So sweet to get back what I lost yesterday...

I have been unsuscribed to cardrunners for a while, don't ask me why.

I reached my goal for January which was to get to $1500 and move up to NL50.

Today I have played 5 hours and I am stuck 4 buyins.

Ended stuck 5 buyins. I got outdrawn in a lot of spots. I got oversetted and overflushed(?). But, I will not complain about it!
I will continue to play tomorrow and keep at it. The only thing they can lean on is luck, I can luse my skills.

I have played about 2300 hands today and won $45 at NL20.
I was down almost the whole session, but it turned out good. It's very sweet to win even though it felt like I lost all the pots for a while. Once again it's proven that patience and "the long run" is the key to winning poker.

This was the sickest hand today, actually in a tournament:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1953870

I had a tricky spot with QQ on the SB when a LAG raise it up on the CO. I 3bet he 4 bet. I was close to folding but ended up shoving cause I didn't think he would have KK or AA since he was in position and could have just called. I was wrong and he had KK.
In the future I should probably fold those close calls because I can always find better spots to stick it in. They are not att all on the level of thinking as I sometimes think. DAI = Don't assume intelligence, this is a hard part when it comes to hand reading since their range is not logical by any means.

My morning session was kinda breakeven

Here are som of the reasons to the bad result:

Hand 1: Villian was overaggressive so I called flop expecting him to bet on the turn.
Flopping a set of dueces is nice, right?
Hand 2: Same logic as first hand.
I SAID, flopping a set of dueces is nice, RIGHT!?!?

This should mean I won a lot in "Sklansky bucks", hehe.

How do you stay away from tilt?

This is a question every poker player should ask him/her-self since it will save you ALOT of money if you come up with the answer. However it's not a very easy answer to find. First you have to adress what is activating your tilt, then we can change that situation so that is not tilt you feel but something else, like joy. This should be the goal, to make our initial feeling (tilt) into a feeling of joy!

So now when we have our goal to turn tilt into joy we ask ourself: What activates my tilt?

If you do not know this you should start with playing and write down the situations that occurs that makes you feel bad.
I have come up with some of the things that made me go on tilt (or still does).

- You put in your money with the best hand and lose
- You make a mistake
- The client freezes
- You don't pick up a descent hand for x amount of time
- You get frustrated because villian keeps 3betting you or likewise
- Villian shows his big bluff when you made a big fold

So I listed some of the regular tilt-activators, and from here we have to make these joyable situations. (This is where it get's tricky) We do this by changing our thought process in these spots. To accomplish that we have to adress your thoughts and change them. That gives us a new question: What am I thinking in the situations that activates my tilt?

- You put in your money with the best hand and lose
"Oh man! He is so lucky!"
"I can't believe this shit!"
"I always lose"

Now you have to change these thoughts into something positive! Let's try that:

"Oh man! He is so lucky!"
"I can't believe this shit!"
"I always lose"

becomes "I always win when I get money in ahead, the result is irrelevant"

And now we'll change the rest of the tilt-activater-thoughts into some good thoughts:
(Obviously this is just examples, if you have other thoughts, change them!)

- You make a mistake
"I suck!" becomes "I learn from my mistakes, so a mistake makes me a better player."

- The client freezes
"Of course the client freezes when I have flopped the flush" becomes "These things happens for everyone sometimes, it is just EV0 since noone can take advantage of it."

- You don't pick up a descent hand for x amount of time
"How come I never get a hand" becomes "I'll just have to stay patient and I will be greatly awarded for it."

- You get frustrated because villian keeps 3betting you or likewise
"He raising me all the time ffs!!!" becomes "I should tighten up a bit, I will get well paid when I hit good!"

- Villian shows his big bluff when you made a big fold
"Fuck, I knew I should have called!" becomes "Oh well, he played that one good, I'll make a note and adjust."
I guess you guys can come up with even more positive thoughts than I wrote. The important thing is if you remind yourself long enough to keep your thoughts straight you will probably never tilt.

TILT is a bad feeling that make your thoughts bad, don't let that happen!

