Mort_nmgn's Blogs

Grinding Full Time Online

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 1:24:36 -0600

Hello People,

I am back from a few months absence. Since Jan 1st 2011, I have been grinding like 35 Hours a week online on the 1/2 NL stakes on Ipoker. Been grinding 6-8 tables for about 80K hands a month.

What keeps me motivated to grind this kind of volume every week? First of all I got a great rakeback deal, so I get alot of rakeback every month grinding this volume. But I think my best motivation is setting goals for myself. At the start of 2011 I set a goal in How much rake i want to produce in a year (in other words, how much rakeback i want to get in a year). I broke this goal down is seperate month goals and with this i already calculated in vacations and sickdays and stuff. So now i know how much I need to rake every month to reach my goal. Every 1st of the month I take my calender and pick my grind days. On the days i grind I make sure i rake a minimum of $400. This way i can reach my goals and still keep pretty much all my weekends free :D

Playing like 80.000 hands a month can be pretty ruff. I can get pretty sick swings.. Like in Feb i played break even for 50.000 hands and then had a killer final week. And in March up till now I am break even, but had like 4 sessions were I dropped more then 10 Buy ins.. Last year I used to quit when i was having a terrible session. But now that i have my goals i just grind it out and make sure i reach my $400 rake of the day. In a way I am more in piece with the varience poker bring then last year. I am pretty sure i can handle the dailey swings pretty good. But I think i need to stop focussing on the dailey results. Like when I have a bad week I am really disapointed if i run a few buy ins below ev AGAIN. But actually i shouldn't give a shit. I know in the long run it will even out, but somehow when i run a few sessions below EV I expect to run above EV the next sessions. But ofcourse poker is a cruel game and it doensn't work that way. I read once that Leatherass never looks at his monthresults untill the end of the month. I would like to learn how to do this.. to give me some piece of mind in the process of the month :) It can be prety frustrating to be break even after 50k hands and still have like 1 week left to play in the month to make some money. I hope i can do the same as leatherass in the future..... In the mean while... i just need to find a peacefull place for the dailey swings of poker :D

I wish I knew how to post a picture in here, so I could show a graph :)

Gr. Morten

Life of a Grinder prt 7

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 10:36:45 -0500

I’ve done some interesting things this week. I finished my 3^rd video.  I had to record two sessions for this video. The first session I was sick, and my mic was on during this session. So You hear me blowing my nose every now and then, so that wasn’t really optimal. So I decided to record a new session. It’s kind of a waste though, I recorded the session somewhere in a 6000 hand session. So there was a lot of history and meta-game going on between me and the other players. I’m not really a computer wizard, so I don’t know how I can mute the original sound and voice it over. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday and I can still release that footage.

Also I did my first coaching session. I don’t know if the player wants me to reveal his name, so I won’t. But I coached him for 30NL on 4 tables and I think I helped him approve his game dramatically in a period of an hour. I hope he will remember all the things we talked about, and find a way to adept his game so he can be more profitable and move up in stakes sooner or later. I also had fun doing it. Making videos and coaching also helps me to improve my own game. When I have to put my thought process into words and explain what to do and why on each street forces me to think things trough.

I’m trying out a skin on the Ipoker network this week. I got a good rakeback deal (a lot better then on Tilt), so I decided to try it out. The software is not great. I can’t mass multi table on the site because the software is not cut out for that. So I have to play like 6 tables, which means less hands, which means less rakeback. But the rakeback is so high I just put in more hours for now. Also The skill level on Ipoker is a lot lower then on Tilt, so for now I’m also taking more bb/100 hands.

This week I got the blackcard from Full Tilt. I don’t know what I can do with it exactly. But I know it has a different store for it when I can buy cash bonuses and other things. Also I get more Full Tilt Points with it. So right on the moment I switched to Ipoker, Full Tilt gives me this blackcard, as if they knew…. Anyways I gotta calculate someday which is better for me. Ipoker with the low skill level and more rakeback. Or Fulltilt with the blackcard and Iron man bonuses, lower rakeback but more tables. Someday I will, for now I’m still lazy :P

I’m going on vacation to Florida Thursday, so I won’t write a blog for a while.

Here’s a hand that was in the recorded session I didn’t make a video of:

***** Hand History for Game 24188956942 ***** (Full Tilt)

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, September 25, 10:21:10 ET 2010

Table Cutie (6 max) (Real Money)

Seat 2 is the button

Seat 1: RussianFlower ( $100.00 USD )

Seat 2: Deshen ( $74.60 USD )

Seat 3: emiliamaria ( $131.80 USD )

Seat 4: Mort_nmgn ( $132.00 USD )

Seat 5: LARSderCHUND ( $351.40 USD )

Seat 6: H0rr0rka ( $99.00 USD )

emiliamaria posts small blind [$0.50 USD].

