Newbie poker

Party Point Tournament

2006-08-16T22:28:00.000+02:00

I don´t have any money at party poker so today I thought I use my party poker points to win some real money. So I registred for 250 pp tournament that was going to start 15:50 ET. Happy and excited I wait by the computer for it to begin and started to dream what I would do with all the money that would get after I won the tournament and then won 1000 $ at the NL cash games. But the damm thing didn´t start it just says (pause) and more and more people registers. I been waiting for 40 minutes now, com´on.

I tell you more later about my way to the big bucks, see ya.

Chips shuffle keeps you calm

2006-08-09T22:06:00.000+02:00

I thought this was really hard in the begining but once you get the hang of it you can do it in your sleep. I actually do this while Im playing on the net keeps me more calm.

Well another day without any money to play with on party but a lot of party points. So I guess I have to win a free tournament to get some real money to play with.

Have you guys heard, 3 swedish players still in the world championsships in Vega. Go Sweden.

Breakfast in the water

2006-08-06T14:56:00.000+02:00

We have a great wheather today here in stockholm around 30 degrees. After another late night in front of the computer I woke up 9. Then I thought that I needed to sometime else then just sit in front of the computer. So I took my dog and car keys I went out. There is this beatiful lake in the woods just 15 minuter away by car.

I stood in the water and ate breakfast. Just lovely. I read "Holdem Poker For Advanced Players" while I improved my tan. I have already read it but it´s very hard to take it all in. I stayed there for 2 hours. On my way back I thought I oughta wash the car so my time indoors could be spend without bad conscious.

Anyhow now Im justed started up todays poker adventures. I had an extremly low bankroll today. I went in with just 18 $ at NL 0.25/0.5 6 table. I found JJ and I raised up it up 4 times BB. I got one caller who was in small blind. I was in late. The flop came with one A and two rags. He bet 2 dollars and I raised up to 6, he called. Then on the turn a K shows up and sb bets again and I stupidly calls 4 $. Then I fold at the river. I can´t understand why I play so bad sometimes. Then of course I lost the rest of my money in the next hand to an AA when I had AK.

I think 80 percent of becoming a descent player is to control your emotions. I need a year with the munks in Thailand. Or maybe a pulse watch so I can control myself. That pulse watch automaticly shuts down the computer if the pulse beats over 70. What do you think of that.

Yesterday I emailed that guy who publishes his poker session. Just telling him what a good idea he had implemented. I also asked him about the poker program that you see on the tables in the videos. To bad he hasn´t answered me yet.

Right now Im thinking about post another 50 $ on party again.

A poker day

2006-08-06T01:40:00.000+02:00

Today I been playing poker the hole day. I started out playing SNG at party. It went well I played discplined. The after watching the videos that I talked about in the previous post I was inspired the play cash games. So I played 0.25/0.5 NL 6 seat. I play real aggressive and I played well. After 2 hours I had more than trippled up.

Yeah I know I should have quit and taken a break. At this point I ran into a calling station. He called any bet when he had a pair even though it wasn´t top pair. And I guess I didn´t manage to control my self when he called all the time. I should have slow down with the betting. So of course I lost all that I had won and a bit more.

But it felt pretty good any way. I played pretty good today. I really like those videos don´t forget to watch them.

Online poker hands

2006-08-05T15:37:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I was freshing up this blog so I can start it upp again. And I followed and cleaned up links. When I followed on link I stumbled into a guy that publish his poker session on party poker. I record it and comment it. He is serious with his comments but now and then when he lose he hilarious. He plays at 2/4 and 3/6 NL tables. He is real agressive.

When I found the videos I looked for his start page but there you couldn´t except a big picutre of him.

Im thinking about doing the same thing. And then let people comment the plays. I really like it.

New projects

2006-06-21T02:10:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I went in on ladbrokes.com I only played for an hour but I went 40 dollar plus. Thats a great comeback.

I recently started a new page called Tjäna pengar på internet.

Long time no seen

2006-06-13T00:49:00.000+02:00

Hi. What happened to me? Well I have to say that I didn´t keep my promise, to make money before february 2006. A lot of stuff come in the way and one big obstacle is my bad patience.

Well I just started to play some again after a 1 month break. I mainly spend my time working in my health nutrition company Nordiclab. We mainly sell pure protein and gainer.

Nutritions is called kosttillskott in Swedish.

Back to my promise again. I hate to not have followed my promise but I still won´t give up. Im earning good cash now with my company so Im soon going to get my self a descent bankroll and get back on track. I will keep you posted.

Multi tables

2005-08-02T00:16:00.000+02:00

Today was a good day. All day long I have been thinking about poker. I bought the new All-In magazine and read an interesting article with Howard "The professor" Lederer. The article bescribes him as an extremly hard working guy who put a 100% in what ever he does. He tries to learn every part of it. Poker of course but also he got interested in Jazz music thru a friend and started to study it. The lyrics, the instruments and so fourth. In a couple of weeks he new how the jazz music was built. It´s very inspiring to read. Thats the way I am, 100% or nothing.

There is a lot of aspects of poker and thats what makes it so exciting. One of those is being able to take decisions under pressure. Lederer read a lot about Zen, wich I think of as an half religion and half spiritual movement with focus on meditation and being aware of the moment. He says that it helps him to clear his mind from the camera lights, audience and opponents when making an important decision. Thats what I need, being able to make decision with a clear mind. Often I think ahead when making a decision, I see the $´s going from the center of the table to my bankroll, and then I just click. I need to able to relax taking my time. I need to mind-practice.

