My poker/life blog

Eli's in the house!

2010-02-12T14:04:00.002+08:00

Finally picked up Eli couple of nights ago. It's hot here but I think he likes it better than being too cold. Weird. I can't stand the heat nowadays. On his first full day here yesterday, we had roti canai for breakfast, bah kut teh for lunch and we had a nice seafood dinner last night with a bunch of my high school friends at a seaside restaurant.

I'm finally done with rush poker for now. HEM came up with a HUD for rush and I think it's gonna ruin the game. I liked it because bad regs can't play that well without reads and now they're gonna have HUD for rush it's gonna kill it a little. I only managed to clear $200 out of the $500 bonus that was offered to me. Still not too bad, 5ptbb plus $200 bucks and I'm done with ftp once again.

Chinese new year is only days away. Can't wait. Can't wait til Shin and Joe get here too. Only 2 more weeks!

Rush poker, and I got visitors!!!

2010-02-05T22:52:00.003+08:00

FTP decided to give me a $500 bonus to try out rush. Turned out it was a good move on their part. I just put some money there and started playing some rush. So far I kinda like it. It's the only way you can sit down and get 800 hands an hour right off the bat. No need to put yourself on wait list, look for juicy tables, wait for big blind etc. The only thing is I need to earn 10k ftp points before the 10th for the $500. Doesn't look like it's gonna happen. But I'll get at least part of it so it's all good.

Time goes by quick. Can't believe I'll have to go pick up Eli next Wednesday. And two weeks after that we'll go pick up Joe and Shin. The last trip I took with you guys were 4th of July 07 Myrtle Beach. Now the next trip I'll take with you guys will be to a nice island with lots of great beaches. Keep this theme going I'll probably meet you guys in the Bahamas next year.

All hell breaks loose

2010-01-28T22:21:00.012+08:00

Well, seems like I haven't updated this blog in over 2 months. This is a much needed update in case if anyone still cares.

If you haven't heard, read these 2 threads on 2p2 and stox. You probably won't be able to watch the stox thread since it's in the private section but it's similar to the 2p2 thread.
http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29205
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/101/coaching-advice/where-did-jason-ho-thread-get-moved-695466/
The main character of this story is the guy I've been working with in the last 3 months. He had a whole 'crew' of players under him and I'm the luckiest of them all because I'm broke and have no money to be taken for. I paid the guy total of 600 bucks for coaching and that's it. Well, 3 months of not progressing hurts too, but not as bad as these guys. Well, it sucks to be naive and stupid. I fell for the dream and it hurt me. Nowhere near unrecoverable tho so it's all good. I actually learn some basic stuff and some not so good stuff and as a result, I'm a little lost with my game. I'll be fine after a little bit of tweaking. No big deal.
One good thing tho, I got a lot of good friends out of this and these are pretty cool guys. Some are good nl200 grinders so I should be able to learn a few things from them. We will move on from this bad experience and become better player and more importantly, better person because of this.

King of gambling!!

2009-11-12T11:56:00.003+08:00

lol Joe Cada actually made it to the newspaper here in Malaysia. He's described as king of gambling. Not much is mentioned about the game of poker. It just come across as he won something, like a lotto or something.

That's the problem. Poker is skill based obviously but nobody knows that around here. That's why i hate it when the uncles and aunties ask me what I do now.

Weird dude

2009-11-08T19:02:00.003+08:00

Villain in this case is a 7/5 nit. He tanked and tanked and tanked until the last possible second and called with 66. Weird. Few hands later he opened utg with Q5o or something like that. Wtf?

PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

UTG ($32.10)
UTG+1 ($60.60)
MP1 ($29.50)
MP2 ($50)
CO ($78.35)
Hero (Button) ($50)
SB ($9.50)
BB ($47.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ad, As
1 fold, UTG+1 bets $1.50, MP1 calls $1.50, 1 fold, CO calls $1.50, Hero raises to $8, 2 folds, UTG+1 raises to $18.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $50 (All-In), UTG+1 calls $31.50

Flop: ($103.75) Qs, 5h, 3h (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($103.75) 8c (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($103.75) Qh (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $103.75 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had Ad, As (two pair, Aces and Queens).
UTG+1 had 6h, 6s (two pair, Queens and sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $100.75

Golf

2009-11-08T18:52:00.003+08:00

Today makes the 3rd week in a row that I play some golf on the weekend. There's a little 9 holes course near my house and I finally found someone who's willing to play golf in a 30'c weather. The only thing different today was I actually walked the 9 holes. Yeah, I walked. By 4th hole I started to regret that I haven't drafted a will and at one point I was actually dizzy and felt like I was about to pass out.

Don't even ask me what my score was. It wasn't pretty. Whatever I can do on a driving range all disappear when I'm on a course.

As far as poker is concerned, fuck poker, fuck weekend games, fuck the fish, nits and regs. Fuck them all. I fucking hate poker.

That's it.

A little update

2009-11-05T15:03:00.005+08:00

It's been awhile since I last updated my blog. Not that many of you cares but I'm gonna go back to updating it a little more often.

October wasn't that nice. It was frustrating. Of course it's much better than September but I feel like I should have done better. I'm going thru some growing pain by trying a few different things while I'm working with my new coach. I'm confident this will help in the long run so I'm not worried too much about my result at the moment.

Life has been fine so far. I know some of you care about that. Still single but with this new commitment to more volume and extra time I have to spend on this game, it's gonna be real hard for me to know new girls. Not that I"m that awesome of a guy to begin with, so this will probably not gonna end well for me. I've been thinking about getting my own place, a one bedroom or a studio type place. With the new baby coming in my family it's probably a good idea to move away for now to make sure there's not much distraction for me in the next few months. We'll see.

I don't know if I'll have time to go back to what I used to do. With the daily report and funny hands etc. Hopefully I can do it, I know Tim really wants to read all that shit. Got some new pics too. I'll post them later.

That's it for now.

September 09

2009-10-08T00:07:00.003+08:00

September was a bad month for me. Up until a few days ago I was in a 100k hands break even stretch. That's the longest I've been in. I was in plenty of 50k BE stretch but this is my 1st 100k. I guess technically it wasn't a losing month for me but it doesn't matter much. Thank god for the September special bonus.

By the way, Eli has gone nuts. Check out this link:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/prop-20k-31-days-100nl-602186/
Good luck dude. Looks like you'll get some action.

Sept update

2009-09-21T02:22:00.003+08:00

This could be my first losing month ever. It's been about 45k hands so far and I'm still down about 2 bi. Hopefully things will turn around.

However I am working on something that could be big for me potentially. I'm working with a new coach now and all I have to do for now is to put in the hands and make sure I can follow his coaching. If I can impress him for the next couple of months then we'll continue the arrangement further. Wish me luck.

Poker is fun

2009-09-03T01:40:00.002+08:00

This is the last 14k hands. Fucking get hit with a 10bi downswing right off the bat in Sept. fml.

August 09

2009-08-31T19:19:00.003+08:00

Ok, I'm giving up on August. It was a fine start but I kinda faded at the end. I now have 'afraid to get out-played syndrome' and I make too many bad calls. I need to just watch a couple of videos and go back to the basics. I play too many small hands for big pots and worst of all, I play being out of position too often. I kinda got away from the basics and I need to stop thinking these regulars are exploiting me. I still need to make money from fish mostly.

As for the goals I set for August I failed spectacularly in every single one of them except the winrate, which is not much better than the 3BB I set. I was hovering at 5BB or so the whole month until the last 15k hands or so. Blah, I'm so disappointed right now at myself and my results I just don't feel like I'm worthy of any kind of improvement. Why the fuck am I so fucking lazy????

I'm still at 86k+ vpp this year so far. Not even supernova yet lol. If I can somehow get to 200k vpp I'll get 6k in bonus alone. That means I need 114k vpp and at 0.2vpp/hand, I need to play 570k hands before the year is over. That's almost 150k a month. Ok, I'm not gonna make it. Nevermind that.

A little update.

2009-08-24T15:35:00.002+08:00

Looks like I'll be way off on my goals for this month. I'm only at around 33k hands so far with about a week left. I'll be gone for the last couple of days of the month to a beach too. So it looks like I have to get in those 12k hands days a few days in a row. I got a better chance winning the lottery than doing that.

I'm at over 5BB for my winrate tho. 33k hands, huge fucking sample I know.

And my holdem manager just broke down and I haven't done a backup in like 10 days.

Epic fail

2009-08-11T23:43:00.003+08:00

I think I'm gonna miss my goal this month again, even though it's only 1/3 into the month. I planned on taking 1, maybe 2 days off during weekdays and grind all weekends. I totally failed the first weekend. After grinding for a few days I decided to take Friday off and play all weekend. Well, not counting the time I spent sleeping at home, I think I spent total of 3 hours at home all weekend.

But I'm running hot, so what the fuck do I care?

The changes I made to my game

2009-08-02T22:12:00.008+08:00

First of all, the stuff I'm gonna say could all be a fluke. Maybe I was just running really good for about a 50k hands stretch so all these may not mean anything. But I feel like these changes I made are good for my game. They don't all just happen overnight. It's just stuff that I've been learning but somehow never really got them integrated to my game for whatever reason. I'll post the stats and graphs from my last 60k hands (hands played in July) and the hands I played in April. There's some significant differences in a lot of areas.

First of all, my stats:
1. Last 60k hands:
2. April:
First of all I'm playing looser now. I went from a 12/10 to a 16/13. I think one main reason I'm able to do that is because I play less tables now. I'm able to pay attention to more hands while before that I missed a lot of isolation chances and obvious spots where I can just raise and cbet and take down the pot against the right opponents. I play 14-16 tables on stars now. And everyday I spend 1 or 2 hours playing just 6 tables on ftp. I really try not to miss any spots. It's like my daily lab time for me to do experiments. I see things that could work and I just do it. If I think this guy can't take heat I'll 3 barrel him. I'll 3bet. I'll 4bet bluff. I'll resteal. I'll check raise turn with draws. I'll bluff shove river. I'll try everything. All that experiments give me an idea how often those plays work even though it's only small sample. How many times you cbet the flop with 89o in position on a 662 board and get raised by the bb and just give up? If the guy's fold to 3bet is 50 or lower, fuck him, I'm 3betting. They don't work all the time but what the fuck, gotta try it to see if it works right?

