third guy in the hand added over 100bb before he dropped out...

Holdem No Limit $2/4 Deep - 6 players
Seat #4 is the dealer
Seat 4 - HERO ($1,212.25 in chips)
Seat 6 - VILLAIN1 ($2,039.70 in chips)
Seat 3 - VILLAIN2 ($941.50 in chips)
XXXX - Posts small blind $2
VILLAIN1 - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [9c 9s]
XXXX - Folds
XXXX - Folds
VILLAIN2 - Raises $14 to $14
HERO - Calls $14
XXXX - Folds
VILLAIN1 - Calls $10
*** FLOP *** [4h 6d 9h]
VILLAIN1 - Checks
VILLAIN2 - Bets $36
HERO - Calls $36
VILLAIN1 - Raises $196 to $196
VILLAIN2 - Raises $475 to $511
HERO - All-In(Raise) $1,162.25 to $1,198.25
VILLAIN1 - Calls $1,002.25
VILLAIN2 - Folds
*** TURN *** [4h 6d 9h] [Ac]
*** RIVER *** [4h 6d 9h Ac] [Kd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
HERO - Shows [9c 9s] (Three of a kind, nines)
VILLAIN1 - Shows [6h 6c] (Three of a kind, sixes)
HERO Collects $2,948 from main pot

Yup, there were 737BB's in that bad boy pot. Why can't I win pots like that every day??? :-/

The Risks Inherent

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down - Ray Bradbury

So this month was going really well, and then all of sudden it wasn't. Sure there were some hands that I could have played a lot better, but I had some pretty damn awful luck. I doubt that I've ever had such a bad hit of variance. But don't just take my word for it, after all my picture is worth a thousand of them....

It should go without saying that I'm not best pleased, but with 2 weeks to go I of course aim to swing things back in my favour. Who knows, I might even re-discover how to dodge 2-outers and flush draws....

Open options

To know what everybody else knows is to know nothing -Remy De Gourmont

A friend of mine has recently been enjoying some impressive successes in large field tournaments. Naturally, I'm jealous. I figure that if he can do so well, I of course can do better. Whether or not this is true is a secondary concern to finding good tournaments for me to get involved in.

Between my current sites Full Tilt and UB, I think the only place to go in terms of tournaments is Full Tilt. There simply aren't enough players on UB in the day for decent tourney action, and seeing as I am currently only a tournament rookie, I would prefer that the tables be filled with fish rather than purely populated by pros. That said however, from all the reading that I've done in other players' blogs I think it might finally be time to join a new site: specifically Titan Poker, with whom I can get a pretty good signup poker bonus.

Bonuses aside, TP hosts a diverse and tempting range of tournaments, catering for the poorer players who prefer satellites or $30 MTTs, to the high rollers who want a shot at winning events like an 250k guaranteed. The full breakdown of their schedule can be seen on TP's poker tournaments page. Personally, I think I'll follow the tried and tested approach of starting small and building up the stakes in keeping with my bankroll.

On the topic of trying new sites, I am tempted to return once more to Mansion Poker. I get a nice rakeback rate of 36% on that site, and the reason I originally left wasn't because of poor software but poor player numbers. Either they have picked up lots of customers recently, or they have always been popular in EU daylight hours. Whatever the reason, the tables have been plentiful and pleasingly populated (I saw a minbet and a min-raise in a 21BB NLHE pot) over the last few weeks, and so I just might fire it up and make a deposit on there again. Providing I can find a nice deposit bonus of course. And who knows, they may even run a few decent tournaments themselves.....

Winning Advice?

A word to the wise ain't necessary, it is the stupid ones that need all the advice -Bill Cosby

Below is some advice which I recently read, and thought it would serve as a good review of some high level NLHE concepts. I find that it is very useful to occasionally take a step back from the fine details of a problem or project and check that the fundamental 'bigger picture' details are in place and working properly. This is especially important when the problem is something of great complexity... or if it's success means the difference between making a salary or not!

Winning Tips for Texas Holdem players

Texas Holdem is a popular casino game. Though simple to learn, it is difficult to master. Here are some winning tips for holdem players.

1. Texas Holdem game is basically a high card game. Whoever holds the two good high cards has the best chance for the best hand or a draw to the best hand after the flop.

2. It is important to play strong hands, as only strong hands are able to withstand a raise(s), from early betting positions.

3. At later positions, it is better to play medium strength hands, especially, if you have a good chance of seeing the flop at a decent price.

4. While it is advisable to play strong hands throughout Texas Holdem, it is also important to play aggressively.

5. Take all the raises you can get, as if you don’t rid yourself of competition, your chances of winning will reduce considerably.

6. Moreover, your aggression before the flop adds significant weight to any strong play you might want to use on the next round, especially if there is a bad flop and you want to attempt a steal.

7. In Texas Holdem always ensure that you are ready to fold your high pair if you get a lot of action with a hostile flop.

There are several points from above that I'd like to expand upon. As always my advice is geared towards 6-max NLHE, but still holds for full ring games.

#2. While this is true in lower limit games where there are only 100bb stacks, this advice needs to be relaxed when the stacks get deeper and the games become more tricky. If you can exploit an opponent by playing a hand like 53s that they would easily go broke against in the right situation, you should play that hand (providing you can do so cheaply).

#3. This should read "play medium strength hands as well as premium strength hands [in later positions]". When the price of playing is mentioned, don't forget to take into account any raises that can come from players still to act behind you. If you are going to be forced to fold if someone raises, and such a raise is more likely than not, it is best to fold now and save yourself the money of call-folding.

#5. This is linked to the previous point advising aggressive play. While I agree that aggression is important, sometimes it is a lot safer and economic to call rather than raise if doing so doesn't cost you any advantage. For example, say you are last to act in a hand with 2 opponents where the board of Ks 9h 4h Ad contains a flush draw and nothing else and you hold top 2 pair with Ac Kc. If player 1 (a tight aggressive opponent) bets out and player 2 (loose passive) calls, and you are sure player 2 has a flush draw and will not fold to a raise, it might be a good idea to simply call in this spot with your 2 pair. While you want player 2 to put as much money in the pot as possible with their flush draw, the fact that player 1 might easily have a set and re-raise allin means you should err on the side of caution here and wait for the river before committing more money to the hand.

#6. This is true, but only if your preflop aggression is occasional. Someone who raises and re-raises every other hand will not be given respect for a strong hand by the other players, and many of them will start to call down your bets on later streets with more marginal hands. So by all means be aggressive, but be aggressive only in specific spots.

Hopefully this advice is helpful, but as with all advice consider it carefully before you use it, and if any of it doesn't work for you then feel free to discard it. All the best.