It´s very hard to change a habbit. In my appartment wich me, my girlfriend and her 2 kids live, I like to keep it tidy. But the kids keep putting their stuff all over and they rarely clean up after them self in the kitchen. And of course that means Im after them all the time. Reminding them. Since I need to change the habbit of staying too long in pokerhands, I will mindpractice by not reminding the kids to clean and pick up their stuff all the time. It´s going to be very hard. But if I can change the habbit of complaining all the time (the fact that I think it´s right to learn the kids to keep it tidy is irrelevant here) I should be able to change my bad poker habbits. It´s all in the mind.

Another way of help myself to stay disciplined is to play at multiple tables, because then I know that I have other option then just the hand for the moment. So today I played at 3 tables at the same time. I was very disciplined, counted the odds all the time and folded when I thought I was dominated or not having the odds to continue I folded. It was easier to fold because I knew that another hand was coming up in seconds at another table. I was very thight I played, less then 30 % of the hands. I played for 2,5 hours and the first 2 hours I didn´t get so many good hands or if I did I missed the flop. But then then I had a 5 minut period with very good cards and flops that help me. I especially remember 3 hands at three different tables at the same time. AK, AKs and 99. On the AK table I raised from early position, I flopped top pair and hit the K on the turn. I won with two pair. At the AKs table I first just limped in because I wanted a lot of callers, if I should make the flush. After 3 callers after me the fourth guy raises. Then I re-raised knowing that to others would call me. They did and the raiser re-raised and I then made the final raise. Me and four opponent where in. The flop was AA8, and thats the truth. At showdown there where no possible straight or flush and there was 23 big bets in the pot, wich I won. At the third table, 99, I flopped trips, and I won that hand also. This happened at the same time. Incredible. So I ended in a positive way. I also managed to quit in time.

This was a good day.

Roller coaster

2005-07-31T12:26:00.000+02:00

I almost went mad this past week. I was at my country house wich is located on a island between Sweden and Finlad, the place is called Åland. It´s a hundred year old house that needs a lot of maintenance. It was great weather and I was busy all days long but I felt empty inside. I can only connect to internet with a modem, so I couldn´t play poker. It almost drove me mad.

I got back this friday. Guess if I played some poker? I played 10 hours friday and 10 hours saturday. I you wonder how it goes now a days. I can tell you than it´s like a roller coaster. In a previous post I talked about how to manage day bad beat waves, to minimize the losses. I have a hard time doing that. I play at the low limit tables but I can be up $50 and then 4 hours later down $50. I play thight. I can now manage to let go of big pocket pairs. It´s my heads up game thats leaking. I always think I get beat them with ace high. Deep inside I know better but it´s like some force the keeps me in the hand.

On the positive side is that I always keep my bankroll alive. If I get down to only a few $ then I play more disciplined and I get back up again. I honestly feel that if I can play like I do when my bankroll is low and manage to quit playing at an in an advanced decided time, I will start winning regulary.

I got a comment from a guy a couple a days ago that has a great pokerblog. It´s full of game action. Check it out, Shane´s Poker blog.

Im hopefully going to have my third poker night tonight with my friends. Poker is life. And yes my mind is still set on becomming a winning player before february 2006.

Poker night

2005-07-22T01:25:00.000+02:00

I just ended a nice cousy poker happening at my place. Me and three friends played poker for about 4 hours. Hopefully they thought it was fun so that they want to it again.

I got a nice comment on my last post. I figured that sooner or later somebody would say that. I guess that there are a lot of you guys who loves to play against me. But if you think Im an eays pray you are wrong. Just keep coming back to this site and eventually you will learn a lot.

My biggest support comes from highonpoker(by the way who has a great pokerblog) he keep coming back to give us all some great poker advice.

Big setback

2005-07-21T02:28:00.000+02:00

Two days ago I wrote that I had understood the thing about money-management. Oh I was so wrong. I was up 80 big bet in 3 days. I hadnt had a loosing session. Sooner or late it was going to happen. Started to loose right away. In 30 I was down 25 big bet. I played the same way I had played the previous sessions. I didn´t hit any flops. Maybe I bluff-bet a bit more then usual. My bankroll had sunk 30%, I´ve read that you should spend more then 20% of your bankroll per session. But there was no way I could stop. I kept thinking that the card-luck were going to change soon. But it never turned around I got more and more frustrated and I lost everything in 3 hours. I actually thought I was going to cry because of the anger to myself.

This kind of money management is even more important.

Managing the waves

2005-07-18T01:05:00.000+02:00

For the fourth session in a row I have been winning. What a great feeling. Yesterday I played and for a while I was up 25 big bets in an hour. Of course a lot of good cards. But then the good cards stopped coming but I kept bluff-betting hoping I would knock players out. I lost 20 big bets in 20 minutes. But I managed to stop myself from playing anymore when I still was up 5 bets. You see, my discipline is better.

Today I won 35 big bets in 3 hours. Thats plenty. A lot of good cards but also good play. I held I very thight image but when I played I PF-raise atleast 60% of the times espicially in late position with few callers and with an Ace. Then, sometimes I just bluffraise PF from early position and got a lot of respect and could play against few opponents.

But the number one thing I think I have understood is money-management. And the way I see it is that good cards comes in waves. A couple of hands with good cards and you win and you can also extend that wave with pure bluffs (not to often though). But then there comes a wave with more then a couple of bad cards. Then your discipline comes into play and keeping an eye of your bankroll. Try to loose as little money as possible when you are getting bad cards. Don´t try to bluff-knock-people-out and so forth. My biggest loss today was 4 big bets and that of course came from a bluff. I had 3h3d from the BB and the flop was 5c8c3c with 5 opp. I bet right out with the flush out there some where. 3 plyers fold and I get raised from the button. Small blind folds. I re-raised and and he calls. The turn is Qc. That should have been enough for me but I called his bet on the turn and river because it was hard to drop the trips. He had Kc, so the last call on the flop was explained. Now this is really terrible play, the only one this night though. A part from this black spot in the protocol I only lost 1-2 big bets at the most. And I think thats why Im winning right now.