I put in around 2000 hands last night at NL20. I was stuck $90 at most but eventually came back for a $9 win.

The Pocket Rockets

My AA this session really got some action. Sometimes I played them badly, sometimes good.
Here they are in order for the session:

AA number one

AA numbero dueeece

POCKETACES!!!

OMG! I have Aces!

I am sooo lucky!!

I really would like some comments on thoses aces hands. So if you could be som kind.

NL20
Bankroll start (january): $600
Bankroll: $979
Result: $379

I played a short session and quit early since one of the fishes really tilted me.

First I had AA against his A5 and obviously two fives comes on the flop. 2 hands later I have AT on A73 flop and he has 34, guess turn..
I really hate losing against fish all the time.

I can't concentrate after these thing so I quit. I lost about 2½ buyins today.

My computer is broken, so I haven't been very active in my blog lately.

I am no figuring out what to do when I have no computer for at least one week. (repair) I'm leaning towards buying a new stationary computer since I only have a laptop. It's definatley EV+ to have 2 comps when one is broken, haha.

Well, I have restarted at NL20 in January and so far I am up around $250 in 4,5k hands. I am very happy with that result and I can't wait to move up in stakes. I have been far too long at microstakes now. I can only blame my self for tilting away the last days of december. $650 more is needed before I move up, it'll take a while, but patience is good. I have $280 at stars that I should probably move over to my main bankroll so I can move up faster. NO reason to have a spread bankroll at these stakes, just a waste of time.

My biggest issue at the moment is that I don't play very much. Often after 2 hours of play in one day I lose motivation even if I win! Somehow I have to figure out a way to get disciplined and play more hours/day. It is not okay to just play some now and then, especially not now when I play micro stakes and need to move up soon in order to pay my rent!

And some inspiration citats:

"Practice makes Perfect"

"You get out what you put in"

"Don't do tomorrow what you can do today"

"AA is better than 72o preflop"

A guy named Fimbulwinter at 2p2 once wrote:

"first off you should never view it as a quantum leap kinda thing. just take little shots when you feel comfortable, have the money and are good enough. here's a hand waving yardstick:

try 50NL when:

- you're confident in your preflop game
- you understand position
- you have a good idea of their hand by the river
- you have an ok feel when to continuation bet
- you have 500 or more

100NL when:

- you're confident playing draws
- you can spot good semibluff opportunities
- you can lay down AA/KK unimproved
- you're attacking the blinds in easy steal situations
- you have 1200+

200NL when:

- you're ok betting your stack on a draw
- a PFR from you doesnt always mean AA-JJ and AQs+
- you're starting to play one hand while holding another
- you have more than one mode
- you have 3000 or more

400NL when:

- you can ID profitable preflop steals
- you know how to pick between b3b and c/r
- position factors heavily into your play
- you're good at manipulating pot size
- you have 6000+

1K NL when

- your lines don't define your hand
- you're good at playing and winning lots of small pots
- your oop opponent must hold a strong hand to win a pot from you
- you understand the real math of the game at least at a basal level
- you have 20000+"

I use this as a guide for moving up though I use higher bankroll requirements. That means you should move up when you have these skills only, even though you have the bankroll it doesn't mean you have the skill.

Reads + Focus = Invaluable
Thanks guys for the suggestion that I should play few tables!

Just played a session with 2-3 tables going. I made some serious table selection and targeted the fish.
My main focus was trying to get good reads, which I have been VERY lazy about before.
It took almost 2 hours to finish up 300 hands, but boy, poker is fun when you get into it!

I ran at 36/34 at one table due to a fish behind me, and like 17/15 on the other table because my isolation got no respect so no point of loosing it up really. Raising from late position is gold, aswell as reraising others that are abusing late position

The hands:

My favorite first! He was a huge fish (70/6/1.3) having position on me. I had been minbet river 4 times before this hand and he raised them all up and I folded. So here I did the exact same thing. This is why few tables is better than a lot of tables.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1879768

I called his 4bet with AA figuring he would shove any flop. He did.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1879773

A cooler. 50BB stacks cold calls my AQ with AK, noway to get away...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1879776

Session stats: