Around 12 days I got my macbook air even though I didn't complete my challenge. I was quite fed up with poker for a bit and wanted to take some time off from the game and actually enjoy my break a bit. So its been travelling all over the far east these last couple of days. Am in Singapore for the next couple of days after which I will be getting back to the work routine once again. I guess I will get back into a poker routine beginning march. I apologize for just dropping out like that it was a very last minute plan and am really glad I took it.

Best of luck at the tables.

Couldnt play too much today. Short session where I had one sort of interesting hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2089303

Pre flop: I purposely limped here with the intention of re-raising . The person to my left had been very active and is an agressive opponent. His raise was weaker than usual so I made my standard 4.5x re-raise oop.

Flop: This is a good flop for me but one which I get check raised a lot on by this player. So i opted to go for the check call and then make a move on the turn. When he checks flop I put him on some small pair type hand.

Turn: I check again with the intention of check calling given my initial read I didn't see any value in raising as I wanted one more bet.

River: I don't know if I played this river right. The board pairing didn't scare me too much but I didn't think a small pair would call my bet also. He thinks I think he has an A so I decided to check call again to maximize value.

How would you play this hand?

Won: $57.25

Bonus: $5

Need: $2000

Got: $715.16

i played a lot better today. Yesterday it was like I was telling myself not to play and yet I played. I sometimes wonder later what were the factors which tipped me over to play. Straight of the bat I got stacked when my over pair went down to a set, followed by some atrocious plays. It was sickening reviewing my hand histories.

Today was a lot more focused, I played a bit tighter and managed to fight through a bit.

I am wanting to get into a set schedule of when to play everyday for the next 2-3 weeks. This way I should be able to set my body clock. If I miss that window of playing then I wont play during the rest of the day. Lets see how it goes.

Won: $122.68

Bonus: $5

Need: $2000

Got: $652.91

Feeling sick....just dropped $250 odd. Guess all the suckouts were due.

Hope tomorrow will shape up.

Lost: $266.42

Bonus: $10

Need: $2000

Got: $525.23

Today was a pretty good session as well. I played for around 3.5 hours which is the longest I remember playing in a long time. Today I got thinking about the isolation play when I was using it a lot during the session.

Standard is weak player limps in early - mid position. You have a reasonable hand something like connectors, two high cards or even a suited A. You isolate and you usually take the pot down with a c bet.

Now what happens when the entire table starts to react to this constant isolation play. I was wondering today if it is better to adjust by reducing the amount of isolation you do with certain weaker hands or should you keep at it and get involved in larger pots with marginal holdings. Got thinking about this when I started to get played back a lot, i isolate, opponent calls both pf and cbet. I remember taylor talking about this in his latest video and he kept the pressure on his opponent. I guess it comes down to hand reading as well.

So how often do you use the isolation play in your 6 max game?

Suckout #1: If i were in the opponent spot I wouldn't do the weak min raise pf. Also can you get away from the hand once you have called pf if he shoves the flop or turn?

Suckout #2: Nice turn

Standard

Won $146.57 today

Bonus: $10

Need: $2000

Got: $781.65

Well I am officially on holiday and you will be seeing a lot of poker updates coming from me this next 2 weeks. Yup two whole weeks of traveling, fun and poker. Since I am playing on my mac I will not have pokertracker or acehud stats. Have reduced the number of tables I am playing to 4 to crank up the observation that will need to go in without those tools. It is times like these that you realize just how important those two tools are.

Anyways today was fun:

First hand:I have a pretty bad image at the table. Finally get a hand and squeeze pre flop which is standard. The key i feel in this hand was the flop bet which I chose 12-19. It was enough that if I got called I could get it in pretty easily on the turn and at the same time it looks weak so I could portray that I have AK. Well it worked.

Second hand: Here it was all standard till the river where I wanted to represent a missed flush. So the push worked.

i had a couple of other standard hands with me running well. So it was a good session. I won $135.84

Bonus: $5

Need: $2000

Got: $625.08

Sorry about the lack of updates. Grandmother just passed away this last weekend. She was really close to me and everything took a backseat for a while. Its strange how death puts a lot of things in life into perspective again. It is one of those things which just creeps up on you when you least expect it to.

I guess its a part of life and one we have to accept. Will be resuming a regular schedule of posting shortly.

I am back relatively early today 11:30pm, however having slept something like 3 hours last night am not at my sharpest right now. The urge to play is crazy though. It also sucks that I am not updating my blog with poker related stuff as well. After this week passes I am going to make some structured changes in this blog to get it a little more focus. I want to keep it strictly poker based as that is the sort of stuff I like to read as well. Going to do some homework this week and going to get a lot more structure into my writing on this blog.

Apologies for the lack of poker updates.

Its 2am and i am still at the office lol! I thought I would be scot free after today but doesnt work that way I guess. I was really looking forward to playing today as well. Yesterday once I started C betting and following up with 2nd barrels a lot more things started to click really well. Its small adjustments to your game which can just make a huge difference to the game as a whole. I think you really need to see yourself playing from another persons perspective to give you some real advice on what you are doing right and wrong with your game. That makes all the difference.

Its like blind spots which you can't really see and need someone to point them out to you. If you keep on carrying out without any sense of direction as to where your blind spots are you are most likely in for trouble.

Today wasn't the best of days. It could have been a lot better if I hadn't lost a big 200bb pot.

Here the villain is 33/3/1

Pre flop: standard raise

Flop: Looks great and even after the raise I was pretty confident about my hand. Given he called from the small blind his range in my perspective was pretty polarized to over pairs to the board and low pp which may have hit a set. I call hoping for a non flush card.

Turn: He more or less puts me all in. I can't fold this spot I feel that only JJ may have me beat and if it is so be it.

River: No pairing for me today

I wasn't too surprised when he should be the str8. I however couldn't make it a large part of his range. Think this is a standard hand.

Other than that nothing much happened. Took the advice INSPIRON gave me yesterday and started jamming flops a lot harder today. Looks like it paid off. Would have been an even better day had the board paired lol. Anyways tomorrow is another day and a win is a win.

Bonus: $5

Need: $2000

Got: $484.24