Surf the good-card waves aggressively and the bad-card waves carefully.

P.S Poker is fun :) D.S

Yeah. I found my discipline

2005-07-16T01:31:00.000+02:00

I guess my vacation did me good. Yesterday I talked about my small goals to get more discipline into my poker game. I have only played 33% of the hands. It has gone well now for 3 session. I barely been beat at showdown. I have just played the planned amount of time. And I have bluffed less. I still have some small problems with folding cards like AK, AKs, AA, KK but I will get there.

I very pleased with a couple of plays today. One hand I flopped the nut flush. I had several (atleast 5) opponents I just checked. The button bet. I just called. I think there was 4 callers. I just checked and called on the turn aswell still 4 callers. And then on the river I checked-raised. Of course I won.

Another play I was pleased with was when I was on the button with A8s. There was an early raise with one caller. So I re-raised. Blinds folded. I always think if I get re-raised they have AA,KK or AK. The first raiser just called and so did the other caller. The flop was 8cJh6c they both checked to me I raised hoping that they would put me on QQ or better. The original better was very thight and I figured that he wouldn´t waste a bet if he didn´t have anything. They both folded.

I have never gone thru 3 session in a row, winning. I hope I have reached the buttom. I almost forgot to tell you guys. I have kept a playing dairy. I note what cards I play with where I fold, bet and raise. Then after the session I go thru it all and view some hands with the Hand Replayer.

11th place in a free-roll

2005-07-15T00:32:00.000+02:00

Hi everybody, thought I quit? Oh no, I stick to my promise. I will be making money within a year. I´ve been real busy, out of money and on a vacation. I been down in the south part of Sweden with lovely white sand beaches and 30 degrees celsius. As you all know I have had problem with my discipline. I hadn´t played for money for about 1 week and been thinking about how to stay disciplined. I figured out that I just need to set up small goals. Like just play for one hour at the time no matter what, never bluff except for blindstealing and semi-bluff (flush/straight draws) and never call on the river if Im not sure I have the best hand. Well easier said then done.

I had one problem though, I didn´t have any money. But I had 50 party points so I entered a free roll tournament. And I needed to come in the first 25 to get money. I was determined to succed. I played thight and cought som good cards and I actually managed to come in 11th place so I won a couple of $.

So tonight I played for money for the first time in a week. I played for one hour. I played 12 hands out of 41. I won all the showdown that I went to. I had a great laydown with KK, I my opinion that is. I raised PF got 2 callers. I had position on both of them. The flop was 564 rags, I bet and both called. The turn was a 3. The one of the opponent (BB) bet out the other one called but I folded knowing I was beat. Now some of might say that that lay down was easy an obvious but to me it was turning point. Earlier session I would for sure call him to the river. My biggest loss this session came when I had AK os. Im in blig blind and I raise. I got 3 callers. The flop was TQX. The guy under the gun bets out, a loose guy who probably had a pair of Q with a bad kicker. There is now 4.5 big bets in the pot and even though I didn´t get pot-odds to raise I did it to make opponents to fold. But no-one did and the button raised. UTG calls and now I should had fold but I called because I didnt have the mental energy to fold. I still had a straigh-draw and two high cards, 10 outs. The pot was pretty big. No J on the turn, and I call a big bet. On the river I didn´t call the big bet when I didn´t catch anything. The winner had Q-pair with a T kicker. That hand I lost 3.5 big bets. I won 11 big bets in an hour. Good play and a lot of luck with the cards.

Im very pleased my play tonight.

Long time since

2005-06-26T20:32:00.000+02:00

Hi everybody. It was a long time since I posted. I feeling kind of depressed because I seems to be stuck in my poker development. Now I´ve lost around $700. I read and try to play according to what I learn but it doesn't work. I still loose. I guess I see to many flops and still call to much.

Now I wont play anymore until I have read my book atleast twice.

Discipline

2005-06-18T23:52:00.000+02:00

I figured out that I need to put more discipline into to my game. Im good at throwing away good hands at the preflop and flop but Im terrible on folding on the turn or river. If I get raised I always think Im getting bluffed. At least Im just calling instead of raising back. Today I got American Airline as my first hand. And I and the turn was another A. The table is now xxQA. Then a T shows up on the river. At this point Im excited because of my trips and don´t see the straight danger. In the back of my mind I think I saw it but I ignored it. Lack of discipline.

Im still struggling with my game I had very few winning streaks, 2 in row at the most. Im losing average $50 a week. But I need to study more and work on my folding discipline.

I found a new intersting blog today http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com/.

It´s like a poison I can´t get enough of poker. I want give up....

To much math

2005-06-11T02:36:00.000+02:00

These couple of days I kept studying math with little time for poker. But I had time to loose $40 yesterday. I was playing to loose. I figured I try to play more hands and fold if I didnt the anything on the flop. But that was a bad idea since I didnt stop at the flop I went further. Maybe I should stick to the plan I wrote about a couple of posts ago.

I really need to study more poker and play more no limit. Tournaments, freerolls and $1 - $5 buy in. Because I think the poker is so limited:) on low level limit poker, I can´t do anything except bet if you have I good hand. Well you can do as I do, bet even if you don´t have a good hand and loose $500 in 3 months.

But as you alll know I wont give up.

What a weekend

2005-06-07T04:14:00.000+02:00

No the above sentence does not mean I won I lot of money on poker. I been studying math for 14 hours a day since friday. It´s so hard. I tried to play an study at the same time but that wasn´t good for the for the math, it took ages to finish a one task. Well about the poker I played awful again. Had to deposit another $50 dollar. So far I´ve lost $500. But I wont give up. I soon as I get in sync with my math schedual I will hit the poker books. Texas Holdem with Ken Warren.

