Helloooo I haven’t posted in a while o.o but i have pretty good news lol. After the downswing, I have been running decent last 4 sessions, booking decent wins of about 1/2 buyin. Funny, because i have only been buying in for 50BB these days. I got lucky i guess. I am also laying down some hands like ehm AA today. Every time i get played back at, at these stakes, i tend to fold. It’s good practice. Of course this is bad against crafty opponents but other than that I think it works great at 25NL because people just don’t call and reraise turn with nothing.

So parents went for a 3 day trip to my hometown at Pontianak, Kalimantan. It gave me two days of happy hours to finish the $30 left of bonuses. I made use of the 11-1 happy hour on fulltilt, and 6-8, and this mornings’ 11-1 to clear my bonus! Perfect timing, can’t be better. So with my last $10 bonus cleared today, I am at $250 on full tilt! I am very grateful for this fact, because few days ago I was at $170 :/ It’s great to see I have 10 buy-ins for 25NL right now. It’d still be playable if I just buy-in for $12.50 or 50bb as I have been doing these last few sessions.

Let’s hope this good run continues! And i hope i keep doing well on the tables. Wish me luck!!!!!

I started the day up one buy-in, some agro donk bet into me with 55 when i had a set on the flop, and full house on the turn. So i got +$25 quick.

Then i had the biggest pot i ever had. Bigger than that flush over flush hand. This time the pot was $98, almost for 2 full buy-ins. We were both with full stacks on deep table. With $50 stacks each.

I had AA. flat call an agro raiser pre to trap, this guy from sb reraise big. Donk fold, i just call. Flop comes Q62 (2 diamonds). He bet 2/3 or so, i call. Turn come J. He donks $39 into the $15 pot. I tank and almost folded. Called thinking he can have KK as much as he has JJ here. He shows JJ. I lost the pot $98. Like the biggest pot ever on 25NL i’ve seen. In retrospect I could have folded this. This point i was down -$25.

Manage to value bet super wide against a fish. I had AJ and bet huge and get called by his bottom pair 7 lol. Thanks to fish calls i get back to breakeven +$2.

Then i got AA. limp utg, mp raises to $1, guy beside flats, I reraise from utg to $3. Initial raiser folds, the guy who flat calls. Flop comes Q98 rainbow, but ugly, very settable. I bet 1/2 pot like $3, he shoves for $5 more, whatever must call although i am pretty sure he has like 88 99, he shows QQ, wtf. Aces cracked by set again -$12.

4 mins later. I had QQ. limp utg. Flop comes 257 rainbow. Guy bets, I reraise 4x to $2. He calls. Turn comes 6. He checks, I bet $2.50, he reraises to $8 I call. River comes T. No flush on board. He bets $11 into $17 pot, I have to fold here so i fold. I think he has set or some straight like 89 or 34.

2 mins later on same table. I was still pissed off from the hand above. That my premiums keep getting cracked. I hate sets right now!! I got AJ. Flop comes 4J5 rainbow. someone bets flop $0.75 i call, this guy  raises to $3. I call. I put him on JK JQ JT. Turn comes 9. He bets $5.50. I call. River T. I check, he bets $11 into $18 pot. I was like FARKKKK nothing i beat now but call anyway. He shows 55 for set on the flop. WTFFFF fark set.

In comparison, i never got payed off once with my set. except the first hand when it wasn’t even much of a payoff, since that guy tried to bluff me, any other person would have folded that. So in other wards i never got action from my sets even once. But my AA got cracked twice by JJ QQ flopping sets. And when i get QQ, i get played back at, I flop tptk and guy flops set. I’m so pissed. But I’m learning my lesson not to payoff. When will i ever learn though? I’ve been saying this for the past month and i keep paying off.

I’m -$67 after 1000 hands today. Fark chasing after bonus too, I end up losing more than the bonus I’m chasing.

I just realize what really gets on my nerves:

When someone is wrong, but speaks in a tone like he/she has made up his/her mind, and will not listen anymore.

Anyone who is closed minded in that sense, I really hate. Sure, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. And everyone will have opinions that are far from the truth. It is our duty to find truth in life, to change our opinions to closely resemble truth.

A mild example would be when someone says something like he knows it to be true, but I happen to think otherwise. Me and my friend W tend to get into such small arguments. Where we are talking about something not important. For example, last week we argued a little about whether Ziigmund uses his own avatar or the ninja avatar. W said he uses his own avatar, but I clearly watched with my own eyes him playing against Isildur1 with both having ninja avatars. Anyway it might be that he uses his own avatar at times, and the ninja avatar at times. So most probably both of us are right. When you are sure about something, and someone differs from your opinion, that’s when you tend to want to defend your own opinion. And I believe the opinion closer to the truth will emerge victorious in the end.

