Poker: 31 July

Had a few poker hands this afternoon. Trading was slow. Will blog on the Oanda platform training we went some time next week.

Ups & down in the session. I had two tables at once. Both NL Hold'em 9 players normal ring games. It went well earlier on. I noted down some bad beats (not pretty bad) though but some mistakes which I think I have to train on and watch out for in future.

Firstly, i was pretty silly. I had a pair of Js in hole. I raise on pre-flop. Only one person followed. Flop turn out to be K K 9. Opponent checks. Thats where I got it. I all-in (left about sixty cents there) thinking K has got nothing to do with him. He calls. Thats it.

Second mistake was, I had a pocket A J. I hit ace pair on flop. I didnt raise that much, I raised slowly, slowly than should be. J came out at the turn. I still raise but not very much. Opponent calls and hit a straight on river. I should have nailed him out earlier.

Some players play pretty tight in REAL money. But some play very loose. I encountered a player who buy-in double my from what I had, and finishes much earlier than me. He seems to call on every round, to the point that as though he does not have a 'Fold' button installed.

I only remembered one big win from the session. I had suited K 8 (hearts). I hit flush on flop. I raise. One of them (left) called. The turn, turn out to have another Heart. He raised. I hesitated and re-raised him. The only card he could win me is if he had an Aces heart. He calls and I grabbed the pot.

(Flushed, not royal nor straight though)

I lost overall (win in first table but lost in the second table - that all in thing). But I found myself improving, not being intimidated that much by real money, although it is micro. By the way, I was looking for a Poker Tracker (track your statistics) over the net but couldn't find any. Some are way too expensive. Blackberry mobile does not have it either. (BB Poker Life Lite doesn't track micro lots) Wonder if anyone who has any sort of tracker to recommend?

Result: -$1.12

Black.

Daniel Negreanu

I watched a few of his videos over the weekend, interesting the way he analyse people's card based on people's action. Amazing.

Here is one of them.

Anyway, this video has 1.4 million views. I'm not surprise you are already one of 'em.

Just Words

Thanks Jules for the comment on my recent tilt. Reply comments thru' post, something I learned from you. And I welcome you and "Scooby" on your first comments in my blog, thank you guys for the encouragement. Ironically, I wrote tons of trading posts and only got L&W his first comment here in this blog with a poker post.

I watched the movie Rounders (1998) on Texas Hold'em recently, after gettin' quite interested into poker. Very nice show with a lot of quotes. One of them he mentioned I find it quite true. He experienced a bad beat at the start of the show (lost his $30,000 bankroll with a full house of nines over aces to Teddy KGB's hidden aces over nines), and had never touch poker for the next nine months.

Before he sat down in his first poker table after such long break he said to himself (narrative): " In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, Jack King said, "Few players recall big pots they have won -- strange as it seems -- but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." Seems true to me, 'cause walking in here I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking how I lost it."

How true that is, even in trading sense, as it's exactly how I felt about myself. Thanks for sharing with me your experiences too Jules. Learning poker/trading rules are definitely easy, but mastering ourselves is another story. But that is what I want to do, I hope to see myself succeed some day.

I had LIVE poker for the first time with my family over last weekend for fun, and we really enjoyed ourselves. My brother-in-law went fanatic and went to buy a set of poker chips the next day and we're looking forward to another round of battle this weekend.

Taking it easy tonight. I'm playing fake money poker online for some leisure time.

+$1 million (well, fake money)

Black.

Poker: 14 July

Same tourneys today. I wanted to play ring games but I think I need more seat-down time if I want to play them, but I don't. Quite consistent for both rounds. At the edge of losing but good card gave me the chance to fight back.

I feel that in tourney, when ur stakes are running low, you have to push forward as long as you have great cards eg. AA, AK, KK, KQ, or suites pictures - at least for me. Otherwise, the blinds will eat you up alive.

Result: +$1.80