Just really bad

2005-06-03T01:50:00.000+02:00

Tonight was a terrible night. It started out pretty good when I played at $1/$2 level. I had doubled my bankroll in 3 hands. I played there for an hour played pretty good just tilted once lost $10. But then I got this great idea of playing at $25 potsize limit table for the firs time. I played tight, waited patiently for good hands. Then I got KK and made up my mind before I even saw the flop that I was good the bet as much as I could. I was in middle position and I guy had raised preflop. I figured he had a pair. Then on the flop I forgot some how that he showed strength before the flop and I just bet as much as I could. The flop was 5TJ or something. The preflop raiser called my bet he went all-in. Of course he had trips of T.

The I played I played free-roll tournament, because all my money was gone. I as usual I played good in the beginning but the I tilt. The was a guy who bet 400 chips on freflop I had A8s on the button and I went all-in thinking he was going to fol d. He was under the gun at preflop so I thought he didn´t have that good cards becuase of the size of his bet he would for sure scare away everybody. The blinds where 15/30 chips. And winning 45 chips, almost everybody at the table had 1000 chips, with a great hand was something I disbelived. Of course he called me. He had QQ. He floped trips and I thinking I didn´t see one card of my suit.

Well I guess I need to stick to $05/$1 and doing something else at the same time to be winning.

I bought a book this week "Texas Hold´em" with Ken Warren, it´s prety good.

Today I had my last exam for this semester. For the first time since I started the university Im not sure I will pass. So from now on I will work with php and study math. And of course play poker at the same time.

Roller coaster

2005-06-01T01:27:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I played has usual on low limit $0.5/$1 and like I said in the earlier post I know I can win if I just play tight/aggressive and don´t get carried away. But just the problem I get carried away. I get in these bad zone when I think like I should but my body doesn´t execute the thoughts. For example I can think: "No I don´t have the odds to call this" but my pointing finger still manage to press the mouse button to call. How is this possible? And then right after I call and I loose, I get this cold sticky sweat on my forehead.

I tried the $1/$2 level again yesterday. I went in with $40 and after 4 hands I had $8. I caught 4 pretty good hands pf and limped in with. I actually hit the highest table pair once and bet but I got raised. I think I had TT. I raised back but he raised me again. Then I got this feeling that this guy knowns that Im a beginner on this level and want to bluff me so I called. This was on the turn. On the river I bet and got raised again and I called. He had KK. Two of the other hands I bluffed but nobody bought the bluff. The main different on this level I think that players tend to play more like your supposed to. The play hands that are good according to their positing, compared to players at 0.5/1 where a player can limp in from early with A7 unsuited. I need to get a bigger bankroll so I can go up and play some real holdem.

One good thing after I left that level was that it only took me an hour to get my bankroll to $35, on 0.5/1.

On a winning streak

2005-05-29T18:59:00.000+02:00

You guys that have followed this blog know my struggles with the poker. Bluffing to much not sticking to the starting hands and so on. Well now a new era has started in my poker life. I have been winning for two days and have this feeling that whenever I play according to my plan I win. Of course there is setbacks from time to time. But then I just take a deep breath and after a while I won it all back.

I use the following guidlines in is $05/$1:
-I only play around 35% of the hands.
- Most of the hands I want to be able to raise preflop. I only raise with monsters in early position.
- I stay away from Kx and Ax, x lower then knights, especially in early position. I hate to have pair in A and then on showdown my kicker suck.
- If I think I have the best hand I just bet all the way. I don´t try any fancy play I just want to put pressure and win the pot. One exception of this is described below but explain in a opposite way. You will understand.
- I try to blindsteal 75% of the time. If I get resistance I re-raise until river. If I don´t have good cards doing this, his is one of the rare times I bluff.
- If I get catch a second best pair, I bet, if there hasn´t been a bet already, to put pressure on my oppentents.
- But most important of all if I bet and get raised and Im not completely sure that I have the best hand I fold, always,always.
- If you don´t have anything on the flop and I have limped in(just called on the preflop) and the pot is small (you should calculate potodds all the time) just check don´t bet. The reason for that is that it might be players who has something but are afraid of betting because that would scare everybody away since the pot is small. And if you bet the will raise you into their trap. If the situation is the other way around, I try to trap them.
- If you raise all the way from pf and you have the top pair with a good kicker and then on the river a third suited card show, just check so that you don´t get raised. If you upp against one opponent and you have seen that he goes to showdown with middle pair then you might call his bet otherwise fold. If you are up against several player and there is a bet, always fold. This is very hard specially if you have a pair of A´s with a good kicker. But by folding you save your money. Minimize your losses and maximize of winnings.
- One thing that I have noticed that if you raise a lot (good raises) you get a lot of respect. That respect you can use if you are for example in the small blind and somebody tries to blindsteal you. Re-raise. They will probably raise you back but thats ok. If you come out betting on the flop and they just call your will win the pot on the turn. But on the other hand if you get raise on the flop just call and if you dont catch anything on the turn just check and fold. Don´t take it personal, think of the money. If a player raises you on two streets he probably has something good and if not, never mind, you will get the chance win it back from him.
- I only follow a flushdraw if I think my flush will win it if up against several players. I never chase flushes two cards short IF I not already have for example a midle pair.

I´ve been playing a lot lately almost 8 hours a day. A lot of less sleep. But I have gained a lot of experince and honestly feel that I can be winning if I just stick to the above. Right now Im definitely on a winning streak.

I see a path

2005-05-29T04:11:00.000+02:00

My bankroll is like a roller coaster. One minute im in deep shit the next Im up again. But I found a partial way for me to win. I need to do something else beside playing poker. I call/bet/raise when I think I have the best and or if I have to contribute less to the pot, procentage wise, then the chance procentage of hitting my cards. I really stick to that now. I been playing very tight now for a couple of hours. One example that think of is I never player A9 from a bad position since there is chance that you get raised and eventually end up in kicker problem. And now when I play very thight my raises get more respect. So sometimes I raise with crap cards on the preflop and then bet on the flop and on the turn most of the oppents are folding and if I get raised and doesn´t have anything I just fold.