My 3bet is a lot higher. I'm just picking my spots better I think. There's a bunch of regulars at Stars that just don't fold to 3bet much even when they're stealing. I don't 3bet those guys light from the blinds much although more if I'm in position. I pick those guys who steals a lot and fold to 3bet 65% or more. I also 3bet more in position now. My fold to 3bet is a higher which is understandable. I'm stealing more so I need to fold more hands from steal position. No point playing a bloated pot with bad holdings. I call sometimes with marginal cards but it's with a plan to take it away post flop against the right opponents.

I cbet more now. It's just overall profitable cbetting the right flops against most players. I'm in position most of the time and it's just hard to play against aggression and against someone who has initiative in the hand. My fold to cbet is lower now. I float more and try different things more often lately.

My steal % went up nicely. I steal with any 2 sometimes on the right tables. Some of these guys just give up too easily. Fold to steal in both sb and bb went down. Against people who steal a lot I call with some hands that I used to just give up on and try to play poker post flop. W$WSF is higher as well. I'm sure that's the result of me not giving up as much nowadays.

The result of all these changes? A little higher winrate. Could have been a lot higher if not for those 2 shitty days.

The graphs next.
1. July:
2. April:
The redline is a little bit more in control unlike before. God I hate the last 10k of July every time I look at that graph.

However, even with all the changes my winrate is still not much higher than the one I had in April. I was playing 24 tables and making more money hourly with that style than the one I have now. Do I think the newer style is better for my long term growth as a poker player? Definitely. Do I need to get too excited about the differences in my game? Definitely not. I opened up my game quite a bit but it also means that I'll run into marginal situations a bit more compared to before. How I handle those situations is gonna be the most critical part of my game from now on. I won't say if the changes are good or not, even though deep down inside I'd say they are good, until at least couple of months from now. Who knows, it's a game of ever changing strategies. Can't always stay at one place and never move forward. We'll see and wish me luck.

Golf related

2009-08-02T22:08:00.001+08:00

I finally played some golf last week. Went out to this 9 hole course near my house in Permas last Friday I think. Didn't realize how cheap that place is. 18 holes with a trolley is only 38rm. That's like 10 bucks usd. With a golf cart it's 58rm ($16usd). I played only 9 holes by myself and managed to shoot 58 lol. Everything was so rusty so that's kinda what I expected before the round anyway. It's not the best course in the world but for that price I'm not complaining.

1st post in a long freaking time

2009-08-02T21:48:00.007+08:00

Sorry I haven't been updating this blog lately. There's nothing interesting happened lately and it seems boring to post just poker stuff. Although it can't be more boring than posting nothing at all.

July was great until the last few days. I don't think I've ever ran that bad in a 5k hands stretch. I made some changes to my game and at least in a short period of time I'm see some different result. My redline is a little under control now. I'm looser and not giving up as much as before. I'll make a post later about the differences in my game in terms of stats.

As you can see I'm way behind in all in EV this month. That happened almost all at the end of the month when I was on a 12 buy in down swing. My red line is no longer spiraling downward like before. I can still work on it at different areas. Especially 3bet pots. I don't think I'm near good enough to play efficiently in 3bet pots yet.

August goal:
1. Need about 110k hands to finally reach Supernova. I'm not sure if I'll make it but I'll play at least 100k hands this month.
2. Winrate of 3BB or more. My winrate was 5.6BB last month and it went down to 3.6BB in one day. And the subsequent few k hands after that didn't help much either. I don't think 3BB is that tough for me anymore so I'm hoping for 100k hands at 3BB. That's 3k in profit or more if I manage to get to Supernova. I'll have enough vpp to get the $800 instant bonus too if I hit it. August could potentially be a good month for me.
3. Watch one video a day! Omg that's like the hardest goal for me to do. I'm way behind on current videos and I need to re watch some of the old ones since I think I 'get' what they say so much more now. I also get 2 weeks free on Card Runners this month so I just downloaded a bunch of full ring videos and I'll concentrate on those for the next 2 weeks.
4. Spend at least 3 nights a week on Stox forum posting hands. I'm starting to have PM contacts with some of those guys out there and I'm learning a lot through posting and actually thinking about hands.

Wish me luck.

Wish everyday is like this....

2009-07-08T23:24:00.002+08:00

Tioman trip

2009-07-08T18:52:00.009+08:00

I went to this beautiful little island called Tioman Island last week with Chili and Anna. It was the most relaxing trip I've taken since I came back to Malaysia. Lots of good food and cheap alcohol. It's really cheap too. The whole thing costs about $120usd/person for 3 nights 2 days. Shiiiit, I can lose that much in a few minutes.

Here are some pics:
Me and Chili. Don't let the size fool you. She has a voice that can be heard in miles. And she's spicier than her name indicates. (Ok, I don't really know what that means)

This is Anna, the other cute girl I was with the whole trip.

Breath taking view.

The snorkeling trip was awesome. Lots of fish and the coral was beautiful.

Outdoor bar with a nice view. Beers are less than $1usd/can here since the whole island is duty free.

The view from our balcony.

On the jetty before we left the island. (I see white people!)

June 09, worst month ever.

2009-07-08T18:32:00.003+08:00

June was bad. Ran bad and played bad the whole freaking month. I ditched my usual 14 table game for 24 table because I was trying to get enough fpp to get all the June instant bonus.

But total bottom line wasn't too bad though. I had about $2500 in June instant bonus alone. Since I had 2500 guaranteed I spend a lot of time watching videos and reading forums. Got Ed Miller's new book and I already read that twice. As far as my game is concerned, with coaching and all the extra work I'm putting in, I'm pretty sure I'm heading in the right direction. We'll see.

WSOP ME

2009-07-04T11:33:00.001+08:00

Got a horse in the ME. He started today and looking good so far. One time Eli, motherfucker one time!

Skype fuck up

2009-06-27T23:36:00.002+08:00

For some reason I can't log on to my Skype account anymore. Seems like someone changed my Skype password and it's definitely not me. Guess I got hacked. If you want to get in touch with me thru Skype please look for etay256. My msn remains atlwindsurfer@yahoo.com. No AIM, sorry.

Kelong trip

2009-06-26T11:56:00.017+08:00

Went on a kelong trip a few weeks ago. I know, I need to update more on this kind of stuff but it's my blog so whatever.

What's a kelong? Here's a short answer: What is a kelong? It's like a wooden structure people build in coastal waters to catch fish basically.

Anyway, there were 15 of us. A few cases of beer, bunch of fishing rods and stuff, and off we go hoping to catch some big ones. It was really hot but we had some fun. Nobody really caught any fish at all. Just a few little ones and a squid by fatty. Here's some pics:

Stop at the famous 'bah kut teh' at Kota Tinggi early morning on our way to the jetty. For those of you who dont know, bah kut teh is kinda like pork stew kinda thing. I suck at explaining shit for that's the best I can come up with. It was pretty good. We pretty much try to eat at this place everytime we have a chance to go to Mersing.

Me, Kay Liang and fatty on the ferry. I don't think anyone got seasick this trip. The ferry ride was about an hour long I think. I lost all sense of time whenever I go on a trip.

The view of the kelong we went to. Right before we docked.

Here's how the accommodation looks like. No air conditioning, just fans. It kinda looks like those refugee camps you see in the movie. But we all knew what to expect so it's all good.

Right off the bat me and Kay Liang started fishing. It was so hot it's not even funny.

Don't know what's with that expression on my face. I was trying to hook some little pieces of squid.
Read a John Grisham book during the trip. What else can you do when there's no fish?

Some pics of the views from the kelong.

On our way back and before that, a group pic on kelong.

Thank you Tracy for taking all the pics!

Updates

2009-06-23T22:46:00.003+08:00

Looks like some of you might miss me a little so here's some update. I'm just getting lazier everyday when it comes to updating this blog.

First of all life is good I guess. Still broke and barely getting by but nothing disastrous happen lately and that's all I can ask for I guess. Went to a kelong a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who don't know, a kelong is a wooden structure people build near coastal area to catch fish. I went with bunch of friends and it was a good trip. Except we didn't catch any fish. But the coolers served their purpose as our beer storage so it's all good. I'll post some pics later in a seperate blog entry.

I'm going to a nice island near me this coming Sunday. It's called Tioman Island and here's a link:
http://www.tioman.com.my/
We're staying at this resort: http://www.payabeach.com/index.html
I'm going with a couple of cute girls by the way so it's gonna be awesome. Not in the way that you're thinking about now. We're good friends only. Of course, will post pics when we get back.

Just came back from KL couple of days ago. Was there for about 4 days and had a blast. Went to Newman Magazines anniversary party on Thursday night at this club called Mists in Bangsar. Holy shit I've never seen so many beautiful women all in the same place. Free Jonny Walker and some expensive whiskey shit all night long so it's all great. Played in a charity poker tournament and donked off 50 bucks. Went to meet up with the KL crew on Saturday night at Kevin's house and it's great to be hanging out with this bunch after so long. Next trip up there we'll play some golf, I promise.

Poker wise it's not good at all lol. I've played only 36k hands so far and not exactly playing great. I've never spent as much time studying the game as I do now though so hopefully this will help in the long run. At least I have $2500+ coming in from bonus so it's not a total loss. This is gonna be the worst month for me in terms of output and result this year but I hope that from the effort I put in by getting coaching, watching videos and discussing hands on the forum that I'll benefit from it in the long run. I'm trying a few different lines and start to think about the game a little differently now. So far I can't say it's working out great and I feel more confused than anything else. But hey, who said it's easy for stupid people like me? This is usually what happens when you change something in your golf swings. You start playing bad before you get better. So I'm hoping this is what's going with me now.

Haven't been to the gym in weeks already. Need to improve on that as well.

And Tim, lay off the Ambient.

#$&^#%!(@$^#

2009-06-16T00:24:00.001+08:00

Fuck me. My air conditioning unit in my room has broken down. WTF AM I GONNA DO?!?!?! Why can't I just run good ONE TIME!?!?!?!?

My last 10k hands lol

2009-06-11T17:07:00.003+08:00

My last 10k hands. It's been fun. One of those stretches where nothing works. Cbet, 3bet, value bet, bluff, etc.

Surprisingly I'm not even mad or upset. I'm just concerned. After the session I had with Qtip and talking to people and reading forums, I just realized how unprepared I am when it comes to this game. Something's gotta change. And it's gotta change quick.

Coaching

2009-06-09T13:25:00.003+08:00

Just had my first session with Owen and I must say it was very productive. A lot of stuff were mentioned and lots of stuff that I need to work on. He also mentioned a few things that never crossed my mind when I play and now I can incorporate those thoughts into my thinking process.

I'm gonna play now. There is some new found energy now I can really work on my game. Maybe I should have done this a little sooner. Actually I should rephrase that. I'm not gonna just play. Thinking about the game while doing review should be the top priority and I need a whole new way to think about the game and I think I'm heading the right way.

Coaching from bigowen

2009-06-02T11:13:00.002+08:00

Just spoke with Bigowen, also know as Qtip on stox. I've decided to take up his coaching offer. We spoke for about an hour and he seems to be a pretty cool guy. I'm really looking forward to this. We'll do a 5 hours week long program @ $85/hr. Worst case scenario he only finds 1 or 2 problems with my game that's worth $1/hr and it'll pay for itself in a few months. Of course, I'm sure we'll find more than 1 or 2 problems. What am I Tiger Woods of poker?

I'm really excited about this. I sense good things are coming from this.

May 09

2009-06-01T13:49:00.004+08:00

Not a bad month I guess. It's not bad quality wise since my win rate is a lot better than my usual 2.5BB but the output was far below expected. I feel lost sometimes. Even though I did well I know my game is nowhere near where I want to be and I'm at wits end about how to get it fixed. I'm thinking about getting a coach and I'm in contact with a Stox coach now. I can't afford much but this guy has pretty good result and he's one of those up and coming guys so maybe that's why he's not charging as much as others. I'm hoping I can work with him to help me move on to the next stage. Actually to say he has good result is such an understatement. He's up over 100k this year.

One more thing. Stars is having a $2400 instant cash reward for150k fpp now!! No more clearing bonus!! It's a once a month thing though but that should be ok for me since I dont get that much in fpp anyway. Will try to make it a once every 2 months kinda thing.

Pretty neat video

2009-05-30T01:16:00.002+08:00

I've been asked many times about the sub-prime mortgage problem and the overall credit crisis. Maybe these people thought that I worked for a law firm specialize in real estate law that I should know everything about it. I've never really have a good answer because, well I'm a fraud and I don't know shit. Until now. I found this pretty good video on stox and voila here we go:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Fuck you Eli

2009-05-29T22:35:00.004+08:00

Grats on the step 6 win. Now go win the wsop ME so you can stake me for long term 5/10 action.

Had the mother of all heaters today. up 10 bi in 2k hands. All sets got paid lol and a flat redline.

Dizziness......

2009-05-26T18:11:00.002+08:00

Don't know what the hell is wrong with me. I still feel the dizziness from 2 days ago. Not as bad now but it's still there. At least I can eat and not feel like throwing up anymore. I'm sure the alcohol consumption in the last few days didn't help much either.

Haven't been playing much at all. Been running bad after running like god for awhile. All the shit that worked before for 30k hands now all of a sudden don't work anymore lol. There are still plenty of shit that I really need to work on but just can't seem to get the energy to do it. I've played about 50k hands so far this month with a win rate of 3+BB. Hopefully I can get in a few more hands before the month is over. I think I have about 2 more months before I hit supernova. Unless I hit a heater and move up soon. There's probably gonna be some kind of instant cash bonus thing instead of the 4k bonus that you have to clear. We'll see.

Changes

2009-05-25T01:16:00.004+08:00

No, it's not the 2pac song I'm talking about here although i kinda like that song.

I did something I haven't done in awhile. I said yesterday that I depend too much on just a couple of people for my social needs. I started to do something to change that. I asked this friend out today. We had dinner and went on to a nice place to have a few drinks and I met more people. We had some nice conversation and good arguments and it was a good night.

It's amazing how this could be a big deal in my life. I never imagined myself to be so socially inept but hopefully things will change.

Something interesting happened. We were talking about friendship, relationship, marriage etc and this guy took out a rm10 bill and asked around the table 'I'll give you this rm10 bill if you give me a rm5 bill.' Most of us were just looking at him and wondering what he's up to. For whatever reason I took out a rm5 bill and switched with him. Maybe it's the poker player in me that decided that this is a +EV decision.

Then he said that most people, when confronted with that proposition, would start thinking 'what's the catch here? why would you do something like that? there's gotta be something else involved here.' And after you spend too much time trying to decide and think about the problem most likely by the time you decide to do it, someone else would surely have beaten you to the deal. What's the point of this little story? I guess next time when you see an opportunity, take it. Think fast, just fucking do it. Don't spend too much time thinking about the inconsequential shit. You see a girl you like? go for it. You see a shirt you like? fucking buy that shit. You feel like telling your mom you love her? just say it. Don't wait. You never know what's around the corner. Just fucking do it. And i made 5 bucks.

I also did something stupid for someone with suspected food poisoning. I ate sushi and drank beer. I am smart.

Food poisoning

2009-05-24T13:46:00.005+08:00

I think I have food poisoning. I woke up this morning with extreme dizziness that came out of nowhere. I feel like puking and I didn't drink last night. I fucking hate being sick. I feel so helpless.

Anyway, it's been awhile since I last updated my blog. Not much poker content lately because I just can't find anything interesting from my sessions anymore. After you play for hundreds of thousands of hands it seems like nothing is interesting anymore. I feel like I've seen them all and it's just the matter of improving myself and see where this thing leads me.

Which brings me to my next point. I'm not sure I'll ever be happy playing poker, no matter how much money I make. Ok, maybe when I start making a dollar a hand I'll have a lot more time for other things in my life but at this point of my poker 'career' I'm just not happy at all. I find myself restricted to be in front of my computer all the time, I don't meet new people, I barely have any friends and because of the nature of this 'job', I get lazy a lot. Last night a lot of friends came over my house to visit us and we had a great time. However, half way through the night I wanted to just get up and get in front of my computer and check email and watch Ted talks and other stuff. It hit me right there. I got friends over and I'm thinking about leaving them in the living room and go spend the rest of my time in front of my computer?

I find myself relying too much on just a couple of people in my life for my social needs. When I don't get calls I feel left out. When I get calls I drop everything I do and get out of the door in record time. I have never had so much desire to meet new people but I keep having the excuse of 'not having enough time away from work'. The trouble is, on the rare occasions when I meet new people, I don't have an answer to them when they ask me what I do for a living. I don't mind telling them I play poker for a living but since nobody knows what poker is around here, I have to explain every time. I don't mind the misconceptions that come associated with poker playing. They can think of me in whatever way they want, I don't care. I just hate to explain to them the whys or hows of what I do for a living. This is not me. I've always been pretty good with people I think. I have never had much in quantities in terms of people I know but I've always been able to make it up with qualities. I've always had the good fortune of having great friends. I still do but I just feel a little alone now, but not lonely though. Don't know if i make sense there.

None of this are by no means unsolvable. I need to arrange my time better. Need to be more active in my social life and I'll be fine. In another word, I need to be less lazy. I need to get off my ass to do something about these problems. I'm smart enough to deal with that, I think.

I guess the main point of this post is to warn everyone who's thinking about doing this more seriously. There are side effects. The money is pretty decent and the upside is great, but the side effects may not be as easy to handle as you think. The immense pressure, the constant need to improve, the solitary world you live in and the lack of human interaction are all that you have to deal with. Just make sure you'll have enough balance in your life that you will be able to deal with them efficiently.

Step 6 wsop ticket

2009-05-22T11:13:00.003+08:00

I don't think I mentioned this before but I had a chance to play for the Step 6 wsop package that's worth 12k usd. I started with a $7.50 step 1 and went all the way to step 6 and I chose to play a 6 man sng and busted out 3rd or something. My TT lost to 88.

I wish I could sell the ticket though. It's $2100 and I much rather take the cash than play a winner takes all sng. But steps tickets are not worth any cash value, so I had to play. Anyway, just felt like sharing. I'm playing steps again after I swore that I'll never play another one of these lol. I got a step 3 ticket now. Who knows, maybe I'll get another crack at it.

Funniest hand of the day.

2009-05-12T12:09:00.003+08:00

MP1: $52.35 (104.7 bb)
MP2: $24.90 (49.8 bb)
MP3: $30 (60 bb)
CO: $51.40 (102.8 bb)
BTN: $76.15 (152.3 bb)
SB: $50 (100 bb)
Hero (BB): $50 (100 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with 3 7
MP1 raises to $50, 2 folds, CO calls $50, 3 folds

Flop: ($100.75) 5 T 6 (2 players)
MP1 bets $2.35 and is all-in, CO folds

Results: $100.75 pot ($3 rake)
MP1 mucked and won $97.75 ($47.75 net)

Useless update

2009-05-12T11:42:00.003+08:00

The last few days has been good. My win rate is up to 4.4BB now. I'm running ok and I feel like I'm playing better in a lot of different spots. Now that I have more time to think about each decision I start to see things that I didn't have time to see before. The extra 8 seconds allow me to read hands a little better. I go with my reads and act on them a whole lot more now. I'm less fit or fold now. Overall my redline is getting a little more on the horizontal movement instead of fallin almost straight down like before.

Or maybe I'm just running good. Having the right hands at the right time. We'll see after the month is over.

My dream house
I can't stop thinking about that house. It's about 400k and the way it's designed, not much renovation is needed except some interior stuff. Chances are I won't be able to get the loan for it but it's nice to dream a little.

Less tables

2009-05-11T11:10:00.002+08:00

I've been trying to play only 12-14 tables so I have more time on post flop decisions and it seems to be working fine for me so far. Not too many hands obv but I've been running and playing good, I think.

Only 20k hands so far with a win rate of 3.82BB. Been kinda slacking off. Doesn't matter, I'm gonna be playing for 10 hours a day from now on for as long as I can.

Personally, there's absolutely nothing going on in my life now. I went to look at some more houses last week and all it does is making me feel worse. There's no way I can afford those houses I want if I don't work harder.

April

2009-05-01T08:24:00.004+08:00

So here are the numbers to my April result. Nothing great. Just grind and grind and grind. I earned about 24k+ in vpp so that's another 1k or so.

As you already know, me and Eli canceled the prop. I pretty much stopped playing right after that lol. Not that I got lazy or anything. I have really good excuses this month. The HEM debacle and the laptop going crazy on me had a lot to do with why only 120k hands this month.

Now that I got my new computer up and running I will keep going at it and try to work on some part of my game this month. I'm gonna post the stats and graph on Stox stat analysis forum and see what Pokey will say about my numbers.

