Italian Vegas

Hold’em Manager
I set this up, and it’s fantastic. The huds take a little while to customise, but when done they’re great. Opted for just VPIP/PFR/AGG FACTOR stats on the front hud, and using popups for things like 3bet, squeeze, etc. One thing that I really like in the popups is using the PFR from position to narrow down opponent ranges. There’s just so much that can be done with the software, I’m really looking forward to spending time digging deeper in it.

Results
Didn’t get as many hands in as I’d have liked to due to taking a 10 day break to do some life stuff (and drinking). With RB, bonii and some other stuff I finish the month around breakeven. Which I’m happy with considering $2.7k losses at 2/4 & 3/6! Obviously 1/2 went really well. My roll is at around $10k.

Railing, Coaching, Leggo
Did a couple of railing sessions with BTimm, LadyMuck and DWarrior early in the month. They were fun but I don’t really think they’re an optimal way to use study time for poker. I don’t play well while being railed, which is frustrating. I’m loving LeggoPoker at the moment… the quality of videos there is just so high. Happy with Leggo and posting hands on forums as my education just now.

Kind of liking not getting any coaching at the moment, it’s nice to feel like I’m moulding my own online game rather than implementing someone elses ideas. I think I’ll try to steer more away from coaching until I run bad or move up or something. Not really much of a need for it at the moment.

Hmm videos might be busted… wierd

I’ll be posting new goals and some other things tomorrow night. For now, here are some cute otters (+ Japanese girls)

Gonna wrap up August a little early as I’m headed up north to see family for most of tomorrow. I’m pretty happy with the month overall, got HEM setup and got into more of a rhythm of playing. 5-6 tabling 90 min sessions seem to be how I play best, taking a break then playing another one if I’m still in the mood. Anyways, results…

Got a bunch of stuff on at the moment that’s taking priority over poker, so not much to report right now as I’m not playing. Still getting in some study, and almost finished setting up my bankroll across some new sites. At the end of the month I’ll be setting new overall goals for poker, a $$$ target for the end of the year and monthly goals.

Went to a few gigs last week. Louis XIV, N*E*R*D, and Pendulum who were freaking amazing. Video at the top is their edit of an old Prodigy track.

Went to see this comedian last night at the Edinburgh Festival… it’s about the 6th/7th show I’ve been to in the past few weeks and he was by FAR the best! Was crying laughter tears for half the show! He’s called Louis CK.

Quiz … answers are halfway down.

Cheers for the feedback on the last couple of hands. The 2nd one particularly fixed a leak in my deep free online game where I play strong draws with showdown value too aggressively.

Anyways, here’s a link to an awesome quiz Bobbofitos made up around a year a go and recently re-posted on Leggo. It involves determining the most profitable plays with drawing hands. It’s just 3 hands but teaches some pretty important stuff.

pfffffffff … where do I start …

It has been a month since this poker blog was updated – sorry. And looking back I see that it was at the start of the $1k to $5k Challenge … hmmm … OK, there’s lots to tell.

July Wk2 – having ramped my $500 deposit up to $830 in Wk1, my target was set at $1k for end of Wk2. Unfortunately, after some horrendous beats and equally horrendous plays at 50c/$1, I was back down at $500 after just two days and around 6 hours of play. Worse was to come though as I then managed to donk off another $300 over the next two days. With the $200 I had left, I decided that I needed to have a bit of a re-think and took to the tables with a tighter than normal approach to the free online game, only getting involved in good hands at good times but all that went to pot too and through yet more tough 50/50 type beats over the next two days, I went busto!

Obviously very disappointed, I was glad that I was going on holiday during Wk3 and Wk4. I would welcome the break but would also be working on my fre online game by reading books and mags by the pool.

Wk3 /Wk4 – When on holiday I found a pub poker free online game running on the Sunday night. After dinner in the restaurant below, I signed up for it – a 20 Euro BuyIn with 1 R/A – and at the first break, with 4 guys from the original 15 out, I had 28k in chips. Without ReBuying or Adding On, I was 14k ahead of the next guy and 17k ahead of 3rd place (a good player from England).

To cut a long story short, English guy got uber-aggressive after the break making it very difficult to play directly behind and soon had a similar stack to me. He then claimed to catch a run of cards and was shoving / committing most of his 20k on almost every hand. He finished 5th and got his entry fee back. I then started to get busy with my shortish stack and managed to steal pots at good times to outlast a Dutch woman but after 30 mins of 3 handed play, I finished 3rd for 60 Euros. A decent profit all things considered.