A more serious example, or the kind that really gets on my nerves, is when someone says something wrong but wouldn’t listen anymore to other opinions. He/She might say for example: The Sun revolves around the Earth! Full stop! *And changes the subject and not caring about what you have to say* This is an exaggerated example but it sort of portrays the closed minded attitude that gets on my nerves, and I think most peoples’ nerves.

The more the subject is closer to you, the more angrier you will get. For example, someone might say to you angrily: “Why do you keep doing this again and again, you are Useless, there’s no hope for you.” Such negative labeling like saying you are lazy, stupid, useless is the most hurtful. The sadest thing is that the person has made up his mind that to him/her you are not who you are, but you that ugly thing called LAZY or STUPID or USELESS. A person is always more than his mistakes. Tiger Woods can knock his car into a tree outside his house, but if someone will label him as “STUPID”. Is that fair? He is the best golfer in the world and you are labeling him Stupid just for one isolated incident?

What people should do is to criticize the action, and leave the person with his/her dignity. You could say: “That was careless of Tiger to not notice the tree outside his house, he should have been more careful when driving.” Something like that. You can criticize him for being careless at that time. You don’t go out and label Tiger as Stupid just because of that moment. A person is more than a moment. He is capable of more than his mistakes in life. Everyone will make mistakes, but he/she will move on and learn from that mistake, becoming the best person he/she has ever been from then on, before the next mistake, and the next improvement.

By labeling someone as Useless, Stupid, you are placing a full stop to his life, and labeling him as Useless and Stupid, incapable of improvement. And that is obviously not true. Seek to use more ‘moment criticisms’ instead of ‘people criticisms’. By criticizing that moment someone did something wrong, you are giving him a chance to improve. But if you label someone negatively, the person will receive it as he/she has no hope anymore, because he/she is just that label – useless, stupid.

I wonder the impact of these criticisms on young kids who are still growing up. Their mind are not fully developed, but very receptive, hence they would accept any opinion good or bad that come their way. Negatively labeling by parents will definitely erode their self-esteem, and the kid will grow up with a largely negative view of himself, and his life.

What does the title mean?

It simply means you will be thrown sh*t before you can get your job.

Since I graduated. There are a few critical  moments when I was about to make progress, and make a career.

First time. I got a phone call and was invited to an interview with an Insurance company. At that time, I was very desperate to get a job because if not my parents said they were pulling us (me and sis) back to Jakarta. I thought that wasn’t an option, so I applied with this insurance company, even though I really did not want to. I had no choice. I was with a good friend A and my sister that evening, wondering if I should take the job. I felt very sad, but no one else seemed to feel sad for me. I was sad that no one felt my sadness with me. I felt like sh*t that night.

So soon i went to apply with that Insurance company. But that morning before I went to accept their offer, my father angrily wanted to me to clean all the windows in our house. WTF? I find it wierd because i never clean anything before, and of all days, he picked today for me to clean all the windows in our house. Sh*t again. I cleaned the windows and went to the interview. I didn’t get the job because they found out I wasn’t a PR. So that didn’t go through.

So it was next year and I started working at my dad’s friend’s battery store. This was the very first time i had a direct to customer job. It was a small store with no air-con and no place to sit. However it was okay for the experience, I actually enjoyed getting familiar with the batteries. However, after 1 week of working there, I felt like i wanted to open my own store. And guess what, before I could do anything about it, parents had a big quarrel. I quit the job.

Then mom decided to open a clothing store. The day before the opening of the store guess what, dad came up with something, and they quarreled again. The reason is often so ridiculous I don’t even remember what it is all about.

This happened again and again. Every time I had an idea to start some business, or to start on a career, dad will miraculously get angry over something, and mom and dad will quarrel. I am so tired of this. And was also shocked at the perfect timing each time. Whenever I am about to make progress, sh*t happens. I start to think that God is telling me – if you want to move ahead in life, you have to get past this problem in your family first. And how am I suppose to solve this problem?!? Scold my parents?! I tried telling my mom to stop resisting dad when he is angry, but end up I got scolded so bad by my mom for suggesting this. My dad doesn’t talk to me, and we have zero communication other than him scolding me, or warning me about something. I feel sad over our relationship. Whenever he gets into a quarrel or gets angry, what can I do about it? Scold him?! So the only thing I could do probably is to tell them to stop it. But they keep on starting it again and again. Childish sh*t.

This is such a depressing and angry post, but I HAVE TO POST THIS. This has been my life for the last few years, the least I could do is to express it in words.

I am so tired of my parents quarreling. I am already having this problem of applying for jobs, yet they must add another problem to me at the worst time by quarreling. I can’t take all this negativity anymore. My voice will stammer and I feel like I would cry over all these burden. Of course I don’t physically cry but I feel so shocked inside. I don’t know what this feeling is. I can’t take all these negativity. I am not a boat for another’s negativity. I can’t even handle my own problems, please don’t overload me with more problems and drama.

