Career Performance

Milestone Hand

2012-01-29T23:54:00.004Z

I received the milestone hand nr. #74.709.000.00 on Pokerstars:

But the best of all is that I WON this milestone, so my prize was doubled!!

Thank you to the one and only Pokerstars.

Mid Month Feedback

2012-01-15T23:33:00.002Z

Middle of the month, I think this is a good time to give some feedback.

What I have been doing? Well, I have been playing cash games, full ring no limit holdem to be more precisely. I am more disciplined than ever and I will be playing only one type of game. Of course, once and a while I will play some tournament, but my main game is full ring cash games.

I have faced one major downswing (you can check on my graph below), and another one more recently. I was going to put the toilet on the floor during my major downswing but I thought to myself that these swings are normal and if I want to be good on this I have to deal with the swings and keep going. I learned during the process.

Anyway, this month is going positive, I have already won more that the last month, and getting close to November profit. I have made more profit during the last 2 months than the last year. I think I more suited to cash games than sits games. Here is the current month graph.

Total hands: 15409 for a 12.82 bb/100.

December and Overall Performance

2012-01-02T23:34:00.001Z

December Results
Last Month I played about almost 30k hands. Witch was reasonable good compared to November, where I played only 5k hands. I ended in the profit zone with basic the same amount of profit as November. I think I miss some +EV spots due to my mass multitabling sessions, where I was playing with 24 tables at the same time for about 60 minutes. Anyway, here it is the last month graph with the net amount won:

Can you see the major 2 downswings? The first one is a smaller one between the 8k hand and the 13k hand. Then I was hit hard with no mercy for about 8k hands, this was the time where I learn that downswings of this kind are normal, and I must expect them, that's why bankroll management is so important. My major downswing was no more than 5 buy-ins, I read on professional blogs that 12 buy-ins downswings are common to good poker players (ouch!).

Cash Games Overall
Anyway, after playing sits, where I put my sharkscope on the positive side but did not make it on the good profit side, due to lack of volume, some skill and variance, I decided to move on to cash games. After reading some blogs, forums it seems to me that they can be less prone to variance and more profitable in the long term. Here is the picture of the 2 months, November and December cash games sessions.

I played about 35k hands with a 10bb/100, making a VPIP of 12%.
This month I reduced the amount of tables to the 14-18 range and increase my focus on the tables. I am not pursuing any kind of VIP status or bonus right now. I think at this level it's not +EV to pursuit rakeback in detriment of profit and improvement, The VIP pursuit will be for another season.

2011 Thoughts

2011-12-31T17:51:00.001Z

I will not play any game today, I am going, (with my wife and son), to my father-in-law house to dinner and we will spend the all night there. I have Internet and a laptop there, if I awake up early tomorrow morning, I will probably start my 2012 grind in the morning.

I played more cash games hands this month than any month of the year, I am satisfied about my current game at the tables. The key factor that I miss most of the time during the year was volume. But that is not so bad, because I consider myself a novice player in many areas on Holdem, so not playing many games per day is not a big issue. After all, this is not my job, at least for now.

I consider a 2011 a rich experience in terms of learning but also, somehow, disappointing due to my lack of discipline in grinding one type of game. I will correct this error next month, I may just have corrected because I only played one type of game during this month.

I will put December results on the next post, just leave here a picture of my final VPPs 2011 year.

10 Years Of Excellence

2011-12-18T22:08:00.004Z

There are some things in life that just by saying the name of that "thing", we remember excellent quality, excellent product, excellent guarantee of use, excellent performance, excellent work, excellent ethic.
This apply in many areas in life, take football (or soccer) for example, if you say your favorite team name, you are going to remember something excellent about. Take you car dreams name, it will be the same. You can also think about some people, maybe your closest family members, how excellent they are in your daily life.

The main thing applies to one name of a "thing" in the world of online poker, Pokerstars.
Yes, Pokerstars to many people, (including me of course), is a sign of excellence. They are excellent in many things. They have an excellent software for online poker, they have an excellent ethic that is the same to all customers, starting from the player that only plays few hands per month to the professional player. They have an excellent reward service in the business that rewards the most volume players. One key factor is listening to the customer and implement new ideias.

They are excellent in many areas, and they are surprising me all the time, every month, every year with little things, like receiving an excellent e-mail from they support to more important things like creating a brand new tourney series (by the way they are going to release next month a new one), or implementing a great promotion or breaking a new world record Guinness.

I play as an amateur player on Pokerstars but I am very proud to play on the one and only, the greatest online poker room, that some people, 10 years ago decided to call, Pokerstars.

Merry Christmas and a happy new 2012 year!

Current Perfomance

2011-12-11T01:25:00.001Z

Hello, this week I played many hands on full ring NL cash games. Most of my sessions are profitable, I played 10 sessions this month, I had 2 losing sessions and 1 break even session, so I can complain too much. I played 15950 hands this month. I am enjoying the cash games experience, I am not studying so much as I should, so I am going to concentrate on improving my game last 2 weeks of the month (of course you should always strive to improve your game).
Leave here my current performance for the month.

Month Results

2011-12-04T23:24:00.001Z

This month I only managed to play on 2 days, one on the 1st of December and today, I will put more work during the next week. I am playing about 1k hands for session. Started the month a little bad, with some ugly spots (those sets are killing my overpairs!), ayway it's all part of the game. Played about 4k hands this month, leave here the current performance. Will try to update every week, stay tuned!

Last 3 Months Review

2011-11-30T00:03:00.001Z

Since September I have been playing almost every type of sits. I must admit that I don't have the discipline to specialize in one type of sit. The true is, if you want to make things work on poker, you must dedicate to one type of sit first and grind a lot.

Anyway, I was reviewing the games that I played and where I have most game played are on the 180 players hyper turbo, with a decent ROI. I had some good results on the 90 and 180 man sits, but the 180 mans are very full of variance and the 90 man takes too long, specially the regular blinds speed.

I decided to give a try to full ring cash games during the last days. I have good results on a very short sample of about 5,5k hands, but they are promising results. I ended playing 5515 hands and making 35bb/100 at NL2. I won't play tomorrow so I leave here some pics and I will workout my game next month.

Less Volume This Month

2011-11-24T00:10:00.001Z

I haven´t put many hours to the game this month. Been busy with a small project on my leisure time. Anyway, I played a few sits and some cash games. I am going to put more study until the end of the month and try a new approach on cash games next month. This approach should incorporate strategy and volume. I will also continue to play multi table tournaments/sits, they have lot's of dead money.
Here is my current perfomance on cash games, the volume is very, very low, I will set goals for next month, if the things workout I probably going for cash games full ring in January. If not, back to muiltitable sits. I am going to cross my fingers for the next month!

Playing and Learning

2011-11-13T00:48:00.001Z

Hi, October was a low volume month for me and I did not made anything memorable to write. This month I had a 10th place on a tournament with 1000 players, so I was the bubble final table player.
I have been playing some sits but not so much volume. I played my first cash game session today for the month and it was ok. I like to play cash games but unfortunately I do not have the knowledge to beat these games. Anyway I leave here a decent graph from today session.
I am thinking already next year what type of games should I grind a lot and conquer, because I want to make more money and more volume next year and probably turn this business n he right track so I can think about doing professionally in a near future.

Past Hand Review

2011-10-15T22:22:00.001+01:00

I was reading an old post from my blog, that has the title "2 Outer on the River", I posted on May this year. At the time I write that "I lost to a 2 outer on the river". Then, some nice guys did correct me on the comments to 4 outs and another one write 3 outs. Anyway, probably I did not explain very well my hand but the truth is 4 outs.

Let me explain better, step by step.
Preflop: I had AQo on the big blind, loose opponent has J7o on the cutoff and decides to play his hand. Preflop my hand has 66,7% Equity against his hand.

Flop: on the flop 3 cards are on the board, those cards are King of Hearts, Seven of Diamond and Teen of Diamond. Opponent make his pair of sevens, (bottom pair), and I have a nothing but a draw, a straight draw. If a jack comes on the turn or river I complete my draw and I make a straight.

Ignoring the opponent hand, (when playing the hand I do not know his cards), there are 4 cards, (4 jacks), "out there" to complete my draw, so at this moment I have 4 outs. The math says that I have 16% chances to win the hand (winning odds), or 17.2% to be exact.
At this moment I am behind to my opponent pair, so my equity is reduced to 35,9%.

Turn: The positive variance his at my side this time and I make my straight, and nice to me that my loose Opponent make his second pair, because he is willing to put more money on the pot unless he suspects that I had the straight.

At this moment there are only 4 cards to come from the deck that could beat my straight, those cards are: Jack of Spades, Jack of Diamond, Seven of Spades or Seven of Clubs. So my opponent has 4 outs to make his full house on the river, and not 2 outs like I write before.
The math says that he has only 8% chance to win (or 9,1% chance to be exact).
At this moment my equity increased to a huge 90,9%, I am a big favourite to win this hand. In the long run I win about 90% of the time against his hand with this board.

River: One of the 4 outs does come on the river with the Seven of Clubs, so my opponent does make his 9,1% winning chances and wins this hand with the full house, (3 Sevens + 2 Jacks)

Observations:
I do not have here the bet amounts present at the moment, so with a 16% chance on the flop a good player must figure out when playing if he isn't paying too much to go to the turn. This hand was played in a cash game (not a sit and go or a tournament).

Here is the original post.

Words To Think About It

2011-10-15T01:20:00.003+01:00

I want to leave here a link to a Portuguese poker player who wrote some correct and great things about having an edge in today's poker games, specially online poker. For the people who don't know portuguese language, there is some tools online to translate the text.

http://pokerpt.com/blogs/95-naza114/o-edge-comeca-muito-antes-do-torneio-comecar

Thank you João Vieira.

More Players, More (Long Term) Profit

2011-09-27T00:26:00.000+01:00

What can you do with $1? Well, you can turn in $100!
I played the most profitable games this month, the 90 and 180 players on Pokerstars. With an average buy-in of $1 I made more than $100. I am still chasing the $2.50 top 3 place, hope that will be very soon.
After months of average to poor results, I finally find myself playing the right games.

I Am Back Again

2011-09-23T01:20:00.001+01:00

It's nice to post when you are having good results, so I will do just that. September is being my best poker month of the year in terms of profit. I am playing most of the time the 180 man hyperturbo sits. I play occasionally some MTT's. The month is still not over, but I am not measuring my results on a monthly basis for now. By the way, I decided to leave the VIP pursuit for another time and concentrate my energies on getting better at the games.
Here is a nice picture from the month:

Hyper Turbos 1st Place

2011-09-12T00:22:00.001+01:00

I have been playing multitable sit and go's this month, not 2 tables, not 5 tables but 10 tables (90 players) and giving a try at the 20 tables tournaments (180 players). I have a very short sample on them too really know if I am beating the games or not, nevertheless I am showing a profit, perhaps better than I was expecting due to the small sample. I have some decent results at the 90 players tournament in Turbo mode (blinds speed), zero profit at the 180 players in turbo mode but an 1st place at the hyper turbo 180 players, the new $1 SNG with 180 players.

I think this performance is not luck, although it has it's role on this short sample, but has someone use to say, the better I am the lucky I get. I have been working on my end game, studying hand ranges equity when you have less than 20 big blinds. A great Portuguese professional poker player wrote on his blog that a medium pair has a better chance to win against a random hand than a premium hand like Ace-King.

Meanwhile I have so much to learn and study, I have some good material to study about the math that it makes part of the game, concepts like expected value, basic probabilities, hot and cold equity, game theory and many more subjects to sharp my skill at these games.

The 90 players and 180 players tournaments have more variance than the single table tournaments but you get a higher return on your investment with these games. I invested $1 today and made about $48 in profit. Leave here a picture of my 1st place at the tournament, not so much because of the result itself, but because it's my first 180 players 1st place at a higher variance hyper turbo format.
The tournament duration was almost 60 minutes, they are fast!
But remember, we shouldn't be results oriented, the most important are the +EV (Expected Value) long term decisions that we make at the tables.

WCOOP 2011

2011-08-30T23:37:00.002+01:00

The World Championship Of Online Poker is back.
Do you want to be the next online poker champion? See the schedule details only on Pokerstars.

Mega Promotion on Pokerstars

2011-08-03T01:30:00.001+01:00

I just saw today that during August Pokerstars is having a huge mega promotion, you can make Platinum with only 750 vpps!! I still don't have my new pc, anyway there is no time for system failures I just have to borrow a notebook from a friend or give some steam to my old pc and grind the vpps to make platinum this month!!