My May goal:
- 120k hands.
- No more than 20 tables.
- Need to work on certain part of my post flop games. Especially value betting.
- at least 15k hands at nl100, depends on my roll.

Note that I took a one hour 12 tables shot at nl100. Up 1.5 bi in 1 hour. Ship it! Watch out poker world, I'm the new Durr, call me Turr!!!

Finally!!

2009-04-29T01:16:00.002+08:00

After days of frustration with reimporting hands, computer broken down, shopping for parts for my new computer, reimport hands, etc, I finally have a poker ready computer!!!
It's a pretty sweet machine with most of the bells and whistlers that I wanted except a couple of things. I'm not gonna complain too much. Turned out that most vendors in JB don't keep much higher end stuff in stock. It was pretty surprising that I was able to put together a decent machine within couple of days. Now I got a 23" 1080p monitor that looks great. A pretty good running machine that's probably good enough to last me at least 2 years. HEM runs a lot faster. Hands are imported at twice the speed as it was on my laptop. I'm loving it.

The month is almost over. I'll put in a couple of more sessions and call it a month. Don't think I'll make the KL trip at the end of this week. We'll see.

Tomorrow night I'm going to dinner with an absolutely beautiful girl who's also one of my very best friends. Looking forward to it.

FREE SHIRTS!!!

2009-04-26T18:55:00.003+08:00

David, my buddy at DWApparel.com, has decided to give away free shirts!
So for those of you who read this (yeah, all 3 of you) will be able to get a free shirt from his site. Go check it out!

#@$#$#@Y$#@$

2009-04-26T18:43:00.003+08:00

OMG the past 3 days have been hell for me. First of all, I updated to the latest version of HEM and had to spend a couple of days trying to reimport hands. This has to be done in order to take advantage of some new stats that's available now from HEM. Ok, that's fine, I'll put up with that just to get the latest update in the software. So 2 days later, after all the reimport of hands, the fucking software started acting up. It took like 5 minutes just to get the report for any particular month. It's so slow that I just couldn't put up with that shit anymore.

So I made some posts in HEM forum and waited for them to reply. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, my laptop just went crazy on me! Piece of shit crashes all the time and I get the dreaded blue screen of death now. I tried to reinstall windows and I couldn't even finish that shit. Looks like there's some kind of hardware problem which is probably the worst thing that could happen. Thank god I've been backing up like crazy and I'm not gonna lose too much data. Actually, none at all.

So now I'm trying to put a system together. Shit is gonna cost me an arm and a leg. I'm really not looking forward to paying for this shit.

Well, at least there's some not so bad news. I got my result back for my medical checkup and there's nothing out of the ordinary. I don't have AIDS thank god. My cholesterol could be better but not too far out of the norm. The only thing is I have no antibody for both Hep A and B so I just spent some money and took those shots.

There's some exciting news from David. He's giving away free shirts!!! I'll make a new post about that.

Prop bet is off!!!!

2009-04-21T21:15:00.003+08:00

Well, after much thought we decided to call off the prop bet a couple of days ago. Turned out that I had about 105k hands at that time and Eli had about 115. I was a little ahead but I was so miserable I don't think I can continue to play like that for the rest of the month. I was playing 24 tables and playing like a nit. It was horrible and I would never do another prop like that again. For those people who can regularly put in 200k hands or more every month, you got my respect. It's just not the way I want to treat this game. I even lost sleep over that shit.

Now that I can reduce the number of tables a little, I'm having fun again. I'm down to 20 tables and I actually have time to look at situations a little closely and don't miss those marginal opportunities anymore. When I was playing 24 tables, I see T8o and I just fold without looking at what's going on at the table. Sometimes there's a poster and the blinds are tight and T8o is a definite raising hand when I'm in late position. It's like free money. But with so many tables waiting for my action when I was playing 24 tables, I just had no time to think about or even look at that shit.

I was playing all 24 normal speed tables as well with no fast tables mixed in. I don't know how you guys are able to play with so many fast tables. I get timed out too damn much. I guess I have to finally admit that I'm slow and stupid.

Well, looks like Pokerstars is gonna have a promotion coming up for WSOP. I just withdrew some money so I can deposit later to take advantage of the reload bonus. For some reason I miss those all the time.

Anyway, even though the prop bet is off, I'm still gonna try to play as much as I can. I'm sure I'll top 150k hands this month, 200k seems unlikely though. Either way this will be the most hands I've played in a month. I'm winning at a rate that I'm ashamed of but at least I'm not losing. I feel like I'm running bad but I know for sure there are a lot of spots that I can work on to improve. I'm thinking about taking shot at nl100 sometime soon and we'll see what happens there.

No more sudoku.

2009-04-09T01:50:00.002+08:00

I'm guilty of spending too much time on bullshit. I play sudoku instead of watching stox videos. I watch stupid tv shows instead of reading good books. I read BBV instead of uNL forum, etc etc. But now I found what I'll do from now on every time I feel like wasting my time. This video, in my opinion, is really good and entertaining. I'll keep digging through the site to find more and link them here.

I don't take credit for finding the videos. I saw this on Stoxpoker site and decided to link them here. I find ted.com to be extremely interesting and I'll keep digging through that site for some gold.

Some hands from today's session

2009-04-06T02:29:00.002+08:00

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4072326
Only 50 hands or so with this villain. No solid reads but he's 44/18 or so, I just assumed he's probably kinda aggro and bluffy. Some of these guys that play so many hands pretty much play the same aggro tard kinda way.

Actually, that's the only interesting one I could find. I'm not gonna show those dumbasses who pay off with top pair top kicker against my set or those AA vs KK type hands. Those are just too standard. I'll try to post more hands for the rest of the month.

The poker update

2009-04-06T02:05:00.001+08:00

Well, me and Eli decided that we're not gonna tell each other how many hands we've played this month until the prop bet is over. So I won't be doing regular updates for the rest of the month. Not that I've been doing much update in the first place. However, I will probably post occasional funny or interesting hands from time to time.

I have to be honest that I could have played a little more hands but it's ok. I got a life and I do have to go out sometimes. There are just too many cute girls out there. For what it's worth, I'm running a little below expectation in all in EV but I'm still beating the game at 5BB+/100 so I'm not complaining.

Bring it on Eli, er, I mean, bitch.

Some pics from my birthday thing.

2009-04-06T01:50:00.005+08:00

Spent my birthday with some friends and family last Monday. Mom cooked some stuff at home and I had some friends over for dinner and we went to a bar called Mulligan after dinner. Sorry about the picture quality. We had a lot of pics taken by Ben's camera but unfortunately the memory card was bad and we lost all those pics. These were taken by a cell phone and the quality are not that good. But it's better than nothing I guess.

Me, Chloe, My bro Eugene and my sis in law Cynthia.

This is Fang Fang. I've known her since I was 12 lol.

Ms Quek. Drives the coolest car.

Well, that's all the 'good' pics I got from that night. The rest of them were too blurry to show.

I have 3 friends in the States that have their birthdays on the same week as mine. All 4 of us have been having birthday parties together every year. Well, this is the second year that I don't get to spend birthday parties with you guys. Happy belated birthday anyway to Tim, Eli and Carter. I heard about the dinner at Rathburn's. God I miss a nice steak so much!

March

2009-04-01T12:24:00.003+08:00

March was ok for me. The first 36k hands well hell lol. It got a lot better after that. Plus the $800 or so vpp value that's a total of about $3500. Tried to get it to get as close to 4k as possible and the end of the month didn't go too well.

I'm starting the prop bet with Eli today. No life ftw!!

If I can run only 2BB for the month and get the expected 200k hands this month this should be my best month ever as far as total money made is concerned. Hopefully I can crack 6k this month with vpp.

March 25

2009-03-26T02:04:00.003+08:00

Another good day. I played ok today and it's always good to have good result when you're just playing ok. I missed out on a lot of value in quite a few hands and I need to start thinking about my value betting strategy. I'm playing 24 tables once again and it has worked out well for me so far. I haven't been playing too nitty, which is what I worried about the most. Hopefully the run will continue.

I was just talking to Eli about our prop bet. I played 9k hands today for almost 8 hours. I feel like I can go for another 3k hands easily. Well, it's easier to play a lot when you run good and the result is good. What I worry about is how I'll handle the pressure when I'm running bad.

We'll see what happens next month.

First 10k hands day in a long time and a prop bet with an idiot

2009-03-25T03:25:00.003+08:00

First time in a long time. Good result too. I'll take a day like this 5 times a week then I'll be all set!

I got a prop bet with Eli next month. He's gonna spot me 35k hands and I'm getting 2 to 1 on who will play the most hands next month. I guess I'll be looking forward to a whole month of not having a life. Not that I have much of that in the first place.

Wish me luck. I need it. That fucker can really grind.

KL

2009-03-24T03:25:00.001+08:00

Just got home from spending a couple of days in KL. It's fun to see you guys again and I'll try to make this a monthly thing. Thank god I didn't lose the credit card roulette this time. Sucks to be you Josh lol.

Wish the weather was nicer for golf. I miss playing golf but with the weather being as hot as it's been lately, it's just tough to get out there. Well, it's gonna be hot here most of the time so I guess I can kiss this game good bye.

Since the last update

2009-03-19T02:10:00.002+08:00

Played a bunch of sessions after the last update. Could run better but whatever, it'd be too easy if I run good. Things are never easy.

I'm playing a lot so far this month, relatively speaking. I have played 65k hands so far at 2.68BB/100. If I can somehow get to 100k hands at 3BB I'll be really happy. I should be on pace for more than 100k hands so we'll see what I'll end up making this month. I wish I can play more than 16 tables and get in more hands to get the vpp up. I tend to play like a robot when I play more tables though so I guess I'll just stick to no more than 16 to work on my post flop game a little. I'm not as smart as most of you out there and it takes time for me to make decisions and playing 20+ is definitely not doing me any good for my game.

I'm so glad all my friends got out now. I'll be up there soon enough to hear the stories.

I'd like to post some hands but too lazy. Maybe next post after I finish my review for this session.

I'm so sorry guys.....

2009-03-16T02:22:00.000+08:00

I know you're not reading this now. I feel really bad and I'm really sorry there's not much I can do for you. I'll try to get up there as soon as I can.

I'm so sorry guys. I'm a luck box and I know it.

Friday the 13th.

2009-03-14T04:13:00.003+08:00

Not a bad day. It's a grind but I'm not gonna complain about the result. I'll take a day like this every time and I'd be happy.