So tonight I was writing an email to apply to a job my mom’s banker referred to me. It is a job with a local securities company. So as I was busting my head on how to word my job application email. My mom and dad had to quarrel over “me going to take a photo to submit for my job application”. They had asked for a photo. And my mom was looking for one, and my dad said i should go take a photo now, which was like 2 hours ago at 7pm. Then somehow they started getting into an argument, shouting at each other. With my dad saying my mom is being rude to him. WTF.

Sh*t happens whenever I am trying to make progress. I swear. EVERYSINGLETIME. Why God is it always this way. I hope I am being crazy and over-reacting here. I just can’t handle being around angry people this way. I just can’t handle so much drama.

So i just did my application anyhow, and sent it to the person. The job doesn’t matter to me now. I was so affected emotionally by my parents’ quarrel I couldn’t think rationally anymore. I was incapable of rationality at that moment. The job application wasn’t important anymore. So what took me 1 hour to word, I finished it in 10-20 seconds and sent it away.

I hope i don’t experience this type of sh*t everyday. I just can’t take it.

Yesterday, I played soccer from 9-11pm, a little late :/ But that is the time we play at every week. 9-5am = people have work. 5-8pm = Traffic Jam. So we have no choice usually but to start at 9pm. It’s said that it’s bad to exercise before you go to sleep, but I actually enjoy doing so. You can go to bath after exercise, and go to have a deep sleep. Which is an awesome feeling hehe.

Anyway yesterday night I decided to play some poker, because I had to get my $40 left of bonus! This is money I could make for free even if I was to play breakeven. I started 4 tables of 25NL. Maybe it’s better to start just 2 tables or even 1 when you have not played for a while, just so you could get used to the interface and the play. But I only had that bonus in mind, so I started 4 tables.

I remember my first hand some shortstack had open shoved all-in $7.60 from ep. I was like, hm what does he have? The move looks donkish enough to guarantee he is not a good player, but some players will show up here with QQ but often times he would show up with like 99. So i was watching this table and I realise I was already in the game o.o This was my first hand of the night, and I was facing an open shove for 35BB. And i was shocked coz I had AKo lol. So first hand of the day, and I’ll be looking to flip. I called, and guy showed A7o lol. I guess it was a tilt shove. Board came xxx Turn 7 urghhhhh River K Phew!! Justice be done on the first hand of the day, what a good start.

I proceed to play pretty breakeven poker. Nothing much going on. However I am more creative about how I play my good hands, mainly top pair top kicker, and sets. I was dealt 88, raise in mp, and got called by the BB. flop came 989. He checks. I would think not much hands would bet here, but would call a lot. All the overcards AK AQ will call a flop bet. TT JJ will probably have bet here, but he didn’t. So I was putting him on overcards a lot, like AQ AJ whatever. I bet $1 into the $2.35 pot. He calls. I was careful not to bet too big. I think he might fold if I bet $1.50 into $2.35. But $1 seems small enough for AQ AJ type to call. And it seems like a scared cbet bluff to some people. Turn comes A. Perfect card! But he checks. Now I think he seems weak here. AQ AJ will have bet here. So I don’t think he has an Ace. Betting here is going to get him to fold a lot of the time, so i checked. Now one thing checking does is also to induce a bluff. If you check behind an ace in position, opponent would think you don’t have an Ace (which is true this time). So the added benefit of checking behind, is to induce opponent to use an overcard to bluff us on the next street. I remember this guy being a pretty Aggressive player post flop, so river comes and he shoves $6 into the $4. pot. I thought for a while. Think if he had Aces or not lol Because that would justify the check on the turn. Anyway I called, and he showed 66 for the bluff shove.

However i proceeded to do my most common mistakes again.

1) Trying to catch people bluffing, when they’re not.

SB raises 3x. I called with 88 in the BB. He’s been stealing blinds a lot – 60%. So i thought i might teach him a lesson here. Bad idea! Flop comes 5s Ts 2s. He overbets, like $2.25 into the $1.50 pot. I think he’s bullsh*ting here, what would bet so much with a made hand? This seems like a cbet to scare me out, so i reraise to $4 and put him all in (he was shortstack and had only $1.75 behind after the bet). He called and showed JJ for the overpair. Oh gosh, I am thinking too much yet again! trying to catch a LAG bluffing yet again! should stop this.

2) Trying to bluff people out.

43/0 player limps co. He limps almost every hand. I get tired of him limping and isolate him with 22 on the button. I raised 4x, which is purely to get him to call, and then take it down with cbet ip. He checks I bet. He calls. Turn comes T. Not very good card, but I was representing it anyway. So I bet again $2.75 into $5 pot. He calls. River 9. He checks. I thought he might have got his straight with a QJ here so I check back. he showed K8o =.= This might be a bad 2 barrel. There wasn’t any Q K A to scare him off his bottom pair. A ten is probably not likely, and the ten pairing the turn probably told him I don’t have it. But can’t he put me on JJ QQ? Anyway I am not going to attempt to bluff again. Just cbet and let go probably.