System Failure

2011-08-02T13:42:00.002+01:00

I haven't updated the blog because I haven't played any game at all on the last days. My desktop computer is having some problems and I cannot play anything. My pc has 10 years, so it was expected that sooner or later he was going to give me some problems. I will buy a new pc on the next days so I probably will start to play next week or middle of August. Will comeback to the 9 Max SNG (regular blinds) and want to put some really effort on the game.
Stay tuned for latter updates!

July Update

2011-07-16T21:13:00.002+01:00

Don't forget it but move on

I ended the 18 man SNG turbo grind/coaching. For the coaching point of view I did not make the required number of games in a month and that was the deal. So it was better for me and for the coach to stop right now until I can work out and put a great deal of volume. Nevertheless, I enjoyed very much the coaching experience and learn some things about shoving more on the late game.

I won't forget this experience but I am fresh and released from the last grind and ready to move on to my "beach", the STT normal blinds SNG games.

I am playing 6 man games, enjoying and profiting slowly and steady. I want to move on to the $3 buy-in somewhere next month and play a lot this month. I am not sure if I will be a shorthanded sng player or a full ring sng player, or both, the experience will shape my path.

The 2011 vs 2010 Performance

I know that the sample is short (specially last year), but I could not be more disappointed with my current performance. I have learn more things this year but I am running poor, I identified two main reasons:

- the increase on the number of tables playing per session. Last year I played 6 tables on average, where this year I am playing 12 tables on average.

- the lack of dedication to one type of SNG game. Last year my main game was 9 man SNG (normal blinds). This year I played a few types: 9 man and 6 man (normal blinds), 18 Man (Turbo), 9 Man (Turbo) and Heads-up.

This is the picture that compares both years, one of the filters have SNG+MTT's (Tournaments) from last year.

What's next?

Pick up the skill, shape up the mind, calm down the emotions, study hard and put more volume. Dedication to on type of SNG. I will play occasionally some MTT's but they aren't (for now) my main focus.

Stay tuned for more updates!

June Recap

2011-07-02T18:04:00.005+01:00

June wasn't a good profit month in terms of grinding. I did not improved my game on the first weeks of June and the lack of focus in one dedicated area of game was bad. I played some cash games and SNG's. In terms of volume was nice, I made Silverstar twice by making more than 1900 vpps, not enough for GoldStar (3000 vpps).

As for cash games, well I just grinded all the way and ended up losing in some spots that I shouldn' bet more and lost in another spots where I was favorite to win. I think my main leak on cash games is the lack of knowledge and the way to deal in some spots. I think cash games are long term ev+ and is an area that I will probably return to them in the future. For now I decided to take a grinding cash games break.
I am focusing my next 5000 games on 18 Man Turbos SNG. This is because I am taking coaching on this area with another players. I just started on the last week of June so the results should come out very soon.

June Overall SNG's Graph:

There was a type of SNG that I made profit in the end, the 6 Man (Normal Blinds). I just played the micro stakes on them and I think they are very soft. Besides being profitable on them, for now I will improve and grind the 18 Man Turbo SNG.

June 2 types of SNG games results:

July is here, so lets' go get them and make a good month.

Silverstar Achieved

2011-06-10T01:35:00.002+01:00

Just a matter of time and volume, today I achieved Silverstar. I am playing more cash games this month just to spice things around and learn some new things. I will keep playing them for a while, my last sessions have been positive but I have some major downswings a few days ago. Whenever I had a big pocket pair I was always losing and I even lost sets vs sets. Really sick, but those things happen. I will keep puting some really nice volume this month.

May in The Books

2011-06-01T00:41:00.005+01:00

This month I decided to change things and leave the SNG grind apart for a month, (although I played just a few of them).
I decided to play micro stakes cash games and check-out my results after some volume. Well, bad beats apart and I did not made the volume necessary to renew Silverstar this month. Anyway, June is going to be another VIP pursuit and will get there with no worries.

I played NLH full ring and NLH 6 max. cash games and even some fixed limit. I profited on NLH and lost some money on FLH. I got some sick suck-outs on my nit full ring experience and some nice hands too. The 6 max cash games have much more action, you have on some tables a hell of a party because everyone is raising and re-raising with some marginal holdings, (the kind of hands that will suck you out on the river!)

Anyway, I enjoyed a lot the experience on cash games, specially at 6 max NLH that I will possibly grind them out on June. It's a different beast apart from Sit & Go's, the full ring are more a kind of valuing your good hands by betting on all streets. On 6 Max, you have to be more aggressive and widen up your hand range.

Btw, I grinded some 21 tables at the same time (full ring) in one of the sessions (picture on the end). I did not made anything specially in terms of profit, but will leave here the results pre-rakeback.

The curve line on the graph is the profit, the green bars are the number of hands played per day:

A masive multitabling experience in one of the sessions:

See you in June!

2 Outer on the River

2011-05-19T20:36:00.002+01:00

On the last post I showed the Royal Flush, and the positive variance that sometimes are present in the poker sessions. Well, I am going to show you an amazing hand, where I make the straight on the Turn and according to PokerStove I am 90% favorite to win this hand, but I lost to a 2 outer on the river, when opponent makes his Full House.
Here are the pics to prove it! (hahaha, now I am preseting the pics to prove the negative variance).

The Royal Flush

2011-05-10T00:41:00.006+01:00

Literally, I had 2 hands (in different sessions), where I made royal flush, the only two that I made in my poker career, so you can see that the odds to make are very thin. The probability to make 4 of the possible Royal Flush in one deck of (52) cards are 1 in 649740 or 0.000154%.

Here are the pics to prove it! I made both this year, one in a heads-up game and the other on a 9 man SNG game. Have you done your royal flush this year?

The Need to Improve

2011-04-19T00:11:00.002+01:00

I played already more than 400 games, but believe me, this month is being very though. I am negative in $4 and I need to reduce my volume... for a few days only.

I am going to watch some videos and study ICM during this week so I will probably not play any game, but I will return on Thursday or Friday to some mega sessions.

I need to stop for a while, review sessions, study and apply ICM to my sessions and watch some videos to improve my game at the single table tournaments. I was analyzing my data and I have a 11% ROI in 1060 games on 9 man SNG regular blinds (since last year), witch is reasonable. This year I am negative. So I figured out that all that I need is a break and some home study on my game to get back to good results. Of course, I have some variance this year, because I am multitabling on average about 12/15 tables at the same time.

Feeling good with my past data and I have been on this situation before, I was negative on Sharkscope and I did turned things around last year. Another turn around was on my turbos SNG's. I was negative on them and I did turned them positive this year.

I probably will return to the regular blinds SNG's after this pause.

By the way, online gambling could become legalized in the state of Columbia in USA:

http://www.denverpost.com/entertainmentlastold/ci_17828343.

See you at the tables!

Week Feedback

2011-04-09T22:03:00.004+01:00

The game of choice

This has been a good week, in fact, a good month. I decided to grind the 9 man turbo since last month and I have been doing very well. I still played some 18 man and regular blinds 9 man this month but the game of choice will definitely be the 9 man Turbo.

Stakes and multitabling improvement

I am playing at the $1,75 for now, I am more than rolled for the $3,40 but I want a bigger sample at this level and perhaps a shoot at the sharkscope leaderboard this year. I move up in stakes very soon.

My main improvement has been on my ability to multitable. I am now playing 15 tables on my sessions with profit (if the conditions are normal). I had some sessions with more tables, (my maximum is 20), but they did not ended very well, but I guess playing my "A" game with 15 tables at the same time in a 19'' monitor is a great achievement!

Here is a picture of the month, from the 235 games played, 194 games are from the 9 man turbos.

March Review

2011-04-01T22:58:00.004+01:00

March is over, was a solid month in terms of volume, I achieved 600 games played.
In terms of profit I made about 35 buy-ins more. On the VIP status, I made about 800 Vpps, and 1933 Vpps for the year. The final days of March were very though, I had fantastic sessions on the last weekend and then, starting on Monday until Wednesday I went on the red and a huge downswing hit me and I lost some races were I was 70% favourite on crucial hands.

Plans for the second trimester, starting in April. Like I said in one of the last posts, volume is the goal, and of course, make good decisions at the tables. I will try to play more games on April, I challenge myself to play about 800 games in total (it's going to be hard, I have about 2/3 hours on average per day).

See you at the tables!

Sunday Update

2011-03-27T21:53:00.003+01:00

This month is almost over, nevertheless it has been a reasonable month in terms of profit and volume. I still think I can make the 600 games this month and make a nice one hundred bucks, but if not, no big deal, I am counting on more volume next days and increase my edge over the games. By the way, I think this is my best volume month in my entire sng career.

Multitabling is another very important skill for a online poker. I am very comfortable right now in playing 12 tables at the same time, my current maximum tables is 20 but only did that two times and is very though on a 19'' Monitor.

Leave with a graphic for this month, had two majors downswings along the way and recovered from both with more play. See you soon!

Measuring Volume

2011-03-24T20:53:00.004Z

I haven't played much the last days, about 10/12 games on average per day witch is very low for my ambitious. Anyway, instead of updating my performance on a monthly timeline, I have decided to measure my SNG performance on the number of games that I play at a given type of SNG.

I see 2 advantages here: the more bigger the sample, the better gives you're exact ROI and reduces the variance; and to let you know more clear if you are beating the game by not worrying about a timeline or a specific date to show the results. My goal is to reach as soon as possible the 1k mark on one or both of games at the 9 man and 18 man (turbos), buy-in independent. My current numbers are on the picture below, as you can see, most of my volume at the SNG turbos that I played this year were made this month.

I am playing the turbos, 9 man and 18 man. I am more than rolled to play the $1.75 and the $3.40. Due to the small sample on the 9/18 man turbos, will play both stakes and check out the performance.

Quick Update

2011-03-17T23:07:00.003Z

Downswings, upswings, volume, bad beats, good decisions, bad decisions... this is poker, this is grinding. I am going for a multitable session after this post, so I leave here my current graph for the month and wish me luck and skill!

March Update

2011-03-06T22:55:00.002Z

Decided to make a quick update on my current progress. I started pretty well this month with a good volume and profit at the tables. I am playing the 18 Man Turbos at the $1.75. I have more than enough to play the $3.40 but I want to grasp the strategy and make a decent sample on these ones. Wich me luck this week, so I can make a good update on the next post.

March Prediction

2011-03-01T14:14:00.000Z

I played 415 games on Januar and 289 games on February. January was positive, (3% ROI) February was negative (-6% ROI).
I want March to be my best month in terms of volume and profit. This is always a risk to define profit goals, because it's not good to be results oriented. Anyway, I will take my chances to play the most games and the best I can. Volume goal for this month: 600 games. I will be more satisfied if I can make it 1000 games. Profit terms, to be my best month I must make more than $100 but $200 will be awesome! This is the positive outcome that I want to achieve, things could turn another way around and I could end the month with less profit and games played, but I hope not. By the way if i failed to make good results on the 18 Man (Turbo blinds), will return to the 9 Man SNG (regular blinds).
Congratulations to Azntracker, he is the new Supernova Elite 2011 and fisrt one to make in the shortest time possible.
Good luck to everyone at the tables!

Month Feedback

2011-02-26T00:33:00.005Z

Hello again, this month I dedicated to heads-up games most of the time. I played 238 heads-up games. It started very good, grinding the $6.25 (Turbos), at one point, about 65 games I was almost $70 in profit. Then things started to get very ugly, and I lost a lot on them (more than 10 buy-ins). Of course, I was rolled to play them but because I am a nit about bankroll management, I dediced to put them on hold. There aren't HU Turbo games at $3 level on stars and the regular blinds at heads-up are so boring. Anyway, I enjoyed very much the HU experience and will increase my study on them (I have been studying the proper stratey to play HU SNG's), and sooner I will return more confident.

The question now is: what games should I focus next month? I decided to take a look at my stats on the all games that I played. Where I played most games at the 9 Man SNG (regular blinds) and is where I made more profit. I could return to them but right now I need a break at the 9 Man, so I will play some 18 Man Turbos next month.

Congratulations to pukax9, for his challenge, he is a great 6 Max SNG Player! I wish Stars could have 6 Man SNG at the $3 buy-in but with regular blinds. I enjoy these games but the $6.60 is a little too much for my conservative bankroll and $1.20 has a high rake to be atractive to play.

January Recap

2011-01-30T12:01:00.002Z

Finally this month is over, what a month! Profit wise wasn't that good, still ended on the profit zone but I am disappointed with the 9 man results.

I played a total of 386 games this month (good volume) and 277 games of 9 man with a very small profit on them. The other games was 6 man (break even but a very small sample), 45/18 Man turbos and heads-up. I had my best results on the heads-up sng but i played just a few of them.

Yesterday I defined some ambitious goals for this year but I will not write right now. I want to see how february goes on my sng grind. If I make my profit goal for next month, I will be prepared to accomplish some ambitious goals.