Here's a funny hand:
The idiot is a 70/8. What's funny is after the hand is over. Look at the chat.

PokerStars Game #25922034506: Hold'em No Limit ($0.25/$0.50) - 2009/03/13 15:48:59 ET
Table 'Boucolion V' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Mr.Casino100 ($32.45 in chips)
Seat 2: Van Belle ($50 in chips)
Seat 3: steill13fx ($18.15 in chips)
Seat 4: HERO ($50 in chips)
Seat 5: ngfinney ($116.20 in chips)
Seat 6: north crow ($29.85 in chips)
Seat 7: beetge ($47.25 in chips)
Seat 8: candeee ($48.75 in chips)
Seat 9: DeadEndKev ($93.10 in chips)
north crow: posts small blind $0.25
beetge: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Kh As]
candeee: folds
DeadEndKev: folds
Mr.Casino100: folds
Van Belle: raises $1.50 to $2
steill13fx: folds
HERO : raises $5 to $7
ngfinney: calls $7
north crow: folds
beetge: folds
Van Belle: folds
*** FLOP *** [4d Ad 3h]
HERO : bets $9
ngfinney: calls $9
*** TURN *** [4d Ad 3h] [8d]
HERO : bets $33
ngfinney: calls $33
*** RIVER *** [4d Ad 3h 8d] [3s]
HERO : bets $1 and is all-in
ngfinney: calls $1
*** SHOW DOWN ***
HERO : shows [Kh As] (two pair, Aces and Threes)
ngfinney: mucks hand
HERO collected $99.75 from pot
Mr.Casino100 said, "lol"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $102.75 | Rake $3
Board [4d Ad 3h 8d 3s]
Seat 1: Mr.Casino100 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Van Belle folded before Flop
Seat 3: steill13fx folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: HERO showed [Kh As] and won ($99.75) with two pair, Aces and Threes
Seat 5: ngfinney (button) mucked [2d 2h]
Seat 6: north crow (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: beetge (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: candeee folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: DeadEndKev folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Mr.Casino100: lol
ngfinney: nh
Mr.Casino100: ?
HERO : lol
Mr.Casino100: what u doing calling with ducks
HERO : flush draw
ngfinney: yea
ngfinney: missed lol

Another one. Don't ask me what I was thinking in this hand. I had no idea. I still have no idea. I was trying to squeeze and take down the pot preflop. After the dumbass called, he's 82/13 by the way, I just thought there's a chance I had the best hand for some reason.

PokerStars Game #25909052637: Hold'em No Limit ($0.25/$0.50) - 2009/03/13 7:25:50 ET
Table 'Bernoulli V' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: bigchiefds ($55.50 in chips)
Seat 2: b&mAKQJA ($49.10 in chips)
Seat 3: Sprayed ($50 in chips)
Seat 4: Peppielapew ($33.90 in chips)
Seat 5: dorla99 ($87.20 in chips)
Seat 6: mysliwiec82 ($75.70 in chips)
Seat 7: I_h8_p0ker ($54.65 in chips)
Seat 8: HERO ($68.55 in chips)
Seat 9: Frank eWilde ($73.20 in chips)
I_h8_p0ker: posts small blind $0.25
HERO : posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [4h 6h]
Frank eWilde: folds
bigchiefds: folds
b&mAKQJA: folds
Sprayed: folds
Peppielapew: calls $0.50
dorla99: raises $1.50 to $2
mysliwiec82: folds
I_h8_p0ker: folds
HERO : raises $5.50 to $7.50
Peppielapew: calls $7
dorla99: folds
*** FLOP *** [6s 9d Jd]
HERO : checks
Peppielapew: checks
*** TURN *** [6s 9d Jd] [7c]
HERO : checks
Peppielapew: bets $2
HERO : calls $2
*** RIVER *** [6s 9d Jd 7c] [5d]
HERO : checks
Peppielapew: bets $8.50
HERO : calls $8.50
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Peppielapew: shows [5c 4c] (a pair of Fives)
HERO : shows [4h 6h] (a pair of Sixes)
HERO collected $36.40 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $38.25 | Rake $1.85
Board [6s 9d Jd 7c 5d]
Seat 1: bigchiefds folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: b&mAKQJA folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Sprayed folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Peppielapew showed [5c 4c] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 5: dorla99 folded before Flop
Seat 6: mysliwiec82 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: I_h8_p0ker (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: HERO (big blind) showed [4h 6h] and won ($36.40) with a pair of Sixes
Seat 9: Frank eWilde folded before Flop (didn't bet)

March 10

2009-03-11T18:14:00.002+08:00

Another good day, what the hell is going on here?

Love this game!

2009-03-10T07:16:00.001+08:00

Finally a day that I can feel good about. Ran so hot today that I'm starting to feel weird about this. Other than a set over set suck out at the beginning of the day, i don't think i got sucked out at all for the rest of the day. It makes me nervous because now I'm probably gonna run bad to even things out.

Seriously though, I can't tell you exactly what's different between this session and the previous ones. I certainly ran better that's for sure. But I think I kinda just readjust my thinking about the game a little. Back to the basics. Play position, don't get in marginal spots, be aggressive, etc. I think that could be the main reason for this result today. And the idiots are stacking off with all kinds of funny shit today. Maybe I should start doing the 'free money' hands again. I'd love to post some hands but pokerhands.com is so slow for me lately that I don't think it's worth my trouble.

It's 730am and I'm not sleeping yet. How the fuck am I gonna find a girl that can put up with my schedule?

Fuck this game

2009-03-08T02:35:00.004+08:00

Something's is wrong lol. I don't know what it is, but something is definitely wrong. I ran so horribly bad today that I don't even expect to win anymore. I'm going through one of those shit that I've only heard of, but never experienced: The infamous downswing.

Don't get me wrong, I get those 10 buy in swing all the time. Well, once a month. That happens, I understand that. But this one is different. I'm doing something wrong I'm pretty sure. I just don't know what it is. It seems like every decisions I make were wrong. It seems like I'm getting exploited every time I play. It's about 60k hands break even now. That's the longest I've ever experienced. I gotta find out what's going on. I know I've been running kinda bad lately and it's fine. But I also feel like I'm getting too weak tight and running bad doesn't help. Every time you get those nut flush draw and want to push, but you think about how bad you run, you just call. Now THAT's bad.

I need to get out of this slump somehow. That house I want to buy is getting farther and farther away from me.

A shocking revelation..... not!

2009-03-05T03:06:00.002+08:00

As most of my friends in KL have probably guessed, I'm staying in JB mostly from now on. For the last few months I've been trying to decide where to settle down. After some serious consideration I'm pretty sure I'll stay in JB now. Housing is just too expensive in KL. For 300k you can get a pretty decent semi D here in JB and pretty much nothing in KL. And my family is still here in JB so it's easier for me to take care of them being here in JB. The only thing I kinda regret is not being able to stay with my sister and see her much from now on. But I'm sure she understands. She's starting a small little business selling refreshments and bubble tea and stuff in a Giant super market in Shah Alam. I have full confidence that she'll do just fine with that business.

I'll still go to KL maybe once every month or two months or so. Gotta play some golf with the boys, play some 1/2 with you idiots. And I can't just leave Eve and the girls just like this. I'll go back there to check on you girls, don't worry. Uncle Tay is not going anywhere.

And there's absolutely no truth in the rumor that I'm getting married soon. It seems like the only reason I would stay at one place is if I get married. Why can't a man decide what to do in life without having any female influence?

I am having a lot of fun here. It's great to be able to see mom everyday. To go out with friends most nights. There's plenty of girls here that I just met recently and it's been great other than a couple of bad dates.

So there you go. Until further notice, I'm a JB'er once again.

Last couple of days

2009-03-05T02:55:00.003+08:00

There's no way I can crank out as many hands as I had hoped for in the beginning of the year. I'm only playing 16 tables, sometimes 18. The supernova quest is gonna be delayed a little bit for now. My plan of hitting sn at the end of March is not gonna happen. Right now I'm happy if I can get it before April is over.

I've been in somewhat of a slump lately. It was so bad at times I was thinking about quitting. However, I had a real hard look at how I've done lately and this is nothing. I'm just acting like a little bitch when I run into a little of bad run. I should be glad that my bad run only lasted 20-25k hands so far. World class players go through 50k+ hands break even stretch. Who the fuck do I think I am?

The sessions from the last couple of days:

As you can see, it's all a big nothing lol. After 2 days I'm about even. I was running bad though and tilted off some money doing stupid shit. I just gotta be positive about this and hopefully I can get out of this stupid slump. My last 2 sessions wasn't too shabby at all and hopefully this is the sign of recovery for me.

My very good friend just found out that she's losing her job soon. Don't worry honey you'll get through this just fine. I have faith in you.

March 2

2009-03-03T16:50:00.002+08:00

Finally a decent day. Feels like it's been forever since I had a day like this. Also finished good in a couple of 45 turbos. Turned my step 3 ticket into a step 4 ticket which I can use to play the sunday mill this weekend if I can somehow adjust my sleep schedule. Also qualify for the weekly finals for Monte Carlo.

Who knows, this may just be one of those life changing weeks. Or most likely not lol.

Feb 2009

2009-03-02T10:24:00.003+08:00

Not a good month obviously. 35k hands in a month and not even 300 bucks. I do have the excuses of having Chinese new year in this month and that 10 days or so of bad internet connection.

I'll try to make it all up this month.

Internet connection......

2009-02-21T15:26:00.002+08:00

If you're thinking about moving to Malaysia to play poker full time because of it's relatively low living expenses, think twice before you make that decision.

Internet connection is horrible in this country. I'm sick and tired of looking for different solutions. All I want is a stable connection to play poker, that's all. I am no expert but why the fuck is it so hard to get that in this country?

holy fucking swing.....

2009-02-18T17:25:00.002+08:00

I hate swings...
Seems like nothing I'm doing is working lately. I might as well be playing my cards face up.

Fun day

2009-02-15T03:20:00.002+08:00

6k hands today, dead even. Fun.

Spent Valentine's day with a bunch of single friends. Had some Korean bbq today. Holy shit the Korean bbq here sucks ass.

Tomorrow is the big parade. I had a lot of fun last year and I will attend again this year. The article in this link pretty much describes the whole parade.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/TravelTimes/article/FeatureStory/20060213160906/Article/index_html
There are some pretty cool stories about the parade. The parade started back in the 1800s. In 100+ years of parade, there has been no rain every year on the day of the parade. Every year without fail. One year the Sultan denied the permit for the parade. He fell sick after that for weeks and no doctor could figured out what was wrong with him. He somehow got better after changing his mind with the permit.