So above are the 2 biggest pots I lost. It totals $9.98. I ended the day -$2.11. So without these two donkey plays, catching people bluffing, and trying to bluff, I would have made a decent $7 profit.

I have got $30 of bonus to go. So that means I have to get another 500 full tilt points. I should probably play at a happy hour time but I really can’t play at those times :/ Just will squeeze in any time I get to play, hopefully I could clear this bonus.

Too Many Games No Time to Play

I have been more than satisfied with my PSP purchase. I can’t believe I was hesitant on buying the PSP even on the day i planned to buy it. I felt like I might be bored with this thing in no time, just like any other thing. But I was wrong. I really enjoyed playing the games so far.

PSP Games I have tried and liked:

• Ridge Racer
• Scrabble
• Virtua Tennis 3
• Practical Intelligence Quotient 2

I know these are not exactly the most played games around. But they mean a lot to me personally.

Ridge Racer. I played this game when it was first out on Playstation 1. I like the game because it was  a simple driving game that i could play over and over again. The game on PSP has the same racetrack that i use to play so i was instantly glue-d to the game because of the memories it brought back. One new feature they included is the Nos/turbo/boost function. Other than that it’s to me just a better graphic version of the first Ridge Racer.

Scrabble. Ok I know a lot of people would puke (like my friend) when he saw that I had so many so called useless games. But these puzzles are actually very good in gameplay. For example, it look me no time to get glue-d onto Scrabble, of course again for personal memories reason. My English tuition teacher brought it for us to play when I was 8 or 9. And it made an instant impression on me. I loved the whole point system of the game. My mind will be totally absorbed on the board looking for possible ways to make use of the Double and (especially) Triple word Scores. So naturally, I would love playing this game on PSP.

Virtua Tennis 3. Doing these reviews, I am pretty sure I am quite stuck in my past lol. Scrabble and Ridge Racer are games i played in primary school. But Virtua Tennis is a game that first came out in the Arcade around 1999/2000. I was attracted to this game immediately because I play Virtua Striker obsessively (the soccer version of Virtua Tennis). Though to my disappointment I realize that I was not at all good at the game. I could never go past the 3rd/4th round. But the new story format on the PSP, and the beginning traning drills seems to me more like mini games, for example, shoot the ball onto a certain point, the closer you get to the bulls-eye the more points you collect. Enjoyed these games, would play more soon.

Practical Intelligence Quotient 2. Now this is a puzzle game to do with moving boxes around, so you can get to a target location. It’s just a 10×10 tile map, very small. And you have to think of how to reach a certain location by lifting boxes, piling them on top of each other, climbing on to them, and moving them around. According to the game, I am still very slow at completing these puzzles. I always get like D and take too long to solve the puzzles. They have a 100 puzzle list which I am doing right now. I have solved puzzles 1-20. Although I seriously got stuck twice. It was great to be stuck on one puzzle, and keeping thinking about how to solve it. And then i go to sleep. Try the puzzle out in the morning with a fresh mind, and solved it haha. I guess our brain is awesome in that way, it helps us solve the problems we can’t solve in our sleep, or at least organize the information received so that we could do better with it the next morning we wake up.

Of course I am missing out on the more prominent games, but so far I haven’t tried out all the games yet. I have played Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Tekken 6, but they seem good but not addictive. But I guess GTA is not bad, especially like the comic like drawings and music. I tried The Godfather and Silent Hill Origins but they don’t seem too special either. I finally backed-up and transfered “better” games into my psp to try out.  Games are: Dissidia, Crisis Core FF7, NBA 2K10, Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines and PES 2010. Tried Crisis Core for a bit, and really liking the graphics, kinda new to the gameplay but i think i would like it.

Mind & Spiritual

To be honest, I am already exhausted right now after writing the above. I feel like my mind is overloaded and I can’t write anymore. I don’t know why yet again. It seems like every time I do something, I tend to over-push myself, and I end up getting nervous. Even simple things like Writing. That is why I can never go writing over 1/2 pages before I get utterly overloaded, and worse of all I don’t know why! Maybe I should relax a bit.

These days I have been thinking about a lot of Spiritual things. Mainly that of Control. I believe that, from personal experience too, that over-controlling your life and things are responsible for miseries. I feel like the saddest times in my life come when I couldn’t do anything about something, or something didn’t go the way I wanted them to. In other words, i was losing control. But yesterday i meditated on ‘Control’ and decided that we should let go of control, and let go of our will and desires, and let everything be. Let God take control, and let yourself be part of his plan, instead of imposing your plan on everything and getting disappointed/sad/angry when things don’t go your way. Also people would be more friendly and talk to you when you don’t control yourself and other things too much. No one likes to get bossed around by another. Just be like a leaf or water, and sway and flow with everything that happens right now. Don’t harbor any extreme thoughts, think gently and kindly. Be soft and usually everything would miraculously end up to go the right way. It is in letting go of control that power comes. People who are hard on other people, are obsessed with control, and it cannot be that a person has control over everything, he is bound to meet with obstacles to teach him that fact that ‘your are not in control’. A truly wise man usually are the softest people. They don’t talk big, don’t boss people around, because they don’t try to control everything, everything seems to go the right way in their lives.