Finally I renewed my Silverstar status for February by playing, most of the time, the $3.40 SNGs. If you play 12 of these games per day, on 30 days you are Silverstar.

Mid Month Feedback

2011-01-16T01:46:00.003Z

There isn't much to say about this month, I have been playing a lot of 9 Man SNG ($3.40 stakes for the majority of the time), a touch here and there at 6 Man. All of them at regular speed blinds. According to my spreadsheet, I played about 292 games this month (and year), so I am satisfied with the volume but still not perfect volume (if I had about 600 at this point, I would be very satisfied).
Anyway, it's the 1st time that I put this kind of volume. I am positive in terms of profit but still did not reach the 3 digits profit for the month, so I am disappointed in terms of my ROI (about 3%).
So, this has been a volume month but not so profitable has I would like to be.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Career Graph (SNG Only) and more...

2011-01-05T00:08:00.004Z

A picture from my career path until the end of the last year. This graph only shows the SNG, I have some good results on MTT's that are not represented here. This is from the popular Sharkscope.

2009 was my first year on Poker, more exactly the No Limit Texas Holdem. Was a year to learn the game, to have fun, make some good friends (Paulo Mesquita from Braga, if you are reading this, you are one of them!). I got my first poker book on August and started to post hands on Forums.

I started to take Poker more seriously on 2010, starting to grind 9 Man SNG (regular blinds), and I managed to get positive by grinding these type of game. I reeded more new books on 2010, watch some videos and have some long remote sessions with a friend from England that unfortunately I lost his contact a few months ago, (yes Bruce, it's you, you are a great SNG player, give some news!).

2010 was a year to try different SNG formats, and you can see that the graph was a roller coaster due to that but I manage to be positive and learn fundamentals things during the process. I also decided to built my SNG career path on the only and only Pokerstars.

2011 it's going to be different, I am more mature but still always leaning and improving the game. 2011 it's going to be a volume and dedication year, I am going to grind one type of SNG and play some MTT's.

I will post updates very soon, but just to let you know that I already played 89 games this year on 9 players SNG.

Stay tuned.

2010 Review and 2011 Plan

2011-01-01T16:32:00.005Z

2010 Performance Review

Poker is such an evolving game that we are always learning new concepts, studying others concepts that are more familiar and taking each and every new concept one by one.

For example, last year I learn the basic rules of No Limit Holdem. I also learn how to play in position, one very important and misunderstood concept by the way. But you know what, even this year I must reinforce to myself the importance of position when reviewing my sessions.

I am suspecting that next year I will study some concepts like ICM and bubble factors. Yes, I read the basic theory behind but that is not enough to win consistently at the poker tables, reading is one thing, studying, analysing and applying are very different things.

One of the things that I learn this year is about volume and skill.

Volume and Skill are co-related

One very important thing I learn is that volume and skill are co-related. Beginners and recreational players play much less volume than more dedicated or professional players. Skill is present, it may not be seen at first glance, but is there. The only way to bring the skill out of the game is to put volume. Luck is also present on the game, on the short run you can lose to a bad beat, a cooler but those things have a minor probability to happen, (ironically they happen much more times when you play more hands, but it is compensated by the other times when you make good decisions). I played in a year what some Pro’s play in a month or less, so you can see how volume is important.

Multitabling

Yesterday I had one of my best sessions at 9 Man SNG grind and was the session that I played more tables: 16 tables at the same time! I made almost $60 in profit games plus $50 on VIP stellar rewards and it was more than $100 in profit for a single day. I am much better at handling more than 10 tables at the same time. I started playing 2/3 tables at the same time on January of 2010, increasing the number of tables slowly. There was a time when I was comfortable with 4 tables in title format. I increased to 6 tables in cascade format and on the last 3 months I made the switch to 8 tables ending at 10 tables on average during the last days.

Multitabling 16 tables at the same time is though, specially when you are deep in the SNG. For example when you are approaching the bubble it becomes a very mathematical game. You have to pay attention to you stack and other players stack, your position, bubble factors become important and ICM is always present and finally, the strength of the cards that you hold. When you are ITM, 3 players playing or heads-up is very though but also very exciting!

2011 Milestones

This year I will do my best to stay consistent in one SNG format and put much more volume. I will also play more MTT's online. I am not going to put here some profit numbers, just say that I will put volume on the 9 Man SNG (regular blinds). I will start to grind the $3.40 buy in (like I have been grinding) and mixing with the $5.50 buy in. I wish to end the 1st Semester grinding the $11 buy in and already have some very good months with more than 500 games per month.

I will keep you guys in touch, by the way, if I want to share some quick update I will post on Twitter on: http://twitter.com/lmagalhaes78.

Cheers.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-18T17:19:00.003Z

I wish to all my followers and readers a merry Christmas and a happy new 2011 year.

Searching for a Gold...GoldStar.

2010-12-06T19:04:00.002Z

Today I made Silverstar again, I collected 750 Vpp this month so I extended my Silverstar status until the end of January has you can see on the picture. I am going to try to reach Goldstar, I am on a good pace and I hope I can reach 1k Vpps on Wednesday.

Good luck at the tables!

Top 10 Today (at the moment)

2010-12-02T14:37:00.003Z

I had a great cash game session this morning, and I found out that I am on the top 10 poker winners today at FL Holdem at 0.25/0.50 stakes.

Of course this will change, I am going for another session today and I can be it better or worst shape at the end of the session. Anyway just to show you guys that you can always find some ways to learn a new type of game and be willing to work hard and achieve something. About my VIP status, I have right now about 100 Fpps, and will work to maintain Silverstar.

See you at the tables!

Silverstar Achieved!

2010-11-30T17:03:00.003Z

Once again, I made it, I am Silverstar until the end of the year. I will try to maintain Silverstar for January also. Goldstar? Well, it is more harder but not impossible, probably next year. Just accomplished 2 of my goals for this month: SNG Leaderboard and Silverstar. Add the $45 profit at the 18 Man SNG (Turbo) and this month was good.

I realize that is very hard to climb the Pokerstars VIP by playing micro stakes SNG's, that is why I played some shorthanded limit holdem cash games. It is not what I like to play most but I am learning other concepts on these games.

SNG Leaderboard

2010-11-28T00:26:00.002Z

It's been a while since my last post. I have been working on my goals for this month and I will achieve at least 2 goals that I set up has a mini challenge. I will achieve Silverstar this month, I just need more 85 FPPs to make it, and I am on the SNG Leaderboard this week, at 63rd place:

I have been playing some limit holdem cash games to get some FPP's and during this week I played some 18 Man Turbo SNG's, that's why I achieve it the SNG Leaderboard Mercury orbit.

Stay tuned for my Silverstar picture very soon!

Month Feedback

2010-11-10T23:50:00.003Z

First Congratulations to the 2010 WSOP Winner: Jonathan Duhamel.

Well, this month I am working on the nr. 1 mini challenge from the last post: to make silverstar.

The more important is to be a better player and improve the game, going for silverstar is a motivational thing to put more volume. I have been playing some cash games to mix up the whole process.

Here is the current VIP status:

See you at the tables!

November Mini Challenges

2010-10-26T23:19:00.003+01:00

What is a challenge to you?
Well for me is an opportunity to grow and become better at something. Sure is a motivational thing to do. I decided to set up some new small challenges for the next month to have a "back again" to the tables more focused than ever. I will set up some goals that are going to be challenging for me and I must achieve at least one until the end of November and will start on the 1st day.

The Challenge
The challenge is to try to accomplish one of these goals on November and will start only on November, so here they come:

1. Make Silverstar.
2. Play 500 games.
3. Make more than $150.
4. Make $50 in one single day (my current record is $72 in one single day).
5. Ended up on the SNG leaderboard (whatever will be at low orbit or high orbit).

Goals Explanation
- The 1st one is something that will put me on the volume side to play at least 22 games per day at $1 stakes, or about 12 games per day at $3 stakes. I am more than rolled for the $1 and $3 stakes (probably for the $5 too).
- The 2nd is related to the 1st one but a little bit more softer.
- The 3rd and 4th doesn't deserve any explanation, is pure profit goals.
- The last one is to try to make something that I never made and could give me more profit too.

SNG Structures
I will choose whatever SNG I like, but I am more inclined to play the 18 man tables. Probably mixing with some 27/45 and 180 man tables. I will also play some 360 man tables. For the most part expect to see me at the 18 man tables

Buy-ins
Well, like I said before, besides my current downswing this month, I have 100 buy-ins to play the $5 tables. But, because I am a nit at bankroll management, and because the multitable SNG's have more variance than single tables, I will play at the $1 and $3 buy-ins.

Schedule Play
On weekdays expect to find me at the tables between 23h and midnight grinding at least 6 tables and some times 12 tables at the same time.
On weekends I will play on the same schedule but with more flexibility to play on afternoon.
I probably play some MTTs on the weekends.

So this is it, let the challenge begin on 1st of November.

Let me leave you guys with a picture where I was playing on the Sunday 1/4 million and there was the professional Pokerstars player Leatherass9 (Dusty Schmidt) on my table.

October Feedback

2010-10-24T17:55:00.003+01:00

Results
This month has been terrible, I am down for about $120. I played some different structures (again) and even on the regular one, the 9 Man SNG, I am having some bad results lately. In fact, was on 9 man sng (regular blinds) that I lost most and next was 9 Man SNg (turbo blinds). But the sample size is ridiculous, only 66 games combined on these games, wich is a very small sample.

Multitable SNG
Where I am being profitable (this month)? I played 21 games of 18 Man SNG (turbo) and I have a 16% ROI on them. I also played 47 games of 45 Man SNG (turbo) and made a 14% ROI on them. I think my grind will be on the 18 Man SNG. What about 9 Man SNG? Well for now, I will not play them as much as I could.

Volume
I played this month 291 games, and I will reach 300 for sure. Right now is my highest volume month, I am happy for that. I have a goal to reach 1k games in one month, not sure when that will be, but I am getting closer to that mark.
Silverstar this month? Well, with so much volume, I need to make 384 FPP to reach silverstar. I should play 35 games everyday until 31 of this month. I am not sure if I will do that, let's see.

Future Thoughts
This month was so hard for me. I mean, the downswing's are part of the game, I see some serious professional players who make thousands of dollars each month by playing SNG's and they all have downswing's for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.
Volume is the key to keep making profit, this is a long term game and on the short term luck plays a big role but on the long term, skill is master.
I think I will play more multitable SNG than single table SNG because they are more profitable besides having more variance.

180 Man SNG
These are the most profitable and yet more variance sng that exists (in turbo blinds). I have been looking at some pros results and these games are very very profitable. I played a few this month and did not cash in any of them but I enjoyed a lot. I think these games have potential to become my grind on the future, not right now because I do not have the perfect bankroll to grind them and I also need to study them. To make good profit on them you have to play at least 1k in one month.

These are my thoughts on my actual poker career. Not a good month but you should not look to your short term results, instead, look at your decisions at the tables and work towards long term profitable results.

Back to 9 Man grind on Turbo mode

2010-10-05T01:55:00.003+01:00

I am down for the month and I am willing to turn things around. I returned yesterday to 9 Man SNG's but on Turbo. I dropped 1 buy-in level so I can manage to multitable and adapt to turbo blinds at the 9 Man SNG's.

I played 10 tables at the same time today and I made ITM (in the money) on 5 tables with two 1 st places, one 2nd and two 3rd places. The funny thing is that I lost with good hands, like AK vs 72s (player rivers a deuce) and on the other game I call a shove with A8 vs his A3s (he rivers a 3).
Anyway I made a small profit and I will try to play between 60 and 100 this week, so I can have many points to the Battle Of the Planets and, of course, to make cash.

Keep grinding smart!

Last Month Review

2010-10-03T15:09:00.002+01:00

Last month I played 216 games, was my highest month in volume. But I played different types of SNG and that brought some negative consequences on my ROI. Was a month with a small profit, almost break even. In some point of the month I was 3 digits in profit and then after some games I was down again. Anyway, poker is a learning process and I should think and take action to correct my game.

Tricky Session / Equity Analysis

2010-09-13T19:58:00.006+01:00

Today I have a day as a holiday, make some things in the morning and I was lunching with my wife parents, since July (that I wasn't launching with them).

Afternoon I made 2 poker sessions, on the 1st one I played 4 tables and made a smaller profit. On the second session I did not make ITM on the 5 tables that I played at the same time. The tricky thing is the spots that I lost with the hands that I shove.

1st table: blinds were at level 3, preflop player 3 bets MP, everyone folds and I flat call on the big blind with AKo, on a paired board at the flop (772) he bets 2/3 of the pot and I push thinking the flop did not hit him, and he calls with pocket nines, my equity is 44% against his 55% equity and I lost.