I'll try to take some pictures if I can. My camera on my phone sucks so don't count on it.

Some updates, if anyone cares

2009-02-10T02:13:00.002+08:00

Been back in JB for a few days now. We had a really nice celebration for my mom's 60th birthday. Huge amount of people showed up and we had some good food and good company. It was awesome.

While I was in KL, we (the poker gang) went to a Chinese new year dinner at la la Chong, a seafood restaurant in Subang. Food was good and company was awesome. It's good to have the whole gang together at one table and have a nice time just bullshitting each other. At the end I lost the credit card roulette along with David Wong. Screw you all. We're gonna go out again and play that stupid shit again.

Chinese new year is finally over, it seems. Today is the 15th day and I went to a really close family friend's house for some really nice food again. Played some majong, spent some time with a lot of uncles and auties who watched us grew up. I can't tell you enough how much I love Chinese new year. I also went to the oldest temple in JB after dinner with Chloe, Ms Quek and Chloe's mom to pray a little. A nice foot massage session followed that and now I'm finally home getting ready to sleep.

Well, for people in JB, Chinese new year is not really over until the big parade is over, which will happen on the 21th day of the first month of lunar calender. I'll try to find some links and show you how big a deal it is for people in JB.

It seems like the recurring theme for my blog lately has been good food and more good food. I'm gonna have to really watch what I eat from now on. I've splurged too much lately and it's not good for my weight loss plan.

Wait, I don't have a plan.

Well, it seems like the holiday festivities are coming to an end and life will go back to being normal soon. Hopefully that means I'll get in some playing time and start making some money. I'm way behind on my goal of getting to Supernova in 3 months. It's still doable but it's gonna take a huge amount of time for me to finish before March is over.

I'm all talk and nothing else.....

2009-02-03T18:58:00.005+08:00

Like MLK said in his famous speech, I was like all 'I have a dream!' before the year started. I wanted to hit supernova in 3 months, and I was actually thinking that I could realistically do it in 2 months if I can really spend some time on it.

Well, first month is over. Due to various reasons, but mostly because of my laziness, I'm not even at 20% yet. I've played a little less than 90k hands and the results are shown below:

Not a great win rate but I'll take it I guess. What else am I gonna do? I keep hearing people beating nl50 at 4-5BB and I'm honestly jealous. But it's ok, I know my game and I know there's plenty of leaks in my game. I'll be the first one to admit I'm nowhere close to being the best at the games I play at regularly but I'm definitely in the top 10 percentile.

I checked my database and the last time I played was Jan 21. It's been 2 weeks. Chinese new year took up too much time. Actualy I kinda let it happened. I coulda come back to KL a few days sooner but something just kept coming up every freaking day. There's a couple of more events going on in February too. We're gonna throw my mom a big party at home for her 60th birthday. Happy birthday mom! There's gonna be a huge celebration in JB for the oldest temple in town. A parade is the best word I can come up with. The gods will come out and parade around town in a 10km route. There are gonna be all kinds of shows and stuff throughout the whole route and it's awesome. Lots of stuff to see.

Chloe also asked me to go to a singles party. Ok, that one I'm not really looking forward to. I'm shy you know.

Despite all the stuff that's going on, I'm hoping to get in at least 100k hands this month. If I can hit 150k hands I'm gonna give myself a good gift. Don't know what yet. Hookers and blow?

Chinese new year, family time, fortune teller, etc.

2009-01-29T18:36:00.002+08:00

I think I forget how to play poker now. It's been a long time since I last played a hand. Online i mean. I actually played in a home game last night with my bro and a bunch of friends. I'll tell the story later.

For those of you who don't know, It's Chinese new year now. Today's the 4th day of the new lunar year. I've been home for almost a week now and it's been fun and hectic. It's always nice to have my whole family together for more than a couple of days. I met some old friends from high school and saw a lot of uncles, cousins, etc, whom I haven't seen since my bro's wedding in 07. I'll try to post some pics if I can find them. I also took a video of dragon dance that took place at my house. I'll try to figure out how to post a video for you dumbass Americans who's never seen that stuff.

I got home last night after meeting some friends and was surprised to find out my bro was playing holdem with his friends. They play with $1 ante, no blinds, and spread limit $1-$10. I played for a couple of hours and won $360 lol. They'll call you down with A2o and spike an ace and 3bet your ass. I think I lost a lot of value on a couple of hands when I thought that there's no way I could have a best hand and they surprised me almost everytime. It was fun though. I'm definitely getting a set of chips for them and teach them how to 'properly' run a game.

Went to a fortune teller today. My sis in law swears that she's the best. Well, good news. Some girl will probably come after me this year. I'll most likely have a kid this year. And I'm gonna have a career year this year. cts, durr, ivey, etc please step aside.

Jan 21

2009-01-22T19:29:00.003+08:00

Not a bad day I guess. Finally got out of the slump I was in. Win rate for the month went up to 2.61BB now. I can't for the life of me figure out how some people are able to beat nl50 for more than 4BB long term. I must suck for real. Not that I'm not happy with my result so far but I'll take anything more than 3BB for sure if I can help it. Been trying to catch up with the videos lately and hopefully I can catch up enough until my membership with Stox runs out in May.

82935 vpp til supernova. 56k+ fpp so far.

Jan 19

2009-01-20T15:40:00.002+08:00

Much better today. Still sick like a motherfucker. I'll take 6 bi in less than 3k hands any day. I'm probably not gonna play today in my drug induced state of mind. May mistaken 66 for AA.

Pics from Luna Bar

2009-01-20T01:25:00.004+08:00

Here are some pics as promised. Went to this bar in KL called Luna Bar. It's at the rooftop of a Hotel I think. Has probably the best view in town and it's right next to KL Tower. Probably the most fucking expensive place you can go to have fun. Cover is 50rm and that includes one drink. One beer costs 30rm. Insane prices. And for a place with that kinda decor and view, why play fucking techno music? It's too loud for a place that's supposed to be comfy with nice views. Well, the views are awesome. If the music were different then I think the experience could have been much better.

That's Chloe, one of the best friends I found since I came back to Malaysia.

KL Tower, right next to the building where Luna Bar is.

Jan 18

2009-01-20T01:07:00.003+08:00

Basically, my session went like this yesterday. Lost total of about $180 in 3 pots, 2 to 2 outers, 1 to a 4 outer. Top set lost to bottom set. Two set over sets when I had the lower set. $80 all in preflop with AA against KK. How I ended up even, or up $40, whatever, I had no idea. Well, I can't say I had a bad day because after all that I still didn't lose. Weird thing is I'm not even tilted at all, not even a little. The last session was weird too. I seriously didn't win any big pots at all yet somehow I ended up winning almost 3 bi.

I'm still sick. Coughing a lot last night, couldn't even sleep. So I went to the same doctor again and got some pretty good drug. She said it'll help me sleep. So I came home from the clinic and started some tables and about 15 minutes into the session I took the meds that she gave me. After about 10 minutes I was like wtf is this shit? I didn't feel anything at all and wanted to take a little more of those meds. Thank god I didn't. In a few minutes that shit hit me so hard. I had a really hard time to finish up the session and as soon as I was done with it I was out cold. I mean I had the best 8 hours sleep ever. There could be a fire or earthquake and I'd still be sleeping. Maybe I need to play while I'm high from now on since I won some pretty ok moolah during that stretch.

Genting, PokerPro, throat infection and stupid table games....

2009-01-18T08:30:00.002+08:00

Went up to Genting for a couple of days with a few friends. Played the PokerPro machines for the first time and I have to say I like the machine a whole lot. It eliminates a lot of dealer mistakes and there's no confusion about bet sizes, stack sizes etc. Didn't mean the game was faster than normal games though. People still takes ages to make a decision sometimes. I ran ok overall I think. Played a couple of hands bad but it was small pots so it's not that big of a deal. Got my KK cracked by QQ all in pre flop for about 1600. Overall up only a couple of hundred bucks but I think I paid way over 500 bucks in rake lol. The rake is 5% no cap, go beat that game.

Right before I went up to Genting I started to feel sick. Saw a doctor before the trip and turned out I have a throat infection. No way it's from all the smoking. Anyway, with fever and all, I decided to go to Genting anyway to get some fresh air and smoke while I gamble. Who says I don't make good decisions in life?

And by the way, fuck the stupid table games. That texas holdem table game is probably the most -ev and stupid game ever. But everyone won money except me so I guess I should shut up.

Yesterday

2009-01-15T07:52:00.002+08:00

I don't think I've ever been this tilted in a long time. I think I lost every single pot bigger than 20bb during the second half of the session. I spilled some drinks onto my desk and thank god it's kinda far away from my laptop.

Some numbers after the first week.

2009-01-13T10:16:00.003+08:00

Played only about 11k hands after the first week. Ran bad for the first time this year.I think I was actually losing with AA during this period.

I'm way behind my planned schedule so I'm gonna have to make it up in the next few days. If I can somehow get to 80k hands on the 15th I should be fine. Actually I think I can get in more hands than that. There's still a tiny little chance of hitting supernova in 10 weeks.

Life after the 1st week.....

2009-01-12T17:24:00.002+08:00

Well, we all knew the great run wouldn't last. I've only played about 12k hands after the first week. Well, life happens. Some friends were visiting and we went out around town for a couple of days and had some fun. I'll probably post some pics later after I received them.

Had a terrible weekend for my sports team though. Titans lost in the playoff. Liverpool only managed a draw against a weaker team. I'm starting to think that the teams I support will never win anything. Titans have probably the best chance they have since the Superbowl appearance and the year followed that. All is gone. Same thing with Liverpool. I know it's only the half way point of the season but I just know that Liverpool will choke. All the teams I support choke at one time or another even when they're having a great season. It's like a lifelong of getting sucked out. It's sad, depressing and it makes me mad why the teams I support never win. But then again maybe that's why I keep supporting them.

Jan 7 and the first week of 2009

2009-01-08T08:35:00.004+08:00

Not a bad day. Only played about 5k hands. I'll take a win rate like this any day.

It's been a wonderful start for 09 for me. I've made almost $1600 plus about $400 worth of fpp. This is my first $2k week and hopefully the run will continue. My winrate so far over 50k+ hands is a tad over 3BB/100. I still haven't felt anything close to being burnt out yet. So hopefully I can keep getting 50k hands a week from now on. My goal was 40k hands per week so anything over 40k is just a bonus.

