It's been a while since my last blog so I have a bunch to write about. For starters I graduated last week with a BA in International Business Management and I'm moving to Sydney, Australia next week to start my masters at Macquarie University.

Pokerwise it's been going pretty well. I'm trying to mix my time between cash games, mtt's and 45-man sng's. I only play on Full Tilt now, I went broke on Titan. I might consider moving part of my roll to Titan though, the players there are so incredibly bad. Which of course begs the question, "Well if they're so bad why did you go broke?". Good question with a simple answer. I only deposited 200 bucks and chose to take a few shots instead of grind the micro stakes, together with some extreme tilt I managed to lose it all.

On Full Tilt I'm experiencing a pretty nice run. In the past few weeks I won a couple 45-man sng's with a 26 dollar buy in, I won two seats to the Sunday Brawl so one entry was put into my account. I actually cashed in the tourney itself too for like 400 bucks, so that was nice.

After those wins I didn't really win anything for a week or so in tournaments/sng's so I played 2 tables of 50nl a couple days ago and ended up 2 buy ins or so. Doesn't seem like much but I was happy with my play and I hadn't played cash in two weeks or so because in my last session I lost a bunch and decided I should watch more videos before returning to cash.

Yesterday I played three $26 45-man sng's and didn't cash in any of them. I also played the 17.5K Guarantee and actually got 2nd place for $4068! It's actually my biggest score ever (my last being $3822 in the 11r on Stars, just before they decided to rig my account ---joke of course, or is it?), it's funny that it didn't excite me as much as I thought it would. When I got to the final table I was 4th or 5th in chips I don't remember but I just wanted to win, didn't care too much about the money. I was really frustrated when I lost HU but I guess I shouldn't complain and be happy with my score. It couldn't have come at a better time though since I'm moving to Australia next week and definitely gonna need the money. I decided to cash 3k and leave 1k to supplement my bankroll (which is 3k as of now).

Hopefully I will have some time to play some of the FTOPS before I leave, cause I'm sure I won't have time the first week I'm in Australia, nor do I really want to. I'm not sure I'm able to though since I have to visit relatives and friends before I leave. I guess we'll see.

--Daalen

So of course I played today, I couldn't restrain myself. Fortunately I wasn't tilting as much anymore and I managed to book a small win of a little over 3 buy ins of 50NL on Titan. You really have to adjust your play there because the level of play is no where near the level on FTP. I have never seen so many fish symbols in my pokertracker database. It was kind of hard at first because you don't really know when you're ahead or not. Well at least when they minraise the river you know they have the nuts, its so crazy. They always slowplay when they have the nuts even when everyone else checks, so that they can say when someone minbets the river HA TRAPPED YA.

I also cashed in the 17.5K guarantee on FTP. I think I played really well. Got unlucky in the end where I shoved TT to a minraise (I had about 14 bbs), the guy called and showed AQo and hit a Q on the river. Nothing I could really do there.

Overall it was a pretty good day, no big scores but at least I can't complain about my play.

-Daalen

So ok for like the millionth time I have gone on complete monkey tilt.

Time to reflect, I won $200 on bodog by betting on football, cashed it to my neteller account and decided to deposit it on Titan poker. I've been running really bad on Full Tilt this past week so I though a change of environment would be refreshing and a good idea. Deposited the money, starting playing 50NL, up 3 buy ins in no time. From there I decided to just take a shot at some games and see where it would take me. Starting playing .5-1NL and after that 1-2NL. It was going really well I was up 500 bucks, a very nice profit for me. Then I stacked off with AJs on J47JX board where the other guy had 44, as played I should have folded the turn because it didn't make sense the way he was betting into me if he would have had a J or an overpair. Lesson learned you would say, but apparently in order to come to my senses I first need to stack off a few more times after that. Lost another buy in with just top pair no kicker vs an overpair, felt like an idiot after that. I really should have quit or moved down limits after the first buy in I lost. I began running outrageous spewy bluffs, one actually worked and I was up again, like 250 bucks. I continued playing very reckless and of course that caught up to me and I lost my last bit of profit on a ridiculous bluff on a AKXXK board where I tried to represent a K by betting the river instead of just giving up with my missed flush draw (10-7, what was I thinking), the guy obviously called with AQ, and I find myself here......kicking myself.