So i have been trying to control things less. I just bought a Bible last week, and it’s a very readable bible, and i have read a few pages of it here and there. I don’t know, but I like the feeling i get after reading the bible. I feel somehow more serene and collected. I think reading the bible would be a great new routine for me.

Stocks

I plan to post about stocks and charts soon. I think posting in this way would at the very least, help me make sense of my decisions. Also I could share it with whoever would come across this blog.

My plan for my portfolio right now is to wait for a clear uptrend after bouncing off a support. It seems that IHSG (Jakarta Composite) has failed to break the recent high of 2530. The support at 2500 also failed to hold. Now we are at 2480 or so. For now I don’t see the point of entering into positions because we are so close to resistance, being the 2530 mark. If we buy now let’s say, the index could go 50pts higher to 2530. On the other hand, we could see the index go down more than 50 pts from this point to 2400 or so. So this isn’t the most opportune time to enter most stocks. Exceptions occur of course with individual stocks. I would first wait for IHSG to past 2530, and when it seems comfortably above it, and 2530 has become support, I would enter. Of course this may or may not work lol but definitely the most logical way (most +EV way) i can think of.

I am going to start reading company annual reports, presentations and news so I could better understand the business and the fundamentals better. That’s it for this post, mind overloaded.

Okay this is just a rant post. I really have no topic in mind, just felt like there are randoms things I would like to express.

Loud and Insensitive People

I especially can’t take people who talk loud and about stupid things I don’t care about. Especially insensitive comments. It’s okay if they say it normally. But when people talk loud, I just can’t stand it. Maybe I am sensitive to sounds. I certainly can’t stand being in a crowded place like a mall for more than 1-3 hours, it gets really uncomfortable for me for some reason. But then again if I don’t go out I feel cooped up, and 1-3 hours at a mall is a great release. But anything more will only be detrimental. I just want to say that, through my observation, people who are loud and talk before they think, are usually the most thoughtless (nice way of saying stupid) people. Since I am the direct opposite. Someone who thinks a lot before I do things, I especially don’t appreciate loud & insensitive people.

Back to Stocks

So now that my poker stint is over, although I will still play from time to time, I feel like I am going back to stock trading again. Not that it’s a ‘legit’ job. I mean it just takes 1 minute for someone to buy stocks and be “in the business”. But to buy stocks in a +EV manner, it requires a lot of research and hard work (just like anything else). If you are given $2000 to start with, it would be good to play poker. I would play at 0.25/0.50 or 0.50/1.00. With a decent winrate of 2BB/100, and playing 50,000 hands a month. You could pocket $1000 a month for a huge 50% gain. However, if you are given $20,000. You probably couldn’t replicate this same success at 5/10 (Unless you’re nanonoko) I don’t know what the word is for it, but I think it’s called ‘leverage’. Your earnings in poker can’t be leveraged with more money, as opposed to stocks. You could argue that you could leverage more money in poker, just play the higher stakes! But no, that is gambling. Trying to earn money where we don’t have an edge is risky, no matter the amount of money, but even when it is big! But with stocks, you could earn the same rate with $20,000 as with $2000. Because the average person trades for that much, and the average poker player don’t play for $20,000.

On Energy

This morning i woke up and felt really tired and with a bad mood. And these are the possible reasons:

1) only had 6 hours of sleep

2) the old air-conditioner in my room is stuffing up my nose, thus can’t breathe

3) i went to sleep the previous night hungry

So these are the possible reasons why i didn’t feel good after waking up today. Lack of sleep, lack of fresh air, lack of food. Hmm, all are possible reasons. I am more inclined to say number 2 for now, because I have been waking up with bad stuffed nose when i use the room air-condition. The lack of sleep definitely factored in to the dazed feeling, and hunger probably didn’t matter that much because i ate a donut and milk as soon i woke up.

New Specs & PSP Games

Today I am going to get myself new specs. My specs of 5 years is finally giving in. The nose support thing came off. Although i manage to glue it back on, I have thought for a long time to buy new specs. I don’t know what kind of specs to get yet, but i plan to get one of those no rim specs, i mean those lenses without a frame around it. I guess I shall call it the Bae Yong Jun specs for simplification lol.

Also i plan to get myself a bunch (prolly 20) PSP games. For all outside Indonesia who are mistakenly thinking I’m a rich brat, I am refering to pirated ISOs (not UMD) of these games which sell for USD$0.50 each and are transfered straight to the Memory Stick. I doubt I will play all the games, just want to try them out since they are highly recommended games on PSP. The games i am excited to see are: Crisis Core & Dissidia – both Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Assasins Creed II and God of War: Chains of Olympus.

This post shall be a report of my results of grinding at 25NL for 3 weeks.

My goals at the beginning of November were:

1) To earn $100 at 25NL, or build my Pokerstars bankroll from $260 to $400.

I ran very good to start with, earned $110 in just 3 days into the challenge! So I could say that my goal was met right then and there. The PTR graph above missed out on a number of crucial hands, therefore not showing the profits i really made. Otherwise, the graph is pretty accurate. Was winning, then losing in the middle, and winning again. And boom, came two huge down days. I think i was down $50 and $60 in those two days. Although I wasn’t playing particularly bad as i recall.

I moved to Full Tilt the next day not because i was pissed off losing on Pokerstars (lol) but because Full Tilt was offering a free $100 bonus, all we have to do is earn like 2000 full tilt points in a month.

So my move to Full Tilt was pretty good to begin with. I had pretty consistent wins. And then one day, as you can read from a few posts before this one, I decided to play 40/30 LAG and I won like $60 in 200 hands. It was pretty sick. I didn’t realize I was running good that day, I thought it was because I was playing good as a LAG. Next day i played as a LAG again, and see what happens.. I dropped like $80 real quick. I was quite scared looking at how much money i lost, so i toned down my play a little bit, and playing like 25/20 instead. But otherwise, I was running slightly bad too. Next 7 days was the most solid stretch of winnings. I only made one loss day. Soon I was to hit another bad day, running -$50 under EV. I think this was the breaking point. I start to lose from that day onwards. I lost small amount like $6 and $7 then i lost $21. The next day broke even and won $2, then boom, like on stars, the worst day ever, -$108. I was only -$78 in EV, so i was obviously running bad. But the run bad wasn’t constricted to the All-Ins. It was a classic nothing went my way session. After 500 hands, my biggest win was only a pathetic $1.60 with AA! After 500 hands that was the biggest pot I won! It was ridiculous. The other time i got AA, i was stacked by 66 who hit a set. I lost 1 buyin there. The 11 times I was dealt AK and AQ, I never flopped a pair. It was unbelievable. But after 500 hands, it started to turn around. Thanks to W my friend who was donking around at my table and end up donating me $12 or so when i flop set Jacks against his Ace top pair ten kicker. My loses from $128 went down to $108, and you can’t believe how relieved I was to be losing $108 at that point lol. Next day I played again, and won like $14. Although i started the session losing as well.

I didn’t quit any of these accounts because of the big losses. In fact I can’t wait to play again to recoup these losses. I admit I made some bad decisions along with running bad. I don’t know which one was worse, of course I would rather hope is the running bad. But I clearly made some bad decisions, mostly because i didn’t give people credit when they raise and think they’re bluffing (refer to last blog post). But overall, I manage to gain that “play like you got nothing to lose” attitude in terms of poker. I was playing scared poker these 3 weeks, but by the end, I was just playing. I figure if I was going to be scared of losing money, I would never go far with volume because I would only care about the bottom line.

Result:

+$2 (Pokerstars)

-$31 (FullTilt)

Pretty bad. But to make a note, I did earn $100 on each site at one point! It was just that at the end of the month, I gave them all back due to bad runs. I’m sure I can recoup these losses in the coming month (if I were still to play routinely).

2) To play 500 – 10000 hands a day

This was the only goal that I achieved. Although i missed a few days of playing, I really played 400-500 hands everyday. 4-tabling for 1.5-2hours is perfect no. of table and perfect volume for me (before i get distracted and tired). In fact the biggest losing days was when i tried to 6 table! I just wasn’t paying attention to anything and clicking buttons like a robot = i hate that. I should stick to my comfort level = 4-tables. I ended up playing 15,000 hands at 25NL. Less than planned, but I thought its satisfactory considering this is only the 2nd time i ever “grinded” online.

3) To achieve a winrate of 3BB/100

I really failed here and only achieved a win(or lose) rate of -0.9BB/100 at 25NL over 7k hands. Again this is not a reflection of my true winrate! I think I was more of a 2BB/100 player. I definitely think I was playing very well that week I never had a down day. I thought I was comfortably beating 25NL at that point. But the last week taught me otherwise. I really have a lot to learn, but I think I was also hit so bad that day!

Overall, I didn’t achieve the results I wanted to. But I did reach the results in a sense! Because I did earn $110 on Pokerstars at one point, and earned $100 on Full Tilt at one point too. But the bad days were really bad! If anything I learned about True Bankroll Requirements. I now know that 3-4 BI (Buy-In) downswings in a day is possible. That doesn’t even count a run of bad days, which could easily take out 10 BI in my opinion. So starting out with a BR of 10BI at 25NL wasn’t a good idea. Although I did build it up to 15BI, being down 4-5 BI in 1 or 2 days was really painful. I don’t know if I had $500 to start with, whether losing $100 would be pain. But I guess it still would! But maybe less. I definitely learned about the need for 20 or 30 BI at a level for psychological reasons.