Another step in the right direction is that tonigh I have managed to let go of hand like AKs on the flop if the odds is not there. Its heartbreaking in the heat of the moment but feels great later on.

More stable than ever

2005-05-27T01:46:00.000+02:00

I have discover that thight and agressive is the right melody. I´ve noticed that Im winning when I don´t bluff. Almost every time when I try to blindsteal and I get resistance I have a hard to folding. The other big obstacle is that when I have a good hand and there is a more than three players left and I bet and get raised, 90% of the time I don´t have the best hand. I need to fold. I sort of cover my eyes and ears and presses the call button praying. When thing that is good is when do something else beside playing poker. I work with my php-job and play at the same time. The focus on my oppentent is not the best but atleast I don´t get impatient. I feel more stable than ever.

Tomorrow my girlfriend is going to buy a new laptop. Im get that one and she is going to get mine. I need to make sure that the screen resolution is good enough to have multiple poker windows open. Because soon I will play to tables at the same time.

New deposit

2005-05-25T23:11:00.000+02:00

Today I got some more money and of course I had to deposit $50 on party. I decided that I would stop playing $15 up/down. I tried not to bluff to much and stick to good starting hands, in other words playing tight. I managed to play tight but when I lost a $18 pot,I had trips in 9, I didn´t stick to the 15 up/down promise. The guy had pocket J´s and also caught trips on the flop. It´s very hard to fold even do your oppenent is acting as he has a good hand especially when you have trips. I should have smelled it since I raised pre-flop and he kept betting on the flop even though I raised him. But it´s hard to fold trips. I played for three hours I was down $25 but finished down $8.5. I played 69 out of 157 possible hands,thats 43%. I need to lower it to around 35%. Im pretty pleased anyway.

Im still elated because I got the poker chips and suitcase yesterday. I´ve been trying to riffle with the chips. It´s very hard and I really feel like a newbie. Practice, practice....

On the way to the university today I practice pot odds calculating in my head. I was dividing 1,2,3 with 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and I checked my answer with a calculator. I want to be able to see the odds without having to think hard. It worked pretty good.

Suitcase filled with chips

2005-05-24T22:41:00.000+02:00

I been talking about poker for 3 months now. I´ve been trying to get my family interested, with success actually. This last weekend me and my girlfrind played with her relatives. It took a while to explain the holdem rules but then we were 8 people that played. My girlfriends sisters husband played really loose and bluffed a lot so after 5 rounds his stack was gone. He got real frustrated and wanted to borrow chips from other players. I couldn´t belive my ears, the hole winning idea would disappear if you could loose all your chips and then get new ones.

This poker session was the second one with our relatives and I´ve been talking about how cool it would be to have real chips and dealer button and stuff. And today when I got home from the university a suitcase filled with 300 chips stood on the kitchen table. My girlfriend really surprised my there. So now me and her kids have been playing for 5 hours in a row. My girlfriend is the best!!!!

Now Im going to watch the final table at the WSOP 2004. Bittorrent is great. I know my hard work is going to lead me to the winning way in poker.

Bittorrent rules

2005-05-23T00:15:00.000+02:00

I think I have grown the last few days in my poker strategy. I don´t win yet, the opposite yet, but I feel more comfortable playing. But my lack of patience is disturbing. I actually count poker odds now. I sure to be winning in a year.

I found out the beauty of the peer-peer to technology a couple of years ago but yesterday I really saw it greatness when I used bittorrent for the first time. Just look for a link for movie and then click it and you get connected to peers around the world. I found lots of poker stuff. Finally got a complete copy of poker classic and a lot of other tutorials.

I new beginning

2005-05-21T09:48:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a new beginning for me. I had very very experinced guy at my place looking at the poker robot and teaching me how to think poker. First of all he said I really got to count the pot odds quick in my head. He didn´t think it was real important to analyze the opponents in low limit poker. Stick to real good starting hands and if you hit your cards on the flop just bet. Bet good hands and fold bad hands. If bet/call if you have a draw in some way but make sure that the pot procentage is smaller then the card hitting procentage. When it comes to bluffing he thought that you could bet bluff if you don't hit your cards on the flop if you raised on the preflop. Just bet until you get raised.

After this guy left I played for 5 hours and won a couple of $ for once. He was interested in the robot.

Another good news is that I got the php-job or atleast a first 20 hour job. It´s pretty easy, a couple of forms that should be stored in a database. That´s just great if I get a few more php-jobs my summer is saved. It´s going to be poker, math and php.

Yesterday - a disaster

2005-05-19T12:56:00.000+02:00

As I been mention that Im developing a pokerrobot. It is without any poker playing logic yet. Since thats not my strong side I need help with that. Im going to meet up with a very good poker player tomorrow and he is, hopefully, going to help me out.

I been making a few modifications to the application and I needed to test it live so I deposited $50 so I could test it. These money was only intended for the robot app but suddenly I thought it was a good idea to play my self. So I played for 2 hours on limit $0.5/$1, lost $25. And then I get an even brighter idea to go up one level to $1/$2 to "just" play one table round and be real tight. But I didn´t stick to it and I reached buttom when I was holding KJ in late position and I raise preflop and I get reraised and I call. Got two pair on the flop. The board is KJ7 rainbow. Only one opponent. He checks and I bet and get raised, I reraise and he calls. The turn is A and since he bet hard on the flop I thought he had just one pair. He checks, I bet and get raised and I call. The river is a scrapcard. He bets and I call. The pot is now $25. He shows AK, two pairs cought on the turn. My entire bank roll was now gone. My possibilities to test the robot was gone and I can´t show the robot tomorrow unless I get more money some way.