By the way, this is preflop equity (not on the flop).

Probably I should check the flop and fold to a bet, still early and I still have more than 20 big blinds.

2nd table: I have 12 big blinds, one limper at MP and I have AKo so i decide to push, the button "awakes up" with pocket aces.

3rd table: I am at the small blind with ATo and 16 big blinds, the button shoves and I call. He has A9s.

My equity: 68%
His equity: 31%

He wins by making a straight on the turn (8TJ/7)

4rd table: I have 11 big blinds, a UTG+1 3 bets, I have AKo in LP and I push he calls with AJo.

My equity: 74%
His equity: 25%

He flops the Jack and make 3 of a kind on the turn.

5rd table: with only 5 big blinds left I push with my pocket teens after one limper, the big blind calls and the limper folds, the big blind has A5o.

My equity: 70%
His equity: 30%

And he flops the Ace.

45 Man SNG Hands Analysis

2010-09-08T18:14:00.004+01:00

Been playing this week with some 3 tabling sessions, summing up to 12 tables for the all day. Hit another minor stretch on the 6 man, losing hands like AK to KK, KQs to ace rag hand and QQ against a flush. Anyway I am happy the way I have been playing.

I played some 45 man Turbo SNGs, and I won my first $3.25 Turbo 45 man today. I had some interesting hands that I would like to share with you guys. These hands were the turnaround on the tournament, where I doubled up my stack or eliminated some player.

Hand 1
##########################################
Blinds : 100/200
6 players

[SB] Player1 (2255)
[BB] lmagalhaes (1365)
[1] Player3 (4865)
[2] Player4 (1725)
[3] Player5 (3165)
[But] Player6 (5555)

lmagalhaes 4 4 Initial Pot: 300
Player3 raises to 600

Player1,Player4,Player5,Player6 folds
lmagalhaes is All in
Player3 calls 765

### FLOP ### 3 7 7 Pot: 2830
### TURN ### 3 Pot: 2830
### RIVER ### 9 Pot: 2830

lmagalhaes shows 4 4
Player3 shows J A
lmagalhaes wins 2830 from the main pot with Two pairs, sevens and fours

I only have 7 big blinds or an M of 4.55, so I am on the push/fold mode. Any pair is a shove for me so I think I made the right decision.
I think the player call is not bad, he has a strong hand. The only thing is that he has more than 20 big blinds, so folding is not so bad either to him.

Hand 2

##########################################
Blinds : 200/400 - Ante 25.0
7 players

[SB] nw... (9345)
[BB] bv... (4745)
[1] Al... (6445)
[2] KL... (2760)
[3] lmagalhaes (1535)
[4] fl... (9855)
[But] Re... (2975)

lmagalhaes K 7 Initial Pot: 775

Al... folds
KL... folds
lmagalhaes is All in
fl... folds
Re... folds
nw... calls 1310
bv... is All in

nw... calls 3210

### FLOP ### 3 K 9 Pot: 11125
### TURN ### 5 Pot: 11125
### RIVER ### 8 Pot: 11125

nw... shows Q A
bv... shows Q Q
lmagalhaes shows K 7

lmagalhaes wins 4705 from the main pot with A Pair of kings
bv... wins 6420 from side pot n°1 with A Pair of queens

On this hand I was very lucky to flop the king. I still think that I made the right decision, I was already blinded out with only 3 big blinds so I must push with any face card, specially a King with a not so bad kicker.

Hand 3

##########################################
Blinds : 600/1200 - Ante 75.0
7 players

[SB] lmagalhaes (8304)
[BB] Qu... (3460)
[1] po... (7941)
[2] fl... (17531)
[3] gi... (7870)
[4] re... (11419)
[But] Al... (10975)

lmagalhaes T A Initial Pot: 2325
po... folds
fl... raises to 2600
gi... folds
re... folds
Al... folds
lmagalhaes is All in
Qu... is All in
fl... calls 5629

### FLOP ### 4 7 A Pot: 20368
### TURN ### K Pot: 20368
### RIVER ### 9 Pot: 20368

lmagalhaes shows T A
fl... shows K Q
Qu... shows 4 6

lmagalhaes wins 9688 from side pot n°1 with A Pair of aces
lmagalhaes wins 10680 from the main pot with A Pair of aces

I only have 6 big blinds, the player who min raises is doing that on the last hands and taking advantage of the tightness on the table. I was expecting him to fold to my shove, but this time he has a decent hand, but my hand is to strong to fold and I am not a fan of flat calling, specially to a loose aggressive player.
I won a nice pot on this hand and I was the chip leader at the table at this point of the game.

I really enjoy playing the 45s, I do not know why I abandoned these games, probably due to the variance but after losing 8 straight games on the regular 6 man SNG, and last month lost a bunch of games at the 9 man SNG, what type of SNG have more variance? Probably the 45s but not that much and the 45s gives a better ROI and $/hour (turbos) if you are a winning player.

You Have No Choice But To Grind

2010-09-04T01:42:00.005+01:00

"The Quitters Never Wins, The Winners Never Quits"

I had a major downswing last month and I am just posting to say that I recovered all that I lost and I have my bankroll on a new value. My main goal is to at least end the year on a $1k bankroll (at least).

Well, this is the evidence that when you study the game, put the effort on this game, make the right decisions, even if you lost that all-in on that particular game, you are going to win at long term.

Whenever you have a downswing trust on your game, review you hands played, find some leaks and the results will come. I am very satisfied with the last results, I am not saying that I will not have a downswing sooner or later, but whenever you have a downswing you have no choice but to keep grinding.

Here is a graph with the all my career on Pokerstars, I have more bankroll than what appears on the graph (due to some bonuses and deposits at the beginning of the last year).

Except 2 moments where I won some great cash on 2 MTTs, I was always grinding SNGs, starting at the $1 buy-in.

September Milestones

2010-08-31T21:08:00.002+01:00

August, finally is over, what a month, unbelievable month. I had my biggest downswing at the tables for the first time. Never had a downswing of this size by playing 9 man SNG (regular blinds). Last week I was down for about $100, what a negative stretch! Right now, I recovered almost half.

August Overall Numbers:
Total games played: 216
Total Profit/Loss: - $17

Now let's check out what games I played and where I lost/won:
SNG 9 Man:
Total games: 90
Profit/Loss: - $15.4

SNG 6 Man:
Total games: 6
Profit/Loss: + $43.2

SNG Heads Up:
Total games: 126
Profit/Loss: - $44.8

These kind of negative variance could happen sometimes, but instead of complaining about it, I just keep working on my game. Some poor results was due to bad beats and some river coolers, in others games I think I did not made the optimal play, so there were some leaks to identify and correct.

I have been playing 6 Man SNG (regular blinds) during the last days and I am happy with my results on them. For September I will try to play between 200 and 250 games and try to go for Silverstar. I will return to my grind on 9 Man or/and 6 Man SNG regular blinds. It is not good to make profit goals but I will make it anyway. At the minimum I will be break even, but I will try to make between $100/$200 in profit for September. Again, this is just a general idea and a straightforward path to have for September.

I am thinking in create some videos once in a while of my plays at the tables, but instead of putting a whole session, I will put a part of the session (for example the bubble, or the late game). Stay tuned for updates on this matter, but

See you at the tables on the one and only Pokerstars.

Poker Pro Elky Gives a Instant Interview

2010-08-16T21:59:00.006+01:00

Here is a quick and small chat from Elky, a successful professional poker player. One of my favourites online poker players.

Very interesting the 1st question and more interesting his answer...

Some Changes at the Tables.

2010-08-15T23:59:00.004+01:00

I am taking a break on 9 man sng games and back to heads up play. The last downswing on the 9 man sng let me thinking that I should take a break on them and increase my study game. So the rest of this month I will play them occasionally, but I will focus on study the game and play more heads up sng games.

I enjoy playing heads up SNG, I made a full night play on 13th Of June, (before going on Hollidays), just playing 24 games of 1€ heads up games (I was more that over rolled, I just wanted to play them), played no more than one table simultaneously.

With this change of games, plus the study I will have more data to analyse my own game and evaluate the right direction at SNG play.

Good luck to everyone at the tables!

Funny Analogy For a Downsing

2010-08-14T16:44:00.004+01:00

I am experiencing the worst month of my SNG play, but I am ok. Most of the decisions that I made at the tables were the right moves. Besides that I will increase my study time on the next week.

The reason I am posting is to let you guys with a music lyrics analogy to my current downswing, the lyrics are from a new popular and great music from Armin Van Buuren, - Going Wrong.

Yea I keep dreaming (of jumping to the next SNG game level)
That I have it all (all the good preflop hand)
Ooh I'm still craving
To have you by my side (the skill/luck at my side)
...
You're burning out of my head
And in my brain it's going wrong (with the all negative variance)

And I will live today (yeah, I will make it)
And I will live tomorrow (To turn the negative in to positive variance)
No matter what is said or done (no matter the outcome, the decision was the right one)
Even if it's going wrong
You're burning out my head
Even if it's going wrong

Though Times

2010-08-09T20:47:00.004+01:00

It is not the first time, certainly will not be the last time. It happens, sooner or later the negative variance of the game will hit you badly. I am experiencing and feeling that right now (at least until yesterday).

Some numbers
I was up in profit $42.2 with 19 games this month (at 4 of August) and right now I am up in profit for only $33.7 ($23.7 from 57 games played + $10 in rake back). What was my reaction to this performance?
Well I reviewed my all weekend session, found some minor errors in some moves that I made but most of the games, I lost due to some coolers, few bad beats and lucky flops to opponents.

Some coolers
For example, yesterday (in one of my sessions) I played 6 tables at the same time. In 2 of the tables I made ITM (2nd and 3rd place), on another 2 tables I bubbled, on the other 2 tables I was out. On the 3 tables that I lost, I had some coolers, like losing to opponent river straight. Shoving better pairs preflop and opponent flopping the set!

The Pressure is a Good Thing
It's times like these that I feel the pressure, the pressure to keep going, keep working out my game, grind much more to turn things out. These are the moments that separates the winners from the losers. The way you keep focusing on your "A" game and challenge yourself to give the best you can in each and every hand played and avoiding tilting.

Good Bankroll Management is the Key
One of the things that a good bankroll management gives you it's that when you are experiencing a downswing, you can be sure that you have plenty of money to keep grinding for the long term success because you are over rolled. I am glad that I was wise to be over rolled for the buy-ins that I play.

Stay in touch, I am all-in!

August Challenges

2010-08-05T20:25:00.003+01:00

Besides being my birthday month, August is the Month that I enjoy very much because everyone is on holidays so there is a peaceful environment in Lisbon. What I do not like about is the hot weather, that is why I enjoy more the Winter than the Summer, the cold is so cool, I really love the cold weather and the snow.

Poker is unique
One of the things that make poker a unique game is that combines luck and skill in a very specific form. In the short term luck is going to be predominant but in the long term, skill is going to be constant.

You see, there are games were you cannot play to win or play to lose, the odds are the same no matter what you do. Take roulette, slot machines, some card games or even a very popular game in Portugal the Euro millions.

There is a Friday fever in Lisbon that suddenly when Friday arrives everyone wants to take that big shot on the, (at least), 15 millions. Euro Millions is a long term losing game, you cannot play to win or lose, the odds are always the same and you are giving your money away. Sure, you may be lucky to hit the big prize, but the odds are very, very small ("nano small").

In poker you can play to lose or you can play to win, there is skill involved. Another thing is that you are playing against other players so there isn't the "house" advantage (like happens on blackjack). Sure, there are some "bad beats" or "coolers" but that is the variance of the game, if you play skilful poker you are going to win money in the long term.

Personal Month Challenges

I am always inspired by winning players who make long multitabling sessions with a constant focused mind on the tables. To grind this game out you must really be willing to put your mind and soul at the tables, is takes very, very effort to put that kind of dedication.

My challenge for this month is to play between 125 and 150 games and profiting between $100 and $150. I will also try to have a poker marathon, what I mean is I will try to have a full night playing (like I did on June). If I make this marathon I will inform on twitter during that night, but expect to be in on a Friday or a Saturday night during the month.

Commitment

I do not have the all time of the day to grind the game, but I do have some (at least) 2 hours per day to make the most out of this game. I commit myself to improve my game on one very specific variation in poker, that is the No-Limit Holdem Sit aNd Go (SNG) of one table (Single Table Tournament).

I have seen, felt and realised that hard work really pays-off in many thing in life where skill is involved and poker is no exception. If you review you poker sessions, correct some minor errors or leaks you have and study the game you will see your game improving and that will have a long term positive impact.