I feel like a complete degenerate. I honestly don't know what to do anymore, I watch cardrunners videos all the time, play well, but there is always that moment where I just lose it. It is always a spot where I KNOW I shouldn't call for +50bbs because I am obviously beat, but I do it anyway. And it all goes downhill from there.

I am gonna try and not play for the rest of the week and get my focus back.

-Daalen

Just need to vent, this is so ridiculous. I grinded my bankroll up to about $1700 and now I have lost 400 of it in less than 2 days! I can't say that I'm playing particularly bad, I have been unlucky in some spots, but I can see clear leaks yet I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I think I'm familiar with the importance of aggression but it seems that I just don't know when to let a hand go. GOD! people have been flopping sets all day on my ass! They minraise me and I still call. I need some serious help.

So I ended up having a terrible session and losing 200 bucks of my bankroll so I'm down to $1500 again. It all started when I registered for a satellite to play the 750K but lost my connection and it took forever to get it back. After that it went all downhill. I registered for another satellite without much success and for some strange reason I then proceeded to play one of those crapshoot satellite's where you only get 100 chips, again without much success. By then I was already insanely tilted and I went on to play cash games. It went well in the beginning but the tilt got to me and I was basically giving my money away by being a total calling station with just top pair. I got really heated when a guy bet into me with 77 vs my AJ on an A52 rainbow board only to river a 7 and go to valuetown on my ass.

Later on I got into an argument with a guy who lauged at one of my plays. Granted the play was pretty horrible but my intention was to float in position only I didn't see how short my opponent was (different guy though) . So I challenged the guy who lauged at me to play me HU but he declined. We continued to rip on each other and I got him pretty heated because he shoved on a 387 rainbow board with 89 for 25bbs and I held QQ so that was gg him.

So life hasn't been that easy lately, my sister is still in the hospital and we buried our grandfather. During the past few weeks I also had to hand in my thesis, which I did, but it totally sucks. Seriously like the worst paper I have ever written. I combined my thesis with an internship so I wrote the paper for them as well as for school. They were cool about it and very understanding of the difficulty of the topic and my personal situation. Hopefully my school will feel the same way, but I doubt it.

Ever since I've handed in my thesis I have been playing poker full time again. I grinded my bankroll up from $1250 to $1700 playing 50NL on Full Tilt so I'm pretty happy with my transition to cash games. I still feel like I pay to many people off with just top pair when I know I'm beat but I can see my post flop play progressing. PokerTracker has been a great help for me in indentifying my leaks and spewy plays. I already used it when I played tournaments and sng's but it didn't do to much for me then.

My goal for the next few months is to grind my bankroll up to about $2500 and move up limits to 100NL, I'm pretty sure it can be done.

Alright, I'll start this blog by writing a short introduction about myself (even though I'm confident nobody will be interested to read this). My name is Berend van Daalen, 23, from Amsterdam the Netherlands and I have been playing poker for about a year and a half. My first interest went out to playing MTTs on Pokerstars because of the huge prizepools but a few months ago I moved my bankroll (was about $600 at the time) to Full Tilt, where I now play pretty much exclusively. Of course being a tourney donkey at the time I didn't even think about signing up for rakeback and I still kick myself daily because of it. As of right now I still play tournaments but I want to start playing cash games because I think it's a more consistent way to make money and won't take you up to 8 hours just to make a buck or two. This is also the obvious reason why I signed up for Cardrunners. Currently my bankroll is at $1250 and I intend to use this blog for updates on my development as a NLHE cash game player.

-Daalen