Disaster is a weak word.

Poker robot progress

2005-05-17T23:52:00.000+02:00

In my strive to become a winning poker player I have developed a poker robot wich plays by itself. No good logic behind it yet. It playes good hands according to the position. As I learn more how to play I will add the poker logic to the robot. The best thing about a robot is that is doesn´t have fealings wich I have to a high degree :).

Im going to meet a very good swedish (famous)poker player tomorrow and show him the robot. He will hopefully help me on my way to greatness and in return he can use the robot in some purpose. I will mention his name some other day if he agrees to it.

Today I deposit $50 on party poker because I needed to check the current status of my robot due to me meeting tomorrow. It was my last bucks. But a man got to do what a man got to do. To become great you got to make sacrifices. I hear you all say "He lost it to the gambling devil..." but I can assure that I standing with my both feet on the ground. Now I hear you say "yeah thats what everybody says" well I guess I can´t convince you then.

Long way to go

2005-05-16T23:24:00.000+02:00

Today I entered another free roll tournament on party poker. I decided to play tight but as usual I managed for 5 min then I started to bluff. It went well for a while but then I lost half of my stack due to a bluff on the river. Then I went all-in with a guy who had gone all-in the five last times so I figured I would easy double up. I had two suited cards, K2 diamonds. Not that good of cards but I figured since this guy went all-in with everything I would be on top. But this time he had pocket J´s. No king showed up on the table so I came at 833th place, not bad. I got a long way to go to be a winning poker player.

I will get back to develop my pokerrobot and let it play instead of me.

Poker free day

2005-05-15T23:12:00.000+02:00

My cold hasn´t become any better, still got a real bad runny nose and a sore throat. With my condition I should be in bed but my step-son had a basketball finals tournament today. So I had to take a couple of pain killers and sit up on the bleachers and tear on my sore throat. He is just 11 years old but he is real good allready. They won the tournament and they can now call them self best in Stockholm in the 1994 age group.

Late yesterday I played a free roll tournament on party poker. Started out tight but then got frustrated that I didn´t get any cards so I started to bluff. The first two times it worked out fine. I won both time on the turn with nothing. But then the third time I bluffed and went all-in with when guy still to act behind me on the turn. He had called my pretty big bet on the turn and he also called my all-in. I had nothing. He had a low pair, caught on the flop. So he beat me with a pair of 7. Thats why I call my self newbie.

Today is one of the rare days without poker. But I think I will practice card hitting odds with my deck of cards.

Real mean cold

2005-05-14T20:28:00.000+02:00

I was a long time since I had such bad cold as I have right now. I have had a runny nose all week long but not this bad. I don´t think it didn´t get any better by being out in the sun all day long with my step kids. We had a pick-nick in the lovely wheater that we had today here in Stockholm.

I been staying up late all week long an not slept long enough in the mornings so I´ve been tearing on the immune system. It´s not hard to guess what reason is to me staying up late? :)

Yesterday before I went to bed I practiced counting card hitting odds. To find out if you will hit a wanted card from the flop to the turn you divide the amounts of outs(the cards you want to get) to the unseen card in the deck. So for example if you have a pocket pair then you have 2 outs and 47 unseen cards on the flop. 2/47=0,0426 wich is 4,26%. From the turn to the river you have 46 unseen, 2/46 = 0,0435 wich 4,35%. The % that you will get your card.

If you want to what the % is that your are going to get your card from the flop to the river then you calculate the % that your not going to get your card and the reverse. So with 2 outs from flop to the river, 1-(45/47 * 44/46) = 0,084151 wich is 8,42%.

So what do you need theese number for? You compare the card hitting % against % of the pot you have call or bet. So if you have to call $1 to a pot that is $10 and there is $1 bets/calls on the table then your pot odds is $1/$11 wich is 9,1%. And this means that your pot % is bigger then your chances of hitting your cards and should fold.

By telling this to you I practice this even more. Here is a more complete guide to pot odds.

I want books

2005-05-13T16:01:00.000+02:00

Does any one knwo how to find out the number of visitors of a blog? I´ve seen that you can see how many people that have seen your profile but thats all.

Im finished the book "Holdem Poker - For advanced players" by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth a while ago and I have started to re-read it. I remember the first couple pages the first time I read it, how difficult it was to follow up with the context since I didn´t have playing experience at all. But the more I played the more I understood. Im not that experienced now either, 3000 hands, but I can really get message better. Today when I read a part in it I actually recalled that I had played that hand.

Ive been looking to buy another book "Internet Texas Hold'em: Winning Strategies from an Internet Pro" by Matthew Hilger. Is think that book is great. Maybe I should sign up for another pokersite and get that book for free. Here is a link to internettexasholdem.com where you can sign up get it for free if you sign up for a pokersite your their links. But you have to play a while before you get it.

Me and my fellow student managed to finish the Prolog(AI) problem. To problem was to make a program that founds out if it´s possible to get 4 liters of water in one of two jugs. The only things you can do with a jug is to:
1. fill it
2.pour it over to the other jug
3.remove all the water in it

Its one 8 liter jug and one 5 liter jug and they are both empty at start.If you want to see it click here. It feels so great because I know a lot students in my class think Prolog is impossible. To start the program you use the write "fyll(bSize(8,5)state(0,0),state[0,0])." You need a Prolog interpreter to run it.

Life is good

2005-05-12T21:22:00.000+02:00

One good thing about having four season here in Sweden is that it is such a great fealing when everything is waking up from a long winter. Today it was really warm, I had to sit indoor working with Prolog(AI) all day long, and on the way home I felt really happy. I knew that within an hour there was a free-roll tournament starting at Part Poker. I looked around at the trees and birds and thought, life is good.