Jan6

2009-01-07T20:26:00.002+08:00

Another boring day. Still waiting for the 7BB day. It's like chasing that high when you first shot up, just gotta keep looking for that same feeling again. No, I've never done drugs.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3681162
Played well or ran well? This guy is 15/10 with a 3bet of 6%. I've been playing a lot of 3bet pots, especially in position in steal situation like this.His 3bet is really wide. And how would you play it if you have what he had?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3681168
Just thought this hand was kinda funny when it went down. It's rare that you 3bet and get 3 callers and 2 of them are nits. I guess I missed some value somewhere in there right?

2009-01-06T09:51:00.002+08:00

What a boring day. Pretty much was breaking even all day long till the end. I think at the end of 8k hands or so I was dead even. Lots of cooler hands and bad beats. Well, not a whole lot but enough to make or break your day. I'm too lazy to post hands now. After doing the review for the thousands of hands that I play everyday, I'm just not up for it anymore. Well, If I remember some big hands or funny ones I'll try to post them.

92920 vpp to go.

Jan 4

2009-01-05T08:31:00.002+08:00

Not bad today. I'm so fucking tired now for some reason. I'll post some hands if i feel like it when i wake up. Holy shit I'm beat.

4+BB so far this month. Running pretty good, can't complain. Doesn't look like I can keep up with the pace of 50k hands per week. It's such a grind. If I move it down to 40k hands per week it'll take about 12 weeks to get to supernova. 10 weeks if i can do 50k/week. Whatever, I can't think right now. Gotta get some sleep.

94784 vpp to go.

Jan 2

2009-01-03T19:51:00.002+08:00

Today's session was, well, meh. It's not too bad, I average more than $22/hr and it's just a tad under 2BB/100. But after a session I had on the first day of the year, it's understandably a little disappointing to see today's result. Well, gotta get used to not having 7BB day all the time i guess.

Made a couple of really bad call that cost me about 1.5 bi or so. Heat of the moment kinda call.

96464 vpp to go.

Nice heater to start off the year

2009-01-02T20:30:00.004+08:00

First of all, this is the most hands I've played in one day, 10k. Second of all, this is the most money I've made in one day, about $740, close to 15 bi. And we know what's gonna happen from now on. I'll never run hot again for the rest of the month.

98071 vpp to go.

Dec 08

2009-01-02T00:05:00.003+08:00

Not that great of a month in terms of production. Was really lazy and sort of gave myself the excuse of trying to recharge my battery before 09 comes. Still managed to get 45k+ in and took a tiny shot at nl100. Cleared a $650 in bonus and a few hundred bucks in PLO and draw games. Overall probably about a $2k month.

Happy new year!!!

2009-01-01T22:13:00.003+08:00

Went to Genting last night and had some fun with a lot of new people I met. Really nice to meet you guys and it was fun. Well, fun until Nick's car started to fuck up a little. I gotta stop this not sleeping shit. I'm too old to hang with young people now.

Well, goal for this year:
1. Quit smoking.
2. Work out, lose weight.
3. Make 50k this year. Which shouldn't be that hard I think. Anything over 2BB at nl50 should do it for me. Will try to clear supernova in 3 months. We'll see!!

For some reason number 1 and 2 are always my goals for every freaking years so far. Weird.

Dec 29

2008-12-30T05:46:00.003+08:00

Had a pretty good session today. I think this is the most hands I played in one day ever. Ran kinda hot. I think this is the most I made in one day ever. Well, as good as that sounds, I'm not too happy with a lot of key hands I played today. This could have been easily a $500 day. Well, I'll take it of course.

Cleared the $650 bonus during the process. For some reason I received $320 from 'Admin credit'? I have no fucking idea what it was and I'm still waiting for a response from Stars support.

I'm pushing the total number of tables to 20 now. With 20 normal and high speed tables mixed together I can get 1k hands an hour easily. Last month I couldn't handle 14 mixed tables. Go figure. Anyway, at this rate, I should be able to get to supernova in a much faster pace than I thought. We'll see what happens from now on.

Holy shit, what the hell is going on at Stars? It's been one hour since I sent the email and they haven't responded yet!

08 is almost over!!!!

2008-12-28T12:31:00.003+08:00

It's hard to believe that another year is almost gone. I've been back here in Malaysia for a little over a year now. Honestly I don't know how I survived all those years without seeing my family much at all. There have been some good times and bad times since I've been back. Some set backs, some progress as well. Overall I'm pretty happy to be back home. I have to thank all my friends there who have been on my side supporting me throughout the years. Just being there means a lot to me and I can't say enough how much I appreciate our friendships.

In terms of poker, 08 has been good to me. I manage to survive all year by playing nl50. That's not bad when you think about it. Well, low standard of living certainly helps a lot I guess. I learn how to massively multi table. I wish I knew about this way earlier. Things would have been much better now I think. It's always nice to be able to make more with the same or even less amount of time. Efficiency is the key. The games are much tougher compared to a year or two ago but it's definitely beatable. If a dumbass like me can do it anyone can. My game has improved I think but there's plenty of room I can work with to make it even better.

My connection at home has improved tremendously. I've actually been able to play lagfree for the most part for a few days now. I'm one day away from clearing the $650 bonus and another day to get to platinum. Haven't played much holdem at all this month because of, well, I'm a lazy fuck. At least I run good in omaha. My friend Chucky is an omaha addict and I learn a lot from him by watching him play high stakes short handed plo. Ok, maybe not, whatever. Just feel like throwing out a shout out to Chucky. I made about 500 bucks in just a few hours lol. Certainly good to run great when you flop great hands and get actions all over the place. But I lost a couple of hundred back so I think I'm up about 300-350 this month from plo. It's a fun game but I can only handle FR action now in plo. 6m plo is gonna be too tricky for me. Gotta learn a bit more before I dabble in that. I've played quite a bit of razz, triple draw and badugi as well. Don't ask me what's with my fascination of low ball draw games. I just love playing them. I'm up maybe 150 on that too which is pretty good consider I never play higher than .50/1.

For holdem, my winrate this month is at 2.5BB or so. Not great, not bad. I actually tried to table select some nl100 and mix it up with my normal nl50 tables. Only played about 600 hands or so and lost about 1.5 bi lol. Overall I think the games are not bad at all. I think I'm gonna start playing nl50 with some good nl100 tables mixed in from now on.

I know I can handle 24 normal speed tables. That's about 1100 hands an hour (more if you don't take smoke breaks). But the high speed tables seem a little juicier to me. So lately I've been mixing it up with all kinds of different tables. I can play about 15 comfortably with maybe 6-7 high speed tables mixed in. I still get about 900 hands an hour so that's pretty much near my goal of 1k/hr. I don't know the day of 24 tabling all high speed table will ever happen to me but right now I'm just glad that there's more table for me to play with and table selection is a lot easier.

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas. I've been having a nice relaxed holiday. I think this is longest ever that my whole family are together since I came back from the states. It's rare that both my sister and me are home in JB at the same time, let alone 5 days straight. Well, tomorrow both of us will go back to KL and get ready for the year to come. We'll be back end of January for Chineses new year of course.

Enough of this. I'll post my December stats and graph once it's over. Happy new year and be safe.

Finally

2008-12-22T19:59:00.002+08:00

Holy crap I got lucky. Went out earlier to find a coffee shop with decent connection and hit a home run at the first place I stopped at. However, that's the only lucky part about my session today.

FWIW I ran hot against shorties today. But lost a couple of big pots against some idiots who were trying to give money away. Whatever, at least I'm up. 3500+ hands and up about 60 bucks. Was up to almost 150 at one point. The connection wasn't perfect but it's much better than what I got at home. It still got laggy for a little every now and then but I'll take it. Looks like this shop will get a lot of my business for the next few days while I'm here in JB.

Maybe I got better, or I just have been lucky, I haven't been running into too many tough situations lately. That's why I'm not posting too many hands. It's not that hard to recognize if I'm beat now that I've been playing against these nits all the time.

See you tomorrow. I'm going home.

I'm so pissed off now....

2008-12-22T13:46:00.002+08:00

It's near the end of 08. 09 is gonna be big with all the plans I have with this poker thing (supernova, etc). And now I can't get an internet connection that's stable enough to play online? This is pissing me off big time. I'm sitting here looking at Stars client. The lobby doesn't even load! I can get to my cashier if I can wait for 5 minutes. Sometimes I see the lobby and open a table, it takes about 2 minutes to sit down at a table, if no one has taken the seat already. Once I sat down I'm usually sat out because I timed out. Holy fuck, this is bad.

I'm gonna try coffee shops now. Doubt it'll be any better but can't be worse I guess.

Back in JB

2008-12-20T19:53:00.002+08:00

Finally back in JB. Holy shit the drive was awful. I hate driving on the highway during the day.

Gonna spend some time with the family and see some old friends for Christmas. Will probably go back to KL in a few days and get ready for supernova.

Merry Christmas everyone. Have a safe holiday.

Useless crap

2008-12-15T14:20:00.002+08:00

For those of you who are interested, here's a little bit of updates.

Haven't played much lately. A bunch of 1-2k hands sessions, that's it. Ran good, ran bad, played well, played bad, whatever. With 08 coming to an end, just feel like really fired up for 09 to get supernova at stars. Since nothing I do for the rest of the year will count towards anything I do next year anyway, I just don't have the motivation to really put in the work.

Just got the $650 bonus for 50k fpp. I'm gonna clear that, which should take about 25k hands or so. After that will just try out different setups, tweak a little bit to make it easier for grinding next year. I'm starting to mix in the high speed tables now. Tried it earlier with a mix of normal speed, high speed and pl tables. I get about 700-800 hands an hour with just 14 mixed tables. I can probably bump it up to 16 with no problem whatsoever. It does seem like the high speed tables are juicier. Vpip tend to be higher on those tables. Who knows, maybe one day i'll be able to handle 24 high speeds and that's 2k hands an hour!

Other than that, not much is going on. Went to a cousin's wedding. Had a christmas party last night, all my sister's friends. Flirted with this girl, but she has a boyfriend though. Who cares right?

Going back to JB sometime this week to spend a couple of weeks with family. Haven't been home in awhile now. Found some poker people in JB and we'll see how much I'll get hustled by them.

Peace.