August Wk1 – I’ve returned from holiday and before I take to the tables with half of our Challenge bankroll ($200), Derek and I meet up to discuss July’s play. From the Cash Game sheets I provide and knowing that we’re now SERIOUSLY short stacked, we change the strategy to one that will see us play the $20 Jackpot SnGs on Cardoza.

August Wk2 – I haven’t managed to get going in the Jackpot SnGs so drop down to playing the $5 and $10 SnGs when my roll hits the $50 mark. Then with $24 left, I take one last chance at the $20 JSnG and bust out with a busted nut-flush draw leaving my SharkScope looking very poorly indeed …

I’m now gonna be looking at my fre online game and deciding where I go from here. I have around $75 rakeback coming from RaiseTheRiver but I’m thinking I might just withdraw it and spend it on a new pair of jeans or something. My passion for poker is gradually being sucked out of me and I don’t know what I can / will do to get it back. Playing much less is something I’m definitely gonna try …

Derek’s having a rough time of it at the moment too. Despite being fairly steady in our Challenge, he’s taken a big hit on the WillHill Cash Games and only come close to cashing in the GTD tourneys. Having been sent a few HHs for his JSnG virtual online gamess, I’d say he’s been fairly unlucky not to be showing a profit but his head’s not fully in it either.

A poor showing and a sad post. Sorry.

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Have some BTimm certified Minus the Bear for this hand…

Preflop call doesn’t look great, but the BB is on monkey-tilt and is playing every hand hence the semi-loose BTN flat. Unfortunately he doesn’t come along.

So it’s a breakeven spot. Probably a slightly -EV spot due to the chance of being runner-runner counterfeitted or the very slim chance that he could muck AK on the turn if a flush card hits.

Should I raise flop? Instant thought is yea, I have a pr and a FD, but this is 100BB thinking, because I’d be willing to go with the hand on the flop. Here if I end up with all of my 200BB in on the flop then I’m going to be behind.

I have to assume he’s shoving the turn regardless of the card. We’re playing with an effective $227 behind. It’s costing me $114 to call into a pot that will be $343. So I’ve only got an immediate 33% equity. But factoring in that i’ll get the rest of his stack if I hit I actually have exactly 20% equity.

He then comes over the top for $162 total. At this point 100bb deep I’m obviously just mashing the all-in button, but here we’ve got more to think about. His range is now REALLY polarised…

Flop he’s gonna lead most of his range on that board. Raise here seems standard, but lets think about villain’s range a little. He’s playing 22/19 so is likely opening around the same as I do UTG. All pairs, AJ+, KQ and some pretty looking SCs like 98s, TJs. He’s probably going to lead that flop with his whole range so not much info gained there.

Stacks:

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is BTN

UTG raises to $8, 2 folds, Hero calls $8, 2 folds

One thing I’m not doing enough at the moment when playing is thinking “how would I react if villain raised me?”, a lot of the time if the answer to this is “i’d have to fold a hand with strong value” then I shouldn’t bet/raise. So maybe on this basis I shouldn’t raise flop here, I’m not sure. I guess if he does raise it often won’t price me out and force me to fold. I do get value from AJ/KQ/some lower FDs, so I think popping it up is ok, I make it 3x his raise and change, which I think is a pretty nice size, a little bigger would have been fine too I think.

$1/$2 Deep at FTP
6 players

So now we know he’s got a set or AK. We also know he’s never ever ever folding now. So shoving my draw has no fold equity. Given that my hand is a 2/1 dog to his range shoving is not an option. So do I have odds to call?

He now doesn’t have a bare flush draw, as I have the Ah and he’s not gonna make it $162 to go with any other FD. There’s an outside chance he might have opened UTG pre with QhJh or JhTh, but it’s not that big a factor so can pretty much be ignored I reckon.

Obviously at the time I thought I had odds, called and fistpump stacked him with a beautiful 6h on the turn. FWIW he had KK.

At the time I miscalculated my outs, I put him on a looser range and thought the 2 As left were at least partial outs and the 4s maybe had some out value too. Turns out none of these are outs against his range. So all I have is a 9 out flush draw – 20% to hit my flush on the turn. None of my outs are counterfeitted by pairing the board (but it could runner-runner pair).

So his range is now almost exclusively AK and sets. Does he ever do this with AQ? I doubt it, he’s just gonna flat AQ there.