When I got home I had gotten a phone-call from my friends colleague and wanting programming help. So I called him up and he told me that he needed help with his content management tool that is used for building webpages and managing projects. It is a huge platform wich has produced a lot of cool webpages. It´s all built in PHP and that is my second language after java. So it´s looks like the summer is saved. I allready is looking forward to it poker, math and php. Thats my summer. Oh life is good.

I found a great poker blog. It´s a guy who seemes to be as much into poker as I am. You found his blog at High On Poker. He is on the way up in his poker career. He have played longer than me, I´ll have an eye on that blog.

I guess you impatiently are waiting to here about the tournament. Well I actually went pretty good. 1200 players entered the free-roll.$70 for the winner and $10 for 20th-25th place. I was aiming for 25th. Everybody got 1000 chips. I played tight. When I played I hand I played it pretty agressive. I went all-in three or four times. Im specially pleased with one play. Im in middle position with Kh7h and I raised PF to 60. I get two callers, one to the left and one to the right. The flop gives me the nuts three hearts shows including the A. The player to the right checks to me. Now Im thinking of going all-in but the pot is only 225 and I figured that if I bet my opponents would probably fold since is a suited table, I wanted to make the pot bigger. I check and so did the last player. Now Im actually hoping for another hearts so I could get some actions. The heart didn´t come. First player checks to me and now I bet but not to much. I bet 30 chips. The next player calls and the early position player folds. The river is low non heart card. So now I but a bit more, 60, and hoping to be call-raised but he only called. He had two pairs. This felt good I had gotten the pot bigger and I won it. I actually played good until I had won another all-in and had about 5500 chips. The blinds were $300/$600 and I was among the 80 player that were left. I got AQ and a guy in early position went all-in with 3000 chips and I called thinking I had a pretty good hand. But as soon as I had pushed the all-in button I regret it. I was still high on the last win I didn´t think clear. I should have had folded even if I had pretty good cards because with my bank-roll I think I could have played very tight and have managed to the 25th place. My oppenent had AKs and he made a pair of Kings so I lost and was down to 2500 chips. And then when I was small blind I went all-in again because I had J9s and I saw my chance to double up and get back in the game becuase I was soon going the be goone do to the blind size. But I got callers from players who had I bank-roll of over 10000 chips. That was it, I finished in 78th place. I the emptiness came rushing over me again. But I managed some how to look up from the screen and I looked out the window and got that "life is good" feeling again.

Can´t get enough

2005-05-12T02:50:00.000+02:00

It´s 3 o´clock in the mourning and been poker surfing and playing free-roll tournaments for 6 hours now. I just can´t get enough. There is a lot of good blogs out there and I actually found a website to the magazine that I was talking about PokerMagazine.se. Unfortunely it´s in Swedish. The magazine it self is worth learning for. :)

Another cool thing that I stumbled into was the fact that there is a poker tv channel in the UK, Pokerchannel.co.uk. If you live in europe and have the Sky package you can see it for free. I need to find out how the get it. It might be dangerous, I can see it all before me, my girlfriend would leave because I just stay in the sofa and watch poker.

Well there is a full day at the University tomorrow( or actually today) so I need to get some sleep. I probably need to call my student budy to see if we meet later on.Tomorrow I need to play some tournaments and try to get in a prize position so I can start playing for real again.

By the way, it´s not hard to figure out what the money that I make from the google ads will go to, right? So if you want to support me on my way to great poker knowledge please click on the ads.

What a great day, anyway

2005-05-11T19:30:00.000+02:00

On my way to the subway today I had to buy train tickets and when I was about to pay, it was just standing there, straight in front of my eyes... the new Poker Magazine. First of its kind in Sweden. You guys know that I don´t have any money but I just had to buy it. The leading editor is Ken Lennagård one of the best players in Sweden. He recently won a million $ in tournament in Vegas the other week.

There is articles about pro-players on tournaments and amateurs playing on internet. Ferry tale stories about people who makes a fortune playing poker. It also contained a lot of poker tactics. I just loved the magazine.

When I got home from my university, were I´ve been all day studying Prolog (AI programming), I registred for a freeroll tournament on party poker using my earned Party Points. I got a great start. The fourth hand I got was KQs (hearts) and I was on the button. It was raised twice, 100 chips, when it was my turn to act. I raised to 200 chips, I get one caller. The flop is Kd, Jh, 9h so I get I flush draw and I pair. My opponent goes All-In. I figured that he had I pair of K as well. But I thought my queen kicker was pretty good and then I had my flush draw. I should have counted my outs but I didn´t but anyway I called. The turn shows 2h and I make the flush. Great I had doubled up. At the start of the tournament everybody gets 1000 chips. So now my plan was to play very tight and let a lot of people loose so I would climb to the prize positions wich was 25th place ($10 payout). But I got more good cards and even if I didn´t hit anything on the flop I pulled away with a bluff.

I was pretty pleased with way I played. Yesterday I read that a good player don´t play more then 17% of their hands. I really tried to play tight. Then I got AJ spades in the small blind. The pot is unraised to me and I raise 100 chips. A player to the left calls and then the player on the button goes all-in. I think about for a while, I didn´t know anything about that player because he just got to the table. But I figured he probabley had a pair, I didn´t think he had Aces. I had flush chance and a chance on pair of Aces so I called. To my surprise the player to the left calls as well. I then everything goes fast as usual when everybody left is all-in. The flop was 8s, Jh, 9d and turn was 2d and the river was Qs. I hit the a pair of J but the button player had a pocket pair of Queens and made a set. The player to the left had AK suited. I was out of the tournament. I hate that feeling when one moment your in the heat of the action and then the next it is just silent. Trying to figure out how to get money for depositing real cash without going totally broke.