What I Learned

So that is the conclusion of my 3 weeks trial of playing poker. I played very little for something I placed my first priority on these last 3 weeks. I learned a lot from the experience. On the table, I learned that I should play standard poker at 25NL and not try too hard bluffing or catching people bluffing. Mostly the latter, because i learned that 80% of the time they are not! Just play ABC poker and fold when you think you should fold. The latter is again the hardest thing to do, but I am getting better at it though still very bad. Outside the table, i learned that variance is really a b*tch lol that you can’t have only 10 BI, you should have 20BI at least. 30BI would be perfect, 40BI is not too crazy either. Outside poker, I learned that playing soccer or exercising helped my game. I don’t know how to say this except that the days after I played soccer seemed to be the days i won the most. And this wasn’t just coincidence because I was sleeping better, and I felt fit and fresh. However if you stop exercising, you won’t get that focus anymore. So exercise is crucial. In fact, I am of the opinion that exercise is of utmost importance. Fitness First! You might argue that eating well is first, but without fitness, you won’t even have the appetite to eat. So to me exercising is of number one priority.

Oh gosh! I am thinking way too much, and always thinking people are trying to bluff me out. If they bet, i call. If I bet they call, i think they’re full of it. This leads to further betting on turns, and getting shoved on. Started the night with an open ended  straight draw + nut flush draw. board was 4h 5x 6h. I have Ah 7h. Now.. here is where i try to be Nanonoko and bet bet bet. Also I size my bet big, almost the pot. So 2.80 pot I raise 2.25. One guy out of five calls. I have no reads on him except through seven hands he is playing 14/7, pretty tight. Turn come a not so good card, a 7. I have top pair top kicker now lol. I bet $6 into $7 pot. Hoping he fold whatever he call flop with, which i think would be 6 some of the time, but maybe not likely. Maybe some mid overpair. Actually thinking back, it was a stupid move, because anything that calls me on the flop, would have called me on the turn. A 3 would have made a straight. A 7 would still have top pair, and the board is an open ended straight board. Now he shoved $22 above my $6 raise. I think and request time. Then i got timed out and folded. It was close! I don’t know what he is shoving here. Obviously any 8, an 89, a 3. Basically made flushes will call me here. But the shove is wierd. He could’ve just called, and bet again on the river. But maybe he saw that my bet was big, and thought there was value in shoving right here, maybe i had two pair on the flop  for example. Anyway Pot was $7 + my $6 raise + his $22 all-in = $35. I had to call $16 to get $35. That is getting 2.2 to 1. Or I need to be good at least 31% of the time. Now if he has the straight, which i think he has, then i am really down to my flush outs. Which is 9 outs and 20% on the river not good enough. But I have a chance to breakeven if he has a 3 or an 8. If the board comes another 3 or and 8. So I actually have 7 outs to split the pot. 9 + 7 = 16. 16*2 = 32% I am getting the right odds here to call. But the 7 outs are good enough only to split the pot, I don’t actually win the pot, so i guess this alone makes it -EV.

372 Hands

-$17.14 (-$12.76 AIEV)

19/16

$333.31

See how I am playing more and more aggressive each session. I think losing is not due to raising to much, in fact i think raising is +EV esp against limping loose-passive fish. But the decisions, on when to bet, when not to. What your opponents’ range is, and what his range is given the action that has occurred. It is sometimes hard to think of these especially when you are in the heat of the action, and have that gut feeling to bet or to call. But we have to think it through more! Example, I raise a fish with KhQh from mp. He was ep limping and called my 4x or 5x raise. Now I am putting him on pocket pair. He was playing like 31/1/2AF (almost never raises). Flop comes ATx one heart. He checks, I bet. He calls. Somehow i put him on pocket pairs 22-99. I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense for 22-99 to call with 2 overcards on the table but he is loose so maybe he might call once. But seriously if I was thinking clearly, I would put him on an Ace suited. I know besides pockets pairs, these are the favorite hands people limp call with all the time. Also maybe he’s calling with some kind of Ten like KTs QTs JTs. But to think of it again, I have KQ, I would be unlikely he limped KTs or QTs. JTs is quite improbable. Now I’m still putting him on pocket pairs like 66 77 88 99 calling once to see if I have an Ace or not. Of course this doesn’t make sense again because I forgot that I raised preflop and my cbet on an ATx rainbow board would seem really strong, and he would not call me with anything less that an Ace. Actually he might have KQ KJ QJ here too, but again unlikely because i hold the KQ. Turn came Ah. He checks. Now, it seems very unlikely to me that he has an ace. I am more convinced now he has some small pocket pair (which doesn’t make sense). So I continue with my representing the Ace, and bet pot $7 to put him all in. He calls and shows A7s for the trips. I didn’t get a heart or J on the river, and lost the $20 pot. This is a good example of not giving people credit, and not thinking what he might have that he would limp call preflop and check call that flop. It is easy to say pocket pair, but really is he ever check/calling against a preflop raiser with 3rd pair and a hand that is hardly going to improve? So in actual fact, I wasn’t folding any pocket pair. If he calls there, almost all the time he has an Ace-weak kicker suited and afraid I have a bigger kicker.