July By The Numbers

2010-08-01T01:52:00.006+01:00

I "grew up" as a 9 man SNG player this month. I played the games with more confidence and strategic/analytical thinking.

I finally decided and stayed with the type of game I enjoy most and where I have the best edge, the non turbo 9 Man SNG. Besides not making serious money, (at the moment), due to the buy-in level, I ended up making my best profitable SNG grind month of my career.

July Numbers
Still started this month playing 45 man and HU (less than 10 games on these two), then I played some 1€ turbos and finally decided to stick to the non turbos (regular) 9 man SNG where I ended up with more than 20% ROI in 96 games:

This is a picture, (from the site PokerProLabs / TopShark), where you can check out some more data filtered for 9 Man SNG this month.

In August I will be playing 9 Man SNG, (this is becoming a "cliché" word!). Will start to play in some point of the month the $5,50 buy-in level and mix with the $3,40 buy-in.

WSOP 2010: Congratulations!

2010-07-26T22:08:00.004+01:00

First of all, I congratulate all the great poker players who made ITM at the WSOP 2010. For all nations in the world, a sincere word of kind to all good players.

Because I am portuguese I want to give a special attention to Portuguese players.
Portuguese Poker Players were in great shape during the WSOP 2010. We had 21 ITM Portuguese Players and some great performances by some players.
The Events: #42, #49, #54, #56 and of course the Main Event, were all played by a lot of players and there were some very good portuguese players who made ITM.
On the Main Event we had a 175th Place, history was made once again on the portuguese poker book.

I am sure that in next years to come there will be Final Tables and bracelets to portuguese poker players. I am also sure that we are going to have a portuguese player at the November Nine and probably a World Champion (who knows?).

Congratulations to all players and specially portuguese poker players on the WSOP.

Week Feedback

2010-07-25T01:38:00.004+01:00

July is my best 9 Man SNG month of the year, I played only 68 SNG's of $3.40 buy-in and I have a 30% ROI. Last month I finished with a 14% ROI in 115 games, I think I can end this month above 20%.

I am considering in moving to the $5.50 buy-in level next month to make more profit and maintain my sng strategy. I will have to adapt to new players and I am sure they will also adapt to my play. It is not the first time I play the $5.50 SNG games, but it will be the first time I will grind this buy-in level.

You see, there is a difference in between playing, "take a shot" on a type of game and grinding a type of game. To me grinding is playing a lot, put really awesome volume on only that type of game (or buy-in level).

So my transition will be definitive but I have some loss lines. The same way I am moving up to play another buy-in (according to my bankroll and skill), I am also willing to move down if I sense that I do not have the skill to play there or I lose some buy-ins on that level.

Bankroll Management is the key on moving up and moving down on buy-in levels and is the fundamental to preserve you as a skilful and excellent player.

Mid July Feedback

2010-07-16T13:48:00.002+01:00

SNG Strategy

I returned to the 9 Man non-turbos SNG games, the $3.40 buy in games. I was grinding profitable the $1 turbo 9 man SNG, but I had less $$$ in return so I decided to move on to my beach, the non turbo 9 Man.

I played this month 23 games of $3.40 9 Man SNG, I have righ now and only for this month a ROI of 51%. I am very satisfied with results so far and I will keep my grind on these games and try to move on to the $5.50 next month. If I count with last month, I have a overall ROI of 12% on the $3.40 SNG.

I am working to end this year grinding the $11 non turbo 9 Man SNG. I can only dream with Supernova next year if I end the year playing the $22, but I am not sure if I can speed up my progress to that buy in level until the end of the year.

See you at the tables!

June Performance with a Picture

2010-07-05T23:03:00.006+01:00

June overall I played different kind of games and that behaviour had consequences to my ROI. I did not played any big MTT so June was more of a SNG grind. I had never played so much in my entire poker career!

Total games played (all-types of SNG and MTT's): 234 games.

Now lets check out the overall numbers. I did not put the 18 Man SNG on the next picture but I had a net loss of ($22.25).

In overall I can see that I am growing as a SNG player, specially on the 9 Man tables. I had some suck-outs and coolers on some games and only because of that I did not have even better profit.

I am trying to move on to the 9 Man turbos instead of moving up limits on the regular ones. I have almost 200 buy ins for the $3.40 regular SNG's and I have good results on them, but instead of grinding them, I decided to move down in limits and play the 1€ 9 Man Turbos this month.

My goal is to try to grind the $6.50 9 Man Turbos next month or at least on September. Because I like to multitable, I cannot stand to multitable the $6.50 right now, I need more roll for that.
I am going to improve my performance on the Turbos by studying the game and grind the games.

Right now this month, i played 25 games of the Turbos with a ROI of 10.8%. I am multitabling 6 tables at the same time, I just finished a positive session a few minutes ago. If I count with past month, I have about 33 games with a total ROI of 23.2%.

Stay tuned for more updates, I see you at the tables on the one and only Pokerstars!

Tudo começou assim... (Portuguese Post)

2010-06-30T22:18:00.003+01:00

Olá!
Decidi escrever este post em Português para vos contar como começou a minha aventura no poker, como estou actualmente e como encaro a médio/longo prazo.
Relembro que jogo em part-time, à noite e que durante o dia tenho um trabalho comum como técnico/programador informático.

Fazer €€€
Sempre quis ganhar mais €€€ para além do trabalho comum das 9h às 18h. No fim de 2008, inicio de 2009 dedicava-me uma parte do meu tempo nas apostas desportivas mas nunca tirei grande proveito porque nunca estudei a sério o tema.

No site onde eu fazia as apostas desportivas olhava sempre para aquele banner do Poker que me chamava a atenção, até que um dia cliquei no banner e a minha vida não voltou mais ser a mesma desde essa altura!

Brincadeira nos micro Cash Games
Em pouco mais de 15 minutos li as regras básicas do poker, a importância de ser o ultimo a jogar, as blinds e coloquei 10 € na sala e sentei-me numa mesa a dinheiro, na altura as blinds eram de 0,02€/0,04€. Em alguns minutos gastei os 10 €.

Entretanto decidi colocar mais 10 € e no mês seguinte coloquei na Pokerstars $10 e penso que noutra sala da concorrência também fiz. Assim, de Abril a praticamente Agosto joguei essencialmente micro stakes cash games e fui aumentando o volume de SNG's. Tive alguns up's e down's mas nunca estudei a sério os cash games mas jogava tight e tirava partido da minha posição da mesa. Até que veio Agosto e Setembro, os meses da reviravolta...

Inicio do estudo, mudança de planos
Depois de jogar bastante no mês de Agosto (por sinal o mês em que faço anos), fiz Silverstar (na altura era preciso 1500 FPP's). Tomei uma decisão importante na minha carreira de jogador de poker: grindar (jogar com dedicação) os SNG's de 9 pessoas e tornar-me um jogador vencedor.

Adquiri os meus 1ºs livros pela Internet, estudei e tive um bom resultado num MTT em Novembro que me deu mais confiança. Mas continuava a perder dinheiro nos SNG's de 9 apesar de jogar os limites mais baixos da sala para manter uma boa gestão de banca. Até que veio 2010 e o tempo de jogador perdedor chegou ao fim...

Ano novo, vida nova
Em Janeiro de 2010 consegui tornar o meu Sharkscope positivo e finalmente estava a vencer os SNG's de 1€ na Pokerstars, desde ai que tenho um ROI positivo até aos $3 e alguns resultados positivos nos de $5.

Este ano tive bons resultados em 2 MTT's da Pokerstars (Sunday 1/4 Million e SCOOP), para além de um 1º lugar num MTT da Unibet patrocinado pela comunidade portuguesa de poker.

Estudar e aprender a grindar Turbo's
O meu actual desafio é saber jogar SNG's de 9 no formato Turbo (as blinds aumentam de 5 em 5 minutos). Tenho um ou outro jogador como referência neste formato e que são exemplos para mim neste formato de jogo, um deles já facturou só este ano mais de $20k a grindar este tipo de SNG's.

Apesar de ter praticamente mais de 90 buy-ins para jogar os de $6,50 SNG, sou muito conservador e gosto de fazer muiltitabling (jogar várias mesas ao mesmo tempo), por isso decidi grindar os de 1€, e também porque estou a aprender a jogar este novo formato que na realidade os "adjustments" não são significativos em comparação com os SNG's de formato regular (blinds aumentam de 10 em 10 minutos).

Os meus preferidos
Os meus tipo de jogos preferidos são os SNG's de 9 e 6 em formato turbo e atenção que nunca estudei os de 6 em formato turbo e estou "down" nestes.
A seguir venham os grandes torneios e os Heads Up, que também gosto muito. Houve uma noite este mês que fiz 1 directa a jogar mano a mano de 1€ e acabei a sessão positivo.

Médio / Longo Prazo
No poker um jogador vencedor nunca pensa a curto prazo mas sim a médio e longo prazo. Os meus objectivos são bem claros e se pretendo evoluir a minha banca em termos monetários para a casa dos 4 e 5 dígitos a médio prazo, tenho que me tornar um melhor jogador e aproveitar ao máximo o pouco tempo que tenho disponível neste momento para o NL Texas Holdem.
A longo prazo pretendo ser um jogador Pro.
O meu investimento no mês que vem vai ser na minha educação como jogador de poker e vou ver vários vídeos de profissionais a jogarem o meu formato favorito de jogo.

Por agora é tudo espero que tenham gostado, os próximos posts serão em inglês mas poderei voltar a escrever mais alguns em português.

I am all-in!

Week Feedback

2010-06-13T23:25:00.002+01:00

I played 45 games of 9 Man SNG since Monday and a total of 120 games this month. It is the first time that I played so much 9 Man SNG. All of them of $3.40 and some $5.50 buy in and I have some ups and downs on the games.

My total ROI on these 120 games is a positive 13,8%, making ITM about 42,5% of the time.
I am facing right now a down-swing of 7 straight buy-ins. Anyway I will keep grinding, this is not the 1st time that this happens. I should continue to make the right decisions, and play optimal to get over this down-swing.

Some downs games are more like pushing with AK against a medium pair from opponent and see that no ace or king comes on the board. Then when is my turn to push a medium pair because I am short, I found out that opponent calls with AK and he hits is Ace or King on the board.

Other are something like pushing AA against KK and see opponent making king trips on the river. Sometimes I push QQ or KK and opponent makes his straight on the river...amazing, but this is NL Texas Holdem, and these things happens once and while and it also happens to me these good things.

On the good games I push all my strong hands and I connect very well with the board. On other good games I limp with a medium pair and make my set and someone goes broke with his AK when I have the set and he has his Ace on the board.

I remember a game where I made a straight flush against a Full house from opponent, of course he got broke, if I were on his place I would made the same.

I will continue to grind the $3.40 9 Man games and mix with some HU and MTT's and occasionally play some $5.50 9 man games.

I played 3 MTT's since yesterday and cashed in 2 of them, one of those ITM MTT's belongs to the Low Stakes MTT's, it was a $ 5.50 buy in.

The challenge to make $150 until the end of the month is still on progress, I need to make more $46.07 to end this "mini challenge" positive.

Multitabling the $3.40

2010-06-04T18:18:00.003+01:00

I finally made my first multi-tabling on the $3.40 SNG 9 Man.

I played a session with 4 tables at the same time and I made ITM on 3 of them, I won 1st place in one. I am feeling more confident on the $3.40 buy in level, I am over rolled for them and I am trying to play my best A-Game possible in each and every single SNG.

I played a session yesterday night until 2 AM, today I played 3 sessions with an average time of 2,5h each session. In every session I played with 3 tables at the same time and on the last session I played 4 tables at the same time. I am up in terms of $$$ but still not much to be a glory day. Anyway, today grinding is not over, I will come up late at night again to attack the tables.

For those who don't know, I am on holidays until 20th of June, but I will not play any game on the week 14th to 17th June because I will be on Algarve (a Portuguese location of great beaches).

I am occasional playing the hyper-turbo satellites (buy in of 84 FPP), and I am getting t$ 3.30 each time I make 1st or 2n place and I use that tournament dollars to buy in for some of my SNG. I think I am up in these hyper-turbos.

May Feedback, June Goals

2010-06-01T00:25:00.004+01:00

Ended a grinding session right now, the last SNG I made ITM in 3rd place (4 places paid), so sick the last hand, I had 2 pairs on the flop but opponent makes a set on the Turn!

Anyway, let's talk about May. I am very happy to see that I finally discovered the type of game I will play during the next months. It will be 18 man SNG (non turbo). Currently I am playing the $1.20 buy in but I am almost making the change to the $3.40, I played a few and some of them I paid with t$ (tournament dollars that I won on a satellite game).