After a while I calmed down and I now think that this day is a great day anyway because Im holding a brand new copy of Poker the brand new magazine

Potsize limit holdem

2005-05-10T22:19:00.000+02:00

There is a guy that I use to talk to at my university who have made a lot of money on poker. Today he told me that it´s very hard to win regulary on $0.5/$1 limit holdem. He says that is so low bet size that it to easy to stay in the pot even do you don´t have a good hand. If you have a good hand and you bet it´s hard to get everybody to fold even if nobody have anything and then on the river somebody hit a good hand and your are beat.

His advice to me was that I should play pot size limit poker where you always can bet the same amount as the pot. In those games it´s easier to try to play good poker. Im not sure that they have that on party poker.

Im a java programmer and I have developed a poker robot that can play on party poker, it works really well except for the poker strategy behind it. Right now it´s very tight just bets on very good cards, never bluffs. The poker strategy is one of my university teachers going work on. The goal is to be able to leave the robot on and that is should make a few bucks an hour. I will keep you update with the progress.

I just need to tell you guys that I nearly lost my mother today do to a fire in our countryhouse. She woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that kitchen fan had been on fire. It was soot everywhere. My step dad had hard time breathing but otherwise they were ok. My heart almost stopped when I heard about it, thank god(Im an atheist but I can't think about another good saying) that they are still alive.

Hard to be poor

2005-05-09T19:34:00.000+02:00

Today I got even more worried. Im a student and the spring semester is about to end and so are my student loan pay out. During the summer I dont get any money at all so I need to get a job. The 2nd of june, last day of school, is getting closer and there for my worries. I have sent about 50 job application only 1 company maybe wanted help. There is a chance that I can study during the summer as well and get an extended student loan.

Imagine if I would have been winning regulary on poker right now, then I wouldn´t have to worry. Well that time will come.

I lost my last party poker deposit the other day. I have a few bucks saved but since i don´t know when I get money again it´s very risky to take them. But until I get money again I will study card hitting odds hard so I quickly can calculate if its ok to call or if I should fold.

Stick to the plan

2005-05-08T23:05:00.000+02:00

One of the most hardest thing is to stick to good starting hands. I have taken my starting hands from the book "Holdem Poker - For advanced player" David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth (Eh "For advanced pl..." maybe it should be "For really bad pl...." :)). I gues you know that the table is divided into positions according to the dealer button (the imaginary dealer). Seat 1-5 after the button is early position, 6-8 is middle position and the last two is late position, this I have learned from the book. Now lets say Im in early position and I get QsJh dealt to me, it´s very hard not to play thoose cards. This hand is ranked as hand group nr five and can only be played for the middle or late. In the beginning of the session I play strict and not playing those kind of hands but then later on when I see that players limp in with hands like KT from everywhere and they even win pots, I can´t resist any more. I start to losen up. So I play almost every hand with a K or A and loose because of weak kickers or I play bad hands from early position and get raised from late position and since I think everybody is bluffing I call bets and in showdown I loose.

And the I´ve lost a quick $30. Next session its the same pattern again. I need to get it into my thick skull , patience, patience, only play good hands according to the plan.

But it´s so frustrating to play only 10 (or less) out of 50 hands, since almost everybody are loose(playing a lot of hands) in limit holdem $0.5/1.

I will not quit

2005-05-08T09:23:00.000+02:00

Hi. This is my first post in the soon to be famous blog. This blog will be the story of an poker (Holdem) newbie on his way to fortune.

I have been playing online Holdem for about 3 month now, starting february 2005. I havent been playing cards much at all until I decided to give poker a try. Almost daily I hear about people how make $500-1000 a month from playing poker and also a lot of people who has it as a career. These guys are not people from the newspaper or tv but it´s friends and friends friends.

And my thought is, "If some make it, I can". Since I love to compete and setting up goals and pursue them Im going to dedicate as much time as it takes to regulary make money from playing online poker.

Now I guess you guys are wondering how it´s going. Well, in my first session I won couple of games. I was hitting almost every hand (3 month ago). I played nearly every hand. If I had a good hand a bet if I didn´t I bluffed bet. After while I guess the other players had read me and I starting to get competition to the river and of course loosing when I was bluffing. My $50 deposit was lost within an hour.

Im a computer science student with a tight budget. It was like a dagger to my heart to loose $50 that quick. But Im not a kind of guy who gives up easily and like I said my mind was set. So I started to look around for pokertips on the internet and I bought a book "Hold´em Poker - For Advanced Player" by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth (1999 ed). And I grasped more and more about the complicated game of Holdem.

I found some key element that was important: starting hands, position, bet & hitting odds, opponent read. Like I told you I was playing almost every hand but found out that you could only play a small procentage of the hands. To decide wich hands to play you had to be in a certain position. I like math (Im good at math but I like to great) so it wasn´t that hard to learn how to calculate when to bet or call. You have to make sure that you have the best hand or getting higher pot odds than card hitting odds, if you are going to play your hand further. And to be able to know when to bluff and beat a bluff you have to know your oppentents, wich hands do they play, do they bet a lot and so fourth. Most of the info I have found at an excelent poker site http://pokercheckraise.com.

Doesn´t sound like I have grasped most of it and should be on a good winning way. That couldn´t be a bigger lie. I still play to many hands, I dont follow the odds, I have a hard time reading my opponents. Problem nr 1:"I think with my heart and not with my brain". I bluff to much and I go to showdown with the 2nd(or worse) best hand.

I play at Party Poker($0.5/1) and I have lost $250 so far. I have had 3-4 winning days out of 40 and that terrible for my already strained wallet. But I will not give up. I promise you within a year I will be winning at holdem poker. Look out for new posts since I will be giving away all my knowledge along the way. This can be considered as tutorial to succesful dollarmaking poker.