Dec 8

2008-12-09T19:50:00.002+08:00

Another 5k hands, another broke even day. Yeah, I know, Im up 30 bucks, boohoo.
Could have been A LOT worse. My KK cracked AA TWICE today. I can't remember the last time it happened and I got them twice today. I think I just used up all my luck for the rest of the month.

I'm too lazy to post any hands today. Maybe I'll post some hands from today along with the hands tomorrow. I'm trying to catch up with my Stox videos. I still have probably 100 videos I think I need to watch. They are coming out with a bunch of pretty cool stuff and added some really good coaches. People who's been contributing on 2p2 and the contents are good for micro and small stakes guys like me and the other 3 people who read this. Give it a shot. At least I'm sure it won't hurt your game.

Dec 7

2008-12-08T14:24:00.003+08:00

Not a good day but at least I'm up for the day. Down 4 bi at one point and finally got it back up. Ran into some tough spots which I'm post below, maybe even on 2p2.

Free Money:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3554984
Villain is 57/25.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3554997
I actually thought the amount was too high on the river when I hit the raise button. Maybe I should have bet more.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3555059
Same thing here, another idiot. He'd probably call a bigger raise too.

Some tough spots:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3555022
Villain is 35/20 over 89 hands. I obviously liked the K on the turn but when he called I went uh oh. Put him some draws and I hated the river card. Made a crying call since I'm getting more than 4 to 1 on the call. He just might be bluffing a missed straight draw or JJ type hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3555037
Villain is 23/16/8 over about 150 hands. I was pretty sure I had the best hand at the turn. Any better hand would shown some aggression already. I can't really explain why I made the call, the only thing is it 'smelled fishy'.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3555074
I didn't raise the flop because I wanted AA or KK to keep firing. Turn card brought an 'oops' moment since AK and all kinds of sets are already there. I don't think I should have called the river. I'm almost never good here. Well, live and learn.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3555081
Is this standard in bvb battle? One of those 'smelled fishy' moments but I was wrong this time.

Dec 2, good start for December

2008-12-03T15:32:00.004+08:00

Not a bad start at all for the month of December. Ran really good until near the end of the session when my AA got cracked by KK. Could have been $400+ easily if I won that hand.

Didn't run into too many tough spots. Made a couple of folds that I think is standard. Love days like this.

Free Money:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3533224
This was against a guy with 90+ vpip. Basically does all kinds of stupid and annoying shit that pisses you off, min raises, min bets, bets $1 into $30 when you have absolutely nothing kinda shit. Nothing satisfy me on the table more so than stacking idiots like this.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3533294
This was another idiot. 35/1 or something like that.

I'm back

2008-12-03T07:11:00.004+08:00

After a long extended period of time away from this game, I'm back to playing again. Finally adjusted my schedule back, wake up at 6am now. I find that games at 6am to 2pm or so are the best. And I play fresh with nothing in my mind after I wake up and freshened up a little. Coffee in the morning is great again.

The result from Nov are shown above. Not a great month of course but at least I didn't lose. Did not hit my target of 100k hands. Wasn't even close to 3BB winrate but it's ok. That was the first month I really try to put in a lot of hands and 100k hands can be easily done imo. The thing is I just gotta find a way to cope with the swings a little better. I can't get freaked out everytime I hit a 10 bi swing. It's normal. Someone wrote this before. These swings will happen again, no matter how good you are. And you will have a worse one, it's a promise from poker god. So just embrace it, grind through it, play through it, expect it, it's part of the game.

Update

2008-11-28T15:02:00.003+08:00

I haven't played much in awhile. Ever since my bro's visit last Friday. Was sick for a few days. Was running and playing bad and it's no confidence booster when that happens. Been playing a few sessions, 1k hands here, 1k there. Not really helping. It's like you go to the driving range and hit 2 buckets of balls and feel like shit after. Yeah, you just hit 200 balls but you're not working on anything in particular in your swing so at the end, you're just as bad as you were before you started, probably worse. I've just been going over my database, watch a lot of videos. Got a couple of things I'm working on. I might even drop down to nl25 to try a few things or two. I'm just lacking confidence right now and I hope to come back as strong as I can. 2 10 buy in swings in one month is no fun, not at the volume I put in.

A day off, good day.

2008-11-23T14:38:00.003+08:00

Told you I'm gonna add some pics.

My bro and my sis in law are in town for a day or two. We had some good food, good talk and it's good to see them again. It's their one year anniversary and they wanted to stop by KL for a day or two before they go to some island somewhere.

We went to Elcerdo for dinner last night. Food was good. Do not order the whole of half piglet though, didn't like that. But the rest of them were awesome. We had sausages, pork chop, spare ribs, etc. Then those two in the pictures showed up with an entourage of about 20 people plus another half a dozen or so of security guards. Kristy Yang and Athena Chu. Supposedly some semi big shot movie stars or something. Everyone was ohh ahh about this shit. I just thought that one of them has some pretty awesome looking tits from what I can tell.

I'm hit by the lazy bug again. Don't know when I'll start playing again. Probably tomorrow I'll go back on my regular schedule.

Nov 20

2008-11-22T13:57:00.002+08:00

Another not so good day. Didn't play as bad compared to yesterday. It's ftp again this time. Dropped over 4 bi there in such a short time. Ran bad sometimes. Played one pot real bad and some KK v AA type of shit.

Good thing is my bro and my sis in law are in town.

Free money:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3484155
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3484157

Big law down or stupid laydown?:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3484236
The guy is 30/25 over small sample. I felt like I was beat. Does he do that w TJ?

Nov 19

2008-11-20T18:34:00.003+08:00

It was a rather uneventful day until the last session. I play about 800 hands a day on FTP. Just to get the ironman to get the bonus and get the FTP points for my stox membership. I'm up a little on FTP and I think honestly the game is probably better at FTP for nl50 fr. The only problem is I can't handle more than 8 tables. Still haven't figure out how to multitable efficiently on FTP yet so it's usually like a winding down kinda session before I'm done for the day.
However, today I managed to dump off almost 4 bi at FTP. I can't tell you why. The 4k+ hands on stars was not great, way below expectation but it's gonna happen sometimes. But on FTP today for some reason I just blew up. Lost 2 big pots and a bunch of little ones.
I gotta be able to control this much better if I'm serious about moving up. This is not acceptable. I could have saved myself a couple of bi just to be a little careful instead of fucking it up like this. Overall I'm down a little over 2 bi and it's not a big deal. Sometime you lose. But today, the way I went about it, was not acceptable and I need to be able to recognize the symptoms and stop playing immediately.

With that said, I'm liking my new schedule so far. Feels more like a normal person now. I wake up at around 6am local, about 5pm EST, freshen up and start playing. Usually takes about 7-8 hours for me to finish my day and my whole afternoon is wide open. I can do my review right after I play, which is better because everything is still relatively fresh in my mind. I can have lunch with my sister. I see sunlight now. I can go grocery shopping, run errands, etc. The only problem is I gotta sleep early now. I gotta sleep at around 10pm local to make this work. Weekday shouldn't be a problem but weekends are gonna be tough. One Liverpool game is enough to fuck this whole schedule up.

It hurts me to go over the hands today. Especially for the last session. But I have to do it to remind me not to ever do any shit like this again.

I flopped a few sets today that I just played it so bad it's gross. NEVER SLOW PLAY!!!! I slow played my way into 4 flush and 4 straight boards all day today with my sets. It makes me wanna puke. I promise I will never slow play again. If these idiots have a hand, they'll give you action anyway, whether you slow play it or not. If they don't have anything, fuck it then.

Free Money:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3475870
I don't know what to say.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3475882
Villain is 70/3, kinda hoped that he'd fold because I don't want a race with AQ type hands but I'm almost always ahead here.

Now the worstly played hand of the day:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3475904
The guy is fishy. But a fish could have AA too sometimes. There's no way to justify the way I played this hand. I got beat early on another table with my AJ vs this guy's AK. He shoved every other hand and mothefucker had to have a hand that beat me when I entered a pot with him. This hand happened almost immediately followed that hand. Not that it matters but this is the kind of shit I need to avoid if I want to take this thing seriously.

Nov 18

2008-11-19T18:24:00.003+08:00

Not a bad day. Up 5 buy in today.
Started off decent, then hit a 'they can see my cards' session. All good after that. Been kinda nitty today for some reason. Can't really say much about it, as long as it works.
Made a lot of crying calls today with overpairs. I think I played my overpairs kinda bad today.

Some hands from today:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3471379
Should have bet the turn, I know. River call was one of those 'I know I'm beat but fuck you I got aces' kinda call.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3471395
I'm sure the turn play is spewy at this level but it worked out. He wrote in chat that he didn't even see the flush when he called the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3471437
Can someone teach me how to fold a set?

Free Money:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3471371
Wanna learn how to play aces bad? Just learn from this guy.

Old guys in the NFL

2008-11-19T07:19:00.002+08:00

What's with the old quaterbacks in the NFL lately? Collins, Warner, Farve?
I don't wanna jinx it or anything but Titans keep surprising us and maybe, just maybe, we'll have a team that's gonna shut up those annoying Dolphins.

Nov 17, thank god not everyday is like this.

2008-11-18T17:24:00.004+08:00

A very frustrating day. One of those days that I think my opponents can see my hole cards.

Something interesting happened. One guy sat down at one of my tables with 60bb and shoved every hand. Apparently he lost 5k yesterday and that's all he had left and he was on mad tilt and just wanted to shove. He even called out his hand right after they're dealt. I got in right away with AK and lost to his A2 lol. Then he won another one from me, K7 beat my AJ. I finally got all of them back later on but still lost about 25 bucks from his shenanigan. Funny thing is, only one other guy on the table called his push with AA, no action from the rest of table except me. Those fucking full ring nits I swear.

Nov 16 result

2008-11-18T00:21:00.003+08:00

Had a pretty good day. I'll take a 4 bi day within 5k hands anytime. The first session was probably the best session I've ever had. I did exactly what I set out to do. It's great that whatever your read turns out to be right, whatever you did was the correct move. And I was playing 18 tables with time to spare as well. I think I can start trying 20+ soon. Last time I tried 20 it was a little overwhelming.

Hopefully this good run will continue. I got my winrate for the month up to 2.87BB now. Let's hope no more down swing.

Believe it or not, nothing much in Free Money today. Bunch of people chased their flush and most didn't hit. That's about it. Nothing much of interesting hands either. You know, the normal story, they chase, they hit or miss, I win or lose. Most of the time money went in with me being ahead.