Here are some numbers:

Type of game: 18 Man SNG
Total games played: 52 games
Buy in: $1.20 (46 games played) and $3.40 (6 games played)
ROI: 88.1%
ITM: 50%

I am making a slow transition to the $3.40 SNG's, probably will be my grind next month.
I also watch a SNG video this month, a 9 man turbo SNG. I am going to watch a video about ICM next month.

Now another numbers about big tournaments:
Type of game: MTT's (more than 1000 players)
Total games played: 5 games
ROI: 3158.4%
ITM: 40%

Just played a few MTT's but cashed on 2 of them, in one of them was my SCOOP MTT.
I will play more MTT's next month.

As SNG concern, I will play more than 100 games of 18 man SNG's next month and try to go for Silverstar. I am also focusing on the goal to make more $150 by the end of June, right now I already made $55.6.

My main challenge for June is to stabilize my grind on the $3.40.

Today session

2010-05-24T02:14:00.002+01:00

I played 12 games, the 18 man SNG non turbo, I ended up 5 games ITM and one 1st place at the 3.40 buy in. I have been playing the 1.20 buy in level but I decided to take a shot at the 3.40 and ended up winning! I am over rolled for the 1.20 and also the 3.40 buy in levels, I have more than 125 buy ins for the 3.40 level.
I just do not grind so much the 3.40 because I do not like losing too much money due to variance, probably will build more bankroll until I can grind a lot of 3.40.

Anyway, I am committed to continue to build my bankroll and make (more) $150 between yesterday and 30 of June. I will keep updating with my results, I cannot play so much games during the week because I am working but I will enter in Holidays on 31 May, I will have more time to grind in some days.

Stay tuned.

Sick variance and commitment

2010-05-22T16:08:00.004+01:00

So sick, I have the worst bad beats on my game. My Aces broked by sets, everytime I am short and I shove with AKs or ATo or a medium pair, someone call with a big pair or gets that miraculous card on the river, it so bad to play and make the best decisions possible and getting busted for a bad beat.
Sorry for this complaining, bad beats are part of the game, this is a mathematical game, you will run hot but you will also take some coolers sometimes, and you cannot avoid. I probably had the worst downswing this year, I did not won any €1 turbo. I had finished played a 18 mans game and I won the 3rd place ITM.

I am being inspired by the professional Portuguese player André (acoimbra), he is trying to make $60000 in only 2 months. In 15 day ha already made more tha $15000. Congratulation André for your effort, you are the man!

I cannot make that challenge with those values because I play low/micro stakes tables according to my bankroll. So I will continue focused to my own challenge and will try to make $150 until the end of June.

This is an example of one of my worst bad beats on this hand:

This Hand History Player is supported by www.myhands.com

New Milestone

2010-05-20T23:00:00.004+01:00

I have increased my bankroll this year in 2 ways: 2 good ITM finishes on large MTT's at Pokerstars and by playing SNG of 9 players on the 1st Trimester of the year, although that time I had less bankroll that I have now.

I am going to take a step back and learn to play Turbo SNG of 9 players. I will start with the 1,10 € on Pokerstars and when I make my first $50 on them, I will change to the $3,40. Let's see if I can keep up with this.

I have more than 400 times the 1,10 € buy in but in order to learn how to play them and reduce variance I will start at micro levels.

I will also play some Multitable tournaments and multitable SNG. I am targeting more $150 on my bankroll until the end of June.

Interesting Hand: Suited Connectors

2010-05-17T21:44:00.002+01:00

This is an interesting hand that I had on the SCOOP event 20. I am posting this hand to show the huge mistake that opponent makes by giving free cards until the River, were I make my straight, he slow plays his monster hand and get "self-killed" on the River.

This is how the hand was played:

Poker Stars $20+$2 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t400/t800 Blinds + t100 - 9 players - View hand 700850

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): t30340 M = 14.45

UTG+1: t12372 M = 5.89

UTG+2: t4142 M = 1.97

MP1: t5405 M = 2.57

MP2: t26034 M = 12.40

CO: t24181 M = 11.51

BTN: t18735 M = 8.92

SB: t33090 M = 15.76

BB: t25287 M = 12.04

Pre Flop: (t2100) Hero is UTG with 9 T

Hero raises to t1750, 3 folds, MP2 calls t1750, 2 folds, SB raises to t4800, 1 fold, Hero calls t3050, 1 fold

Flop: (t13050) Q K Q (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (t13050) 8 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: (t13050) J (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets t25440 all in, SB calls t25440

Final Pot: t63930

Hero shows 9 T (a straight, Nine to King)

SB shows A K (two pair, Kings and Queens)

Hero wins t63930

ITM on SCOOP: 611th place

2010-05-10T23:01:00.003+01:00

Let me start by the end. I played about 8 hours of tournament, and my AKs lost for a Q8o from villain, an eight comes on the flop and I had about more than 200K chips but villain had more than 3 times my stack. I can believe it he calls my push with Q8o!

Anyway, I enjoyed very much playing my first SCOOP and ended up deep In The Money, and I was unlucky with my +EV shove UTG with AKs. I have never played so much straight time like this. The SCOOP tournament started at 22:00 with more than 20000 players and I ended played at 06:00 on the 611 place.

The money places begun at 3600 place. It took 5 hours to get in to the money, usually the regular MTT's takes only 2,5 hours. If I had some time I will post some interesting double up hands.

The prize ended up boosting my bankroll and this was a 2 day event, I wish I could made a final table to get a great pay check, better next time!

I will grind this month some 9 players regular SNG's of $3.40 and also come more MTTs. See you at the tables, I am all in!

April, May and SCOOP

2010-05-04T00:30:00.003+01:00

April is done. Not too much to say about, just to mention that it was a different month by all means. I tried some new type of games: 45 Man Turbo SNG's, 6 Man Turbo SNG and the $3.40 9 man SNG's. Besides not making much $$ I did not put not much volume on them to figure out my true ROI on each type of game or at least on some of the games.

I figure out that sometimes I do not practice what I write or set as a monthly goal but when is a trimester or a yearly goal I have more discipline to make the goal.
May is here and I wont be setting any goal for May, I will maintain my goals for the last of the Trimester.

I can promise some things: will increase my performance on MTT's by dedicating more study and work on them and, of course, to start play more MTT's.
Besides big Tournaments I will grind the secure Double or Nothing tables to increase my bankroll. I put my bankroll goal to make a 4 digit bankroll until the end of the year.

I will play the SCOOP No Limit Hold'em Event $22 NLHE ($500K Guaranted), on May 9 at 22:00 WET (Portugal Time). It is my first MTT on the SCOOP event, I won this ticket on Pokerstars.

The exciting game of Badugi

2010-04-25T22:55:00.002+01:00

Ba...what? Badugi? What is that? Your pet name? :)
Badugi is another poker variant, let me explain a little bit.

There are 3 popular types of poker variants:
1. Draw Poker, where players are dealt a complete hand, hidden, and then improve it by replacing cards. Five-card draw is the most popular.

2. Stud Poker, each player receives a combination of face-up cards and face-down cards in multiple betting rounds. Seven-card stud and Five-card stud are among the most populars.

3. Community card poker, each player receives a incomplete hidden hand that is combined with shared face-up cards. Texas holdem and Omaha holdem are the most popular.

Badugi is a draw poker where each player starts with 4 hidden cards. During each of three drawing rounds, players can trade zero to four cards from their hands for new ones from the deck, in an attempt to form the best badugi hand and win the pot.

Curious? Watch the video so you can learn how to play Badugi on Pokerstars.

Poker is more than Texas Holdem

2010-04-25T22:46:00.002+01:00

Texas Holdem is the most popular type of poker, specially No Limit Texas Holdem, what I call the Cadillac of Poker. You see on TV, on live tournaments, on famous cash games, and most poker players play No Limit Holdem online and most of the time at Pokerstars.

But you know what? There are more fantastic and exciting type of games on Pokerstars besides Texas Holdem. You can be a more complete poker player by learning a new type of game. If you want to know How to Play 8 Game Mix check it out the video and start today playing this exciting new game!

See you at the tables!

April Feedback

2010-04-12T14:22:00.000+01:00

April is a different month, I still have no profit made because I am trying new games and see how I behave on each type of game. I started playing only heads-up and I made about $40 in one night but on the night after I lost it all! Then I tried Double or Nothing and I played just a few but I did not like it so much to be playing right now.

Right now I am trying 6 Max. Turbo SNG on the $3.25 buy in and they are soft but I am still negative for now. I am properly rolled for them, I have more than 100 buy-in on my bankroll. I could also be playing the regular SNG of 9 players at $3.40 buy in, but I figure out that I need to take more profit from my time at the tables. I play in part-time and the Turbo format is particular well to my time and skill.

Let's see if I can grasp the 6 Max. SNG strategy and end the month in positive ROI on them. I will try to put more volume by playing at least 2 games at the same time. I am also trying to go for Silverstar this month. I will keep updating here and more often on twitter. See you soon!

Btw, as MTT concern, I played 2 Sunday 1/4 million but I did not cashed in any of them. I have a Final Portuguese League this month on Titan network.

1st Trimester Review, 2nd Trimester goals

2010-04-01T23:34:00.004+01:00

25 % of the year is completed. I have accomplished some yearly goals, but first let review March. Here are the numbers:

Total games played: 130, these include:
- SNG's of 9 players: 67 games
- Heads-up SNG's: 58
- Multitable Tournaments (MTT): 5

I set a goal to March to play at least 100, well I surpassed that one in 30 games. Now let's look at the profitable goals:

Total Profit in March: 216,16 €

I do not set up money goals because they are hard to set up. I do not play full time so, I do not put the volume that I need to set up any measure profit goals. No limit Texas Holdem is a high variance game and it is hard to set up profit goals when you do not put enough volume (if you are a good player). I prefer to set up ROI % goals.

SNG 9's ROI: 39%
HU ROI: 8%
MTT ROI: 539 %

I had some "coolers" on the last Heads-up games, that why my ROI dropped to single digit. My MTT ROI is the big surprise on this month, I just played 5 but won 1 MTT and ended deep in another one.

I played about 275 games this year, with some effort I think I can put at least 1000 games (total) before the last trimester. I have a ROI of 36% on SNG games (about 209 games) and 10% on heads-up games (about 66 games played) for the 1st Trimester.

Yearly (almost) Accomplished Goals:
1. Educational goals:
(- Read 4 new poker books;) 50% done, I read already 2 new poker books.
(- Watch more MTT/SNG videos during the year;) 0% done, I did not watch any video.

2. Pokerstars goals:
(- Becoming Silverstar more than once a year;) 0% done.
(- Qualify for a live tournament;) 0% done.
(- Increase my bankroll in 300%) 100% done, I already tripled up my bankroll on Pokerstars. Still on 3 digits roll but it's building along the way.
- Reach a final table on a online MTT; 100% done, I reached a final table and won that online MTT.

2nd Trimester Goals:
- Read 2 new poker books.
- Watch 3 videos.
- Increase my bankroll in 100%
- Reach a MTT final table.
- Go deep on the Steps Pokerstars SNG's to qualify for a live MTT.

April Goals:
- Play at least 150 games.
- Maintain a 20% ROI-
- Play at least 4 MTT's.

Will post very soon the reason of my strategic changes on my decision to play Heads-Up Games. I will focus on HU games on the 2nd Trimester. This include HU SNG's and 4 players SNG in HU format. I will also maintain focused in qualify for online MTT's and play some of them.

Do you have what it takes?

2010-03-23T22:52:00.002Z

Whatever your ambition, if you are a Tournament player, want you really want in the future is to play High Stakes Poker Tournament. That is were you can become the 2nd Bill Gates on the planet, if you hit just for a one lifetime the 1st place on a High Stakes Poker Tournament you are done, you can retire and dedicate your time to go for a fishing activity or go to Amazonia and live like a primitive human because you have won a lot of money.

Or you can grab those multimillion prizes and reinvest on poker and play more High Stakes Poker Tournament. And if you hit another 1st place, that's it, you done, you can talk to Virgin company and take some holidays on the Moon or March because you are the ultimate High Stakes Poker Tournament champion!

But wait, you said that you only have $50 on your bankroll? Sorry dude, go to Pokerstars and grind some satellites to High Stakes Poker Tournament and maybe you can be a champion.

Sunday 1/4 Million

2010-03-22T19:52:00.003Z

Last week, I won a ticket on a satellite to the Pokerstars Sunday 1/4 Million. I played yesterday and I am very satisfied with my performance. I did not hit the final table to a good pay check but I went deep ITM (In The Money), making a 364th place on a tournament with 36299 players.
On the last thand I shoved with AJo and opponent had a KK and more stack than mine.
I did not catch anything on the board so I was kicked on that hand.