Flop: ($19, 2 players)
UTG bets $15, Hero raises to $48, UTG raises to $162, $114 to Hero ($347.3)?

Download link – extract these files to HoldemManager/Config/

Anyways, feel free to pillage.

A lot of the other stats I like to use while playing, like cbet, aggression by streets, fold to 3bet%, 4bet%, etc. Are all on the cool popup menus that HM has. Might get around to customised these at some stage but this will do for now.

Stats go:

Hands Played…..VPIP%….Steal%
Name……………PFR%…..3bet%
………………….Aggfctr…BetRiver%

I couldn’t find any decent iPoker 6-max miniview huds for Holdem Manager so made one tonight. Took fucking ages, miniview is such a tight setup, there’s hardly any space to put the stats! Colours setup on all variables, mucked cards in correct places, etc.

Turn: ($122, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero ($178)?

Recently discovered Flight of the Conchords. So. Awesome.

I am just about to leave for the airport with Maya and Mila and go to Finland for the first time in a few years. It has been a fun time back in Las Vegas, although I could easily forget this last week, but thats a whole ‘nother story.

I have been playing a lot of poker this week as well. I played in Bobby’s Room with Tom Dwan, David B, Bobby Baldwin, Sammy F and a few others a few times in the past few days. We were playing mostly NL and PLO with no cap and of course props and Chinese every once in a while. The game onlines on Full Tilt are going strong as well. I have been battling in Omaha 8 and HORSE with Lolina especially the past few days.

Here is a recap of some bets I made the past few weeks.

Brandon Adams and I played our 18 hole stroke play golf match at TPC Summerlin and I played very well and won by a few shots. Easy $100,000!! We decided instead of playing a tennis match, we would play a $100,000 NL HU Freezeout on Full Tilt. I decided this was the best strategy for me, because I had so many big golf bets coming up, it was not worth the risk of getting injured. Only a few hands into the match and we both flopped trips and he turned a full house and he won back his $100,000. Easy come easy go.

My good friend Mikko finally made it to town for our highly anticipated golf adventure. The first two days were a 36 hole 2 man team total stroke play. My partner Nick and I were up 15 shots after day 1 and they conceded after 9 holes on day 2. That was $200,000 in our pockets. The next day we decided to play 36 holes, 18 hole scramble match and 18 hole best ball. We won the scramble, I was a putting machine and we won another $50,000. The best ball did not go as planned, we might have been a little cocky going into the match, and quickly found ourselves down a few shots. Jani who was quite stuck going into the match wanted to play my partner Nick in a separate match of total score, and he wanted us to lay hm 8-1. I let him bet $20,000 and looking back, it only gave Jani more reason to focus and play his best. Nick birdied 3 of the last 6 holes and made an amazing up and down on 18 to win by 1 shot and save me $160,000.

We lost $50,000 in the best ball match, but felt like a winner when Nick made his last putt. I was so concerned following their match I forgot to focus on my own online game. Anyway, it was a fun, adventurous, and quite profitable 3 days with these guys. But better then winning the money, was the look on poor Mikkos face at the end of the scramble match, he came to Vegas 110% certain he was going to win all the money and go back a rich man. He looked like a kid who found coal in his stockings on Christmas.

Full of confidence after this little match, it was time for bigger and better golf virtual games. No one better to play then Daniel and the misfits, as he likes to call them. Daniel and his little group fly around TPC every afternoon and you cannot miss them. They are usually teeing it up from the ladies tees with no shame, because I have never seen any ladies playing in their group. My coach Jimmy joined our team and we played a scramble against Daniels team. We won the first day and then got crushed the 2nd and 3rd day. We are all very good putters, but the 2nd day it was like there was a lid on top of the hole, we were hitting great shots close to the hole, but could never convert. Meanwhile Daniels team would be across the green 30-50 feet away, and sink the putt every time. Naturally this was as frustrating as it gets, but they won fair and square and I paid Daniel his money.

So when it was all said and done, Daniel is currently 83rd on the PGA money list for 2008, right behind Freddy Couples.

I am excited about this vacation and seeing my family in Finland. I will be checking Full Tilt and playing if the fre online games are good. I also want to thank all the nice railbirds who say hi to me when I am playing online, I wish I had enough time to write back to everyone, but I always appreciate the kind words.

On a final note, the 2025 Wimbledon Champion Mila Antonius has taken her first few steps, and has started walking all on her own. It was a very exciting time for Maya and I, and its hard to believe how fast she is growing.

Good luck at the tables
-Patrik-