In summary, I am not thinking well and playing rude/aggressive on the table. I don’t feel good playing this way, and it tends to get me tilted and bet draws so hard and try to bluff people out. Which both never works and i end up down $30 really quick. It’s painful to see that -$25.00 or $-30.00 loss for the session when i click my nick on the HUD. I have no problems with my preflop play. I am not isolating with junk. It’s just that i should know when to stop betting, and stop getting it in with flush or whatever on the turn. My turn play should be more checking if I really missed or I don’t think opponent is folding much. Overall a sad day, and i was wrong about me being happy about my 25NL game. I’m still clueless about loads of stuff, and thinking away from the game hasn’t been going well. I think better when I am in the game. But I am afraid to play, because I still feel like I got something to lose when i play. Which is the wrong attitude. That is how you feel when you don’t have a fool proof 20/30 buy-ins. To lose 1/2 buyins and go whatever, you really need 20buy-ins, or even more. Now I have like 14 Buy-ins or $350. When i play, I know it’s unlikely that I will go bust, but it still has an effect on me if I lose a buy-in. It feels like a lot still. On a bright note, I was looking at the top winner at 1/2 today, and saw that the best players there can earn up to $100k. That’s about the amount to buy a decent house and a car where I live. So it is a great motivation for sure! But you have to be the best at 1/2, 2/4, 3/6 to be making hundred thousands.

My goal of reaching $500 on Full Tilt, and my previous goal of reaching $400 on the Pokerstars by 4th Dec is pretty much dashed. I currently have $333.31 as opposed to the $500 goal for Full Tilt. With my remaining bonus of $50, I still only have $383.31, which leaves me -$120 short. And posting that amount of win in 4 days is unrealistic although not impossible. Even if I did it would be due to some good run, and not real consistent grinding. I have $262 on Pokerstars and am -$140 to $400. That again is another breakeven affair although I haven’t played it in a week. However, the ride I’ve been through these 3 weeks has been nothing short of phenomenal for me lol. For one thing, i didn’t expect variance to be so extreme, on both the upside and the downside. And i didn’t expect the distance between these swings to be so narrow. Meaning you can be up huge one day, and down huge the next, and then up huge the very next day. This was exactly what happened to my accounts these 3 weeks. Well, at least I have managed to prove to myself that I can reach profit of $200 a month playing 25NL. I am up $100 on stars at one point, and up $100 on full tilt just yesterday, today I’m still up $80 (I forgot). Since PTR says I’m only up $30 I tend to believe that, but HEM which actually doesn’t miss hands like PTR puts me at $80 profit, so I believe that. Something sick though is that my all-in EV is actually $223.29. So that means I am running -$140 under EV! Some bad beats here and there, but I am more upset about when I donk away my money bluffing without thinking. I feel like when i bet, it’s not based much on 2nd level thinking, but based on my first impression of what my opponent have. I tend to forget preflop action too, and what my action is perceived as by opponents. Loads to improve on.

508 hands

-$15.20 (All-In EV $37.29)

$358.70

15/11/2.5

Lost $15 and ran -$50 under EV. So if there is a variance day, I am right, it would come after 2 winning days. But luckily I only lost $15.20 tonight. I admit after the 5th outrageous bad beat, I start to get half-tilted and make some bad calls such as call 5bet shove with TT (because he was a shortstack, but still bad decision, he showed KK).

Here are the outrageous bad beats you can find in my 500 hands tonight:
All-in with QK on Q Q 9 board against 44. Turn 4.
All-in with A3 on Ax 3x Qs board against As9s. Turn spade. river spade.
All-in with QK on Qx Tc 3x board against QcJc. Again… turn club. river club.

Running 2 buy-ins under EV is no fun. I told myself to keep cool, keep making good decisions. But my mind can’t help but think about those bad beats and how ‘i have been wronged’. I didn’t go monkey tilt of course, I am generally tilt proof, but tonight saw me making more marginal calls after that just so i could win a pot and feel better. Of course it didn’t work. In the best circumstance, I shouldn’t be ranting at all about bad beats. Because if I could take them well, I wouldn’t have flaunted the bad beats here to justify my ego. But on a good note, tonight I finally feel like I am have an edge over the 25NL game for once. I feel like I am reading peoples’ hands well and maximizing my value bets. But mostly, I have been laying down my hands when I know I am beat. I feel good about my game, the results ain’t showing tonight, but I’m sure it will it this coming week.