There were some key hands on the MTT. Everyone starts with t3000 chips and early on after a terrible hand that I played, I was near elimination by having only t745 chips. Then, waiting for some good spots I shoved and I made, at least 2 straights (Ten to Ace) and I tripled up on the first and I double up on the second, but at this time the blinds were already big enough.

There was also this hand were I hit 2 pairs on a possibly flush draw from the opponent. I had position on him so I shoved to kick him out of the pot by not giving him the right pot odds to chase the draw (if he was on a flush draw). Well, he called my push and he was in fact in a flush draw but my 2 pairs hold until the showdown and I double up again.

The tournament started at 8 PM (GMT Portugal time) and after about more than 4 hours of play (with 4 breaks during the MTT) I was done for the day taking a prize of $130 (almost 100€). The buy in was free of charge because I satellite for the MTT so was a profitable night.

See you soon at the tables with more profitable feedback!

Online Tournament 1st Place

2010-03-08T20:47:00.002Z

I played 2 online MTT (Multi Table Tournament) yesterday. On Pokerstars I lost at 45th place in a filed with more than 600 people and on Unibet I won the Tournament on a field with 987 players.

I won! This is one of my goals for this year, in fact, my main goal was to, at least, make a final table on a online MTT and I exceed! Being the Nr 1 is absolute fantastic and I am looking forward to make another final table.

Besides this tournaments I am playing my usually grind, the SNG of 9 players and I have made almost last month profit on these games.

Here is another nice picture from the Unibet MTT when there were 4 players left of the 987 and I was in 2nd place at this time.

My goal to this month will be to continue to play SNG of 9 players and build my bankroll. With this prize money from the MTT I will invest on my bankroll and probably start to play some steps SNG on Pokerstars.

See you soon for more profitable updates!

February Results and March Goals

2010-03-03T00:48:00.003Z

First of all let me tell you that I will play my first live Tournament this Friday on a Sport Club from a financial institution (where I work). The buy in 10€ and will have stacks of 4250 with blinds of 20 minutes, starting at 25/50 and increasing at an amount of 50.

February was not so good as January, I made half the profit from January. I hit some 2 major downswings during the month. I also played some HUSNG - Headsup SNG (only two player against each other on the same table). I also played half an hour of cash games, but was just a litle bit.

Here are some numbers:

- Total games played at SNG of 9 players: 70
- - Total Wins: 33
- - Total Loses: 37
- Average buy-in: 1,15
- ROI: 25,2%
- Total SNG games played: 79
- MTT's: 0

At SNG 9 players of $1,20 I played 3 games (won 2 and lost 1).
Heads-up SNG, I played 6 games and I won 4, making a ROI of 24%.

March goals:

- Watch, at least, one video from DC about tournaments and/or SNG.
- Read one poker book.
- Play live on one tournament (MTT).
- Play 100 SNG games.
- Make 35% of ROI.

I will keep in touch, I see you at the tables!

Poker a Game of Skill

2010-02-22T23:10:00.004Z

In March of last year I was presented to the game of poker or better yet, I discovered this fantastic game. Like many players, I started losing money and trying to figure out how this game work, what strategies should I apply to the game.

After some hard work, hours of study and play and by taking the effort to specialize in one type of game (current I play SNG of 9 players) I figured out that it takes more than luck to be a long term winning player.

You see, you have to play for the long term and be skilfull in this game to win. In the short term anything can happen but on the long term only the good players will win on poker.

On a game based on luck you cannot control the random output, you cannot play to lose or win. Poker is diferent, you can play to lose or you can play to win, which is why playing poker is clearly a game of skill.

It takes more than cards to win at this game, poker is based on many variables like stack size, pot odds, winning odds, type of players, dealing with risk/reward situations, hand strength based on your cards.

This is a game of incomplete information and a very complex game where sometimes bad results will knock at your door no matter how good you are. On those times you have to think if you made right long term decision. If you played that hand perfectly then do not worry about the outcome, you made the correct decision and you will profit in the future if you make the same decision.

That is why bad beats can be your friend, they tell you that you played well and you can be sure that your opponent will loose money if he does the same action again. Poker is all about making the right decisions at the table.

Performance Feedback and 40 Billion Hand Celebration

2010-02-14T23:47:00.004Z

This weekend I played 13 games and on the end I made more profit. It was not some major profit, but I increased my bankroll. The month is going ok, I have half the profit I made last month, and the month is still half way.

Pokerstars is celebrating the 40 Billion Hand and is giving some major prizes at the cash tables and is also seting up some SNG and Tournaments with more that $40.0000 in prize pool. I registered to one of those tournaments, it only cost me about 40 FPPs (Frequent Player Points). The thing is that the MTT will be played on Tuesday at 2:40 AM (Portugal time), so it will going to be though for me.

Tomorrow after my work in Lisbon I will go to the gym to pump some iron ant then I will rest and try to sleep before the MTT at 2:40 AM. Let's see if it will be worth my effort to play.
On the same day, I have a birthday lunch on my cousin house, so I will not play so much as I would like.

On the last 90 days, I am ending all months with profit, January was my best month. Of course on the beginning I lost some money and I did some few low value cashouts and deposits. But I did not made any deposit since last summer and I am almost break even from the total games that I played on Pokerstars. My graphic curve on sharkscope is a total ascendent one, I have never ever played so well.

Btw, I ordered another book, this one about treating poker as a business.

Febrruary stats:
Total games played: 27
ROI: 71%

Stay cool!

A (vergonhosa) Reportagem SIC

2010-02-11T23:48:00.004Z

Este post é mesmo em português sobre um assunto nacional. Há dias foi transmitida uma reportagem na SIC que supostamente e inicialmente deveria ser sobre a evolução do poker, regras e a realidade do mesmo a nivel amador e profissional.

Contudo, a reportagem foi sobre o vicio do jogo e mostra uma completa falsidade acerca do poker em Portugal e o jornalista que fez este trabalho mostra uma pura ignorância sobre o tema ou se conhece o tema a fundo levou noutro sentido que não a realidade do poker enquanto praticado como hobbie ou profissionalmente.

Toda a comunidade portuguesa online de poker repudia esta reportagem.

Deixo aqui um link para uma opinião sobre esta reportagem.

É uma vergonha como é que existem jornalistas que fazem este tipo de trabalho e traiem a confiança dos jogadores nacionais que depositaram a sua esperança neste trabalho crendo que o mesmo fosse uma reportagem construtiva e positiva acerca do poker e não uma reportagem obsoleta, cheia de tabus e que retrata o vicio do jogo.

É curioso que depois da reportagem a SIC apresentou aos portugueses uma forma de estes ganharem 5k € no passatempo Perfeito Coração, o valor com que a estação ganha é muito superior aos 5k € que oferecem e entretanto centenas ou milhares de portugueses vão ligar para um nº de telefone de valor acrescentado, será a febre dos serviços de valor acrescentado por televisão? Ou será o vicio do jogo patrocinado pela televisão mas que este já é supostamente um jogo pedagógico e que se aprende muito e se desenvolve as capacidades?

Ironia à parte, esta reportagem vem mostrar que para além de existir uma falta de responsabilidade social por parte de alguns meios de comunicação social ao não saberem comunicar o assunto que relatam, leva-me a crer que existe um trabalho enorme e eterno de os jogadores de poker, (como eu), de saberem explicar, comunicar e promover o fantastico mundo online ou live do poker.

Weekend Grind

2010-02-07T23:42:00.003Z

I was more tired this weekend to play than usual, but I ended up playing 10 games, the 9 players SNG's. On the 10 games played I lost 5 games in a row! But I had 3 1st places, so I ended up with more money on my bankroll.

I only played 2 games on Friday, I was very tired, I guess it was the gym, before playing I went to the gym. Then at home I made a dinner and after take my son to bed and I was ready to some action at the tables but I was not 100% focused so I ended up just playing 2 games. On Saturday night I played until 2 AM, I wake up early today, after doing some domestic stuff, I rested a while at the afternoon and played 3 games tonight. Now I am ready to rest, still not midnight but tomorrow is work day so I have to get up early at 7,30 AM.

I will try to manage to play some games at weekdays, but at the present it is hard for me to play during weekdays night. I still only played 11 games this month, less 9 games than January.

Total games played on February: 11
ROI: 85%

These stats shows some good indicators for me, I hope I can play at least 50 games this month maintaing a good 2 digits ROI. I still did not gave up on the Sharkscope leaderboard, I have the all year to try.

See you at the tables!

January Review & February Prewatch

2010-02-01T23:46:00.004Z

January is over and was an above average month for me at the tables. Was the most profitable month to me since I started playing poker back in March 2009. But don't take my word from me I will show you the numbers.

Period of time: January

- Total games played: 66
- - Total Wins: 38
- - Total Loses: 28
- Average buy-in: 1,15 €
- Total Profit: 41,10 €
- ROI: 54,2%

On a investment point of view, I invested 75,9€ and I received back not only what I invested but more 54,2% back. What I mean is that I won 121€. Making a net profit of 41,1 €.

I also started and finished reading a poker book, the poker mindset.
I am rereading the book this month to start a new one next month (already on the waiting list).

How is it going to be February? It depends on my computer strength, I was on the Pokerstars blogger tournament last friday and my pc crashed during the 1st hour. The tournament was going ok, everybody started with $2000 and in less than 45 minutes I already had more than $8k, placing above 30th on a field with more than 1500 players.

I ended up in 199th place, without playing any hand at the 50 minutes point because my pc "said it was enough". I ended up going to a store where they fix and clean the computers and in the same day with less 50€ on the wallet I already had my pc working, this was on Saturday. Just ended up turning the pc on today.

This month I will continue to play the SNG of 9 players at the 1€ buy in and work to get more than 50 games played and a 2 digits positive ROI.

I leave this post with my final hand played last month, was a SNG of 9 players and we were heads-up and I take down the 1st prize by busting the opponent straigth with my full house.

Haiti Pokerstars Relief Fund

2010-01-23T16:13:00.003Z

You can help Haiti by registering on Pokerstars and make a transfer to a fund or by registering to a dummy tournament. It is very simple, you can make a small donation like only $1 or a bigger one, you choose.
All the donations will be donated to the Red Cross, so please be generously and make a diference in the world by helping the Haiti nation.

Back to the Leaderboard

2010-01-17T22:33:00.002Z

This weekend was a great, I cashed in almost every SNG I played and I returned to sharkscope leaderboard for a 18th place. I know if I put more volume I can go more deep on the leaderboard, but I do not have much time to put more volume.
Anyway, I will continue to play the SNG 9s at the micro level and increase my bankroll.

A Royal Flush...

2010-01-14T22:45:00.004Z

...and also a Straight Flush from my opponents. Both hands are very uncommon to see, in fact was the first time that I saw a Royal Flush. For those who do not know, a Royal Flush is the most strongest hand you can have when playing Texas Holdem and it is a very rare hand, very uncommon to have. A straight Flush is the 2nd strongest hand you can have and it is also very rare.

I was playing a SNG and both hands were on the same game almost one after another. Here are the pictures:

The Straight Flush (a straigth from the same suit):

The Royal Flush (the highest straigth possible from the same suit):

Now, down to business.
I am current on a poor results sequence, I am being busted sometimes on the bubble, sometimes I have the strongest hand PreFlop and Flop but on the Turn or on the River, opponent makes a stronger hand.

I am ok because I have built a great profit before and I am playing acording to bankroll rules so I have to put volume so I can return to my winning games. Anyway, those past results have put me outside of the leaderboard...for a while.

I will do an effort to get back as soon as possible to the leaderboard, I just need some more consistent winnings and I will be back in shape.
See you at the tables!

Leaderboard Results

2010-01-04T20:47:00.002Z

Happy new 2010 year!

I am taking one step back and started to be more conservative with my bankroll. I decided to play the 1€ SNG's (top 3 get paid) on Pokerstars. I am playing on the regular format (the blinds increase every 10 minutes). I am starting pretty well, I have some great results and already a profit of almost $15 in a few games.
Right now, I am on the sharkscope leaderboard (top 20) at that level wich is good. I will continue to play them and hope to maintain my leaderboard status. It is going to be hard because I do not play so much during the weekdays (to not go so late for bed).

Here is a picture of the top 20 poker players most profitable from all over the world and from all online poker rooms at the SNG 9s buy ins below $2. I am at the 8th place at this level. Of course this board is dynamic the more I play and win, the more chances I have to stay at the leaderboard.

General Poker 2010 Goals

2009-12-29T10:46:00.003Z

2009 was my first year as a amateur poker player. I started playing online poker at March on cash games without knowing nothing but the cards ranking value. I started to take more seriously this Summer and when I joined a training site on August I started to think more about poker. After reading and rereading 2 poker books and play a lot of hands I started to realize that poker is more than just the cards you hold on your hands. Made Silverstar on Pokerstars on August and maintained during September. October was the month where I decided to specialize in SNG and play more MTT's instead of cash games.

I figure out the 2 main factors in becoming a good poker player:
- Bankroll Management
- Tilt Control

You can learn to play good poker by reading books, watching videos, posting hands on a forum or play a lot more. But you cannot become a good poker player if you do not master bankroll management and tilt control.
By bankroll management I mean you have to play the games that suits your bankroll, you should have a strict and disciplined control over your bankroll.
By Tilt control I mean emotional control, you should put emotions outside of the table and always think logical about every decision that you make at the table.

Here are the poker goals for 2010:

1. Educational goals:
- Read 4 new poker books;
- Watch more MTT/SNG videos during the year;

2. Pokerstars goals:
- Becoming Silverstar more than once a year;
- Qualify for a live tournament;
- Increase my bankroll in 300%
- Reach a final table on a online MTT;

In general will try to play more games per month (average of 125 SNG's), specialize in one or two SNG structures and build my roll from there. Will also play some online MTT's and try to reach a final table. I will try to qualify for a live tournament on Pokerstars.

I hope I can post more here on the blog and give some profit numbers every month, will try to do that. 2010 will be a great year to play poker online, specially at Pokerstars because there will be some major positive changes to all Pokerstars members.

Happy new 2010 year!

Pokerstars, the Greatest Online Poker Room

2009-12-27T19:37:00.006Z

Will play today on the World Guiness Record Tournament Poker at Pokerstars, there are already more than 140,000 players signed up. I will post here the final number with a picture.

Pokerstars made a huge improvement for the next year on they VIP club, so 2010 will be a profitable year. I can make silverstar with only 750 VPPs and there are going to be milestones cash to all players, for more information checkout: http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/2010changes/

I have been grinding some DoNs and I am very happy with my results, on the last 73 games I have a 22% ROI. I invested $73 on those games and not only I received that amount back, but I also made some more than 20% profit on them. I have $50 bonus to release until February, I am sure I will release that bonus with more profit on these DoNs games.

I am playing right now and there are 149,196 players on this MTT, Guiness World Record for Pokerstars!!

You can also look on this picture and see the numbers of total players current playing on Pokerstars (not necessary on this MTT of course):

One more thing, just started 2 more blogs, one of them is in Portuguese, you can checkout on my profile section.

How things going?

2009-12-20T23:32:00.004Z

This weekend was a very cold one outside but very warm at the poker tables. I have been playing one type of SNG where there are 10 players at the table and 5 players receive a prize and the other 5 dont. The prize is the double of the buy in (the amount you pay to play a SNG or tournament).

After 40 games of playing this type of SNG on the last 90 days, I am very happy with my results. I am having a ROI of 27% and my bankroll is building slowly but in the right direction. My perception about these type of SNG is that they are more secure to play, but the reward is not so higher like the 9s SNG type.

I wish I Merry Christmas to all the readers.

Weekend Feedback

2009-12-09T09:56:00.003Z

This weekend I played 4 MTT's, I cashed in one. On the one that I cashed there were 5000 entrants and I placed 143. I ended busted with my pocket eights against the chip leader that was holding pocket aces.
I do not regret pushing with my pocket eights because I was geting shortstacked and need to double up. In overall the MTT's are going reasonable, on the others I faced some suck outs but in genereal I think my performance is ok, still need that final table and specially that top 3 place to boost my bankroll.

As SNG concerned, it was a disaster weekend, at least on Pokerstars. I played more than 10 games and I lost more than a half. Some of them were sick bad beats, like holding KK and push to a AA hand or having AA and busted for a KKK hand, some damn things like that. I played most of the time the shorthanded turbo mode $3 SNG, they are soft but the variance sucks.
On the other hand I won 2 SNG's on other rooms, one on Betclick and the other on Diamonbet, the last was a private SNG.

My strategy will change a bit for the rest of the year. To maintain my bankroll in a healthy mode, I will continue to play the MTT's on weekend because I feel I can make a final table sonner or later. On the SNG I will leave the $3 and return to the $1 but more important I will return to play some DoN's (Double or Nothing SNG, where half the field gets paid). I do not like so much the DoN's but they are safer to build bankroll.

My main goal is very soon play the steps system on Pokerstars so I can climb the steps and reach a live event package.

Bankroll Management, the 5% Rule

2009-12-04T11:19:00.002Z

Hi readed today one article from professional Pokerstars player Vicky Coren. She said that one golden bankroll management rule is to invest no more than 5% of your bankroll on a buy in tournament.

I am a true follower of this rule, ever single game whatever it is a MTT or SNG, I never invest more than 5% of my bankroll. I played the $1.10 buy in MTT's and I could play a little more higher buy in, but I prefer this buy in level right now because MTT's are high variance games. On SNG's I started to play the $3 and it is still under 5% of my bankroll.

The $3 single tables SNG's are soft but I still did not reached ITM, I had 2 bubbles places and on 9 place where my AKs was busted against KK. The bubble is thougher on these games but I know I can make it and crush these $3 SNG's. Just need to continue to play them.

This weekend I will play my usual MTT's today and tomorrow and some $3 stt SNG's. I will try to satelite for the Sunday 1/4 million on pokerstars.

November Review, December Goals

2009-12-02T12:22:00.004Z

I dedicate the whole November to SNG of 90 players and some MTT's. Here are the main stats for November:

Type of Game: SNG - 90 players
Played: 47 games
ROI: 13%
Best rank: 3rd place.
Best cashing streak: 2 games in a row

I am current on a stretch of 10 games without cashing, my worst stretch on them until now, facing some bad beats along the way. The variance on multitable SNG's are very high. My goals for December is to play at least 50 games of single table SNG's on $3 buy in at, lets see how is it going to be.

Type of Game: MTT's
Played: 20 games
ROI: -56%
Best rank: 366 place.
Best cashing streak: 2 games in a row

On the MTT's side I will try to play at least 20 games, but I hope I can play more. Of course my main goal on MTT's is to have a positive ROI on December and try to reach a 2 digits rank. Reaching the final table is always a goal but lets see my performance on these games.

So, December will be plenty og SNG's at and MTT's, specially the 2K GTD on pokerstars (23:00 PM GMT time).

Hands Pictures

2009-11-30T11:02:00.009Z

Just to show you guys some great hands and a bad beat hand from my last tournaments. I have been playing the SNG of 90 players and also some MTT's.

This is my worst bad beat of this month on the final table of the SNG 90 players:

Tripling up my stack with pocket kings:

Playing small and medium pocket pairs is a fundamental play in NL Holdem. When you hit a set and opponents hits something from the board be prepared to take down a big pot:

A flush ace high is always the nuts, the best way to take down a huge pot is when your opponent has also a strong hand like 2 top pairs but you manage to have some luck on the river and make the flush:

Well, sometimes we can face that against us. On this hand I pushed with my 2 pairs and opponent calls and hits trips of deuces on the river:

EPT Vilamoura 2009 - Portugal

2009-11-20T13:54:00.006Z

European Poker Tour is on Vilamoura until Sunday 22 of November.
You can watch all the updates on http://pokerpt.com/ and/or http://www.pokerstarsblog.com

Pointing out some issues

2009-11-20T09:53:00.003Z

Been playing the SNG's of 90 players. I had lost some races on some of them when I push my stack to the table. There was this hand that I pushed with pocket sevens against AKo from the opponent and the ace cames on the river. On another game I pushed with AQs against pocket teens from the big stack opponent and I lost.

I am hitting a downswing on my current results on the 90s after a good period of cashing. I think volume is the key and willing to identify some leaks and pushing ranges to improve the game are also important.

This weekend I will play 2 MTT's, one today and another tomorrow, it will be a big field with more than 4000 players and with a prize pool of more that $4000. I will play my game and lets see how is it going to work out.

Besides the MTT's I have an private invitation for the 2d time for one SNG of 9 players from Cardlovers, I will also play this one on Sunday. On the first one that I played last Sunday I made 2nd place but with some luck because I was sitting out more that 15 minutes due to internet problems.

I will grind some 90s SNG's and I hope I can post some hands on DC forum and also to watch a video from DC that explains how to play on the 180s SNG and extract some ideias and thoughts for the 90s.

My strongest enemy is the time, I had not enough time to do want I want, there is so much to do on the poker world and outside of poker world that sometimes my rest time is afected. I have to manage this better because is very important to have a healthy mind on a healthy body to play good poker and to do all the important things.

Tournament Analysis - Critical Hands 1

2009-11-10T19:07:00.014Z

ITM: means In The Money
When you reach a point on the tourney that more than a 85% of the people were eliminated and you reached the money.

Last days I have been playing the $2K GTD Tournament, simply means a tournament that has a guaranteed prize pool of $2000. Obvious, there are so many entrants that the prize pool is always much, much larger than $2K, usually reach more than $5K.
This tourney is everyday at 23h (11 PM) and I played four on the last days. I reached ITM 50% and only ended really deep in one (has posted before).

On the other tourneys that I did not ended so deep I had some bad luck (I guess) and my strong hands were not so strong that I thought they were and I lost (a bad beat? Maybe in one of them).
I manage to have a decent stack on each of these hands, but ended screwing things up when I thought that I had the best hand on the board.

The goal of this post is to show you those critical hands.

Hand #1 - Tourney ID: #209010746
Final Place/Total Players: 5643/6316

I more than doubled my stack early with pocket aces.
I played this speculative hand with 2 purposes: first to make a flush king high in a cheap way; or 2nd to make top pair, good kicker with Kings; I was not thinking at all in doing a straight.

That agression that opponent was showing was clear he has a strong hand, but I would never imagein a full house!

Hand #2 - Tourney ID: #209010747
820/6041

Already ITM, I have a good stack to get deep on this tourney but my pocket aces is broken...

I should had checked on the River, He was calling all my agressive bets, was clear he has a strong hand, better than a pocket aces.
In the future I could push on preflop or bet more on Preflop.

Hand #3 - Tourney ID: #219010741
1523/5827

This one was yesterday, I doubled up early with AK, not so much action and my stack was decreasing a bit so I take my chances by pushing my 99 hand.
My hand was favorite on preflop but changed to a clear underdog hand on the flop.

These were the critical hands that busted my tourney. I also want to share on another post the hands that were critical to my survive on the tournaments, specially on the tournament posted before (that I hit 14th place).

Keep up on reading, I will post more interesting hands soon.

$2k Guaranteed Tournament

2009-11-01T15:14:00.004Z

This saturday I played a MTT (Multi Table Tournament) with almost 5000 players. In fact there were 4998 players on total. I placed 14th and it was my best result ever on a big field tournament, I was almost on the final table.

I did not played any MTT since 20 July, so it was great to have this outcome. I was expecting the first place but I did a stupid push in one of my last hands with a pocket nines and I faced a pocket kings hand and was underdog.
Before that hand I was having t490280 chips in 5th place and there were less than 20 players. I should have waited for a better spot to push and double (again) my stack.

Anyway it was a good performance with some good spots to push and it was a good return to MTT's games.

This is the final tournament results:

These are two pictures during the game were I have a great stack to take the 1st place reward, well better next time:

October Stats and a look at November

2009-10-30T11:35:00.000Z

Tomorrow is the last day of October and I am very happy with my results on 9s SNG's.
Right now I have a 14% positive ROI on the $1.20 SNG's of 9 players (9s) at pokerstars.

Not much volume, I only played about 36 of these games, so if I increase my volume I can get much better results. My worst stretch without any cash this month on these games was 6 games in a row. My best streak on cashing was 4 games cashing.

Today I have a private tournament with some DC members, we set up this tournament so we can play all together, it will going to be fun!

I had some hands that I want to share here on the Forum, I will convert and post on a future thread. On one hand I made a full house and beat 3 opponents in the same hand. The other my pairs of KK busted 2 more players.

Next month I will exclusively dedicate to 9s SNG's at the $1.20 buy in. Probably I will take a shoot on the $3 or $5 buy in SNG. I will also play some MTT's on Saturday or Friday night so I can return to these big fields again, now that I improved my game.

I will continue to study the game, I will review the blackboard videos from Vandweller, these videos are fundamental to become a winning player. They explain ICM from scratch and the push/fold strategy at later stages on the tournament.

I am also doing some sweat session with some DC members. What is a sweat session? This is made by using Skype and Mikogo software (or TeamViewer). It is a session where someone is watching you playing, (you are sharing your desktop remotely with another guy) and you also speak with him by using Skype. I highly recomend to anyone who wants to improve the game, I have made some 3, 4 sessions and is awesome!