Mort_nmgn posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Mort_nmgn [  6d Ah ]

LARSderCHUND folds

H0rr0rka raises [$3.00 USD]

RussianFlower folds

Deshen folds

emiliamaria calls [$2.50 USD]

Mort_nmgn raises [$12.00 USD]

H0rr0rka folds

emiliamaria calls [$10.00 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9h, 2s, Qc ]

emiliamaria checks

Mort_nmgn bets [$14.00 USD]

emiliamaria calls [$14.00 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 3c ]

emiliamaria checks

Mort_nmgn bets [$24.00 USD]

emiliamaria calls [$24.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ 3d ]

emiliamaria bets [$80.80 USD]

Mort_nmgn calls [$80.80 USD]

emiliamaria shows [5s, 5h ]

emiliamaria wins $263.60 USD from main pot

Mort_nmgn doesn't show [6d, Ah ]

Preflop:

 Initial raiser is an unknown, which means he isn’t a regular. The SB (villain) is a big fish who plays 89/26/39/4.7 over 230 hands. I’ve got A6o in the BB and I decide to squeeze. I squeeze here to fold out the Initial raise and play a 3bet pot in position of the fish. The fish 3bets 4.7 so he probably does 3bet his High pairs and AK. My hand plays pretty easy on all boards, so I am happy if the Initial raiser fold and the fish calls.

Lucky for me my plan works out.

Flop:

The flop is Q92rainbow, which is a pretty dry board. The fish checks to me, and I fire my pretty standard cbet that’s a little below half pot. I always cbet around half pot in 3bet pots with my made hands a bluffs. It’s cheaper to bluf, and because it’s a 3bet pot I can still get all the money in over 3 streets when I do have a made hand.

The fish c/c my cbet. His range is pretty wide at this point. It’s Any Pocket pair, any hit, any straight draw (gut shots + open ended) , some A highs, some random floats. Fishes still randomly float with like K6off and hands like that.

I’m pretty much ruling out Q9 and sets here, because fish are pretty passive with 1 pair hands but play 2 pair and sets pretty fast! So I am expecting a c/r with two pair and sets like 90% of the time here.

Turn:

Turn is a nice blank 3 which pretty much misses his entire range (expect for 33 or 2/3). The 3 does put a flush draw out there. But not much of his range contains backdoor flushdraws. Only some straightdraws and A highs pick up a flush draw on this turn. This fish has a really high VPIP but I think he’s folding Q3 and 93. So the 3 rarely improves his hand. I fire another bet of 24 into 57. Which again is a low bet, with the same reasons I stated on the sizing of the flop cbet. I fire  2^nd time here to try and make him fold better A highs and hands like 44-88 and 2x/9x. I know fishes won’t fold Top purrrr but as stated above his range is soo much wider then just top pair. Also he can still call me with straight draws which are KT/KJ/JT/J8/T8 which are 80 handcombo’s.

When he doesn’t c/r the turn I am sure he doesn’t have a made hands. With the extra straight and flushdraws out there I am sure fishes wouldn’t slow play any made hand on the turn here.

River:

Another blank 3. Which is great. And the fish surprises me and front shoves all in with his $80 in a $105 pot.  This shove doesn’t make any sense. Like I said he wouldn’t slow play any made hand on the flop or turn. So I can rule out QQ/99/22/33/Q9. The only boat he might play this way is 23. Which was bottom pair on the flop and bottom two pair on the turn which made a full house on the river. I am not sure how often the fish c/c the turn with bottom two pair though. But I am sure if he did c/c the turn with bottom two he would front shove the river. So 23 are 6 handcombo’s he is shoving a full house for value here.

Now I have to figure out, what other hands does the fish value shove on the river here? Does he ever value shove Qx here? I’m pretty sure he is check calling me down here with any Queen. But for those rare occasions he does value shove AQ here I put in some handcombo’s that beat me in his valuerange. There 9 Handcombo’s AQ out there, so let’s put in 4 handcombo’s in his valuerange.

So he’s shoving 9 handcombo’s for value here.

Then again he had 80 handcombo’s of straight draws in his range. So how often his he bluff shoving those? I think he’s shoving missed draws here a decent amount of the time. The pot is already $105, and a fish has a K high or even worse T high hand on the river. I think the fish panic and shove their stack in a lot of the times. Even if they only do this half of the time with a missed draw here in this exact spot, that’s still 40 handcombo’s! And that’s a lot more than his value range!

So I decide to call and the fish shows me 55. Which makes me look like an idiot :D. But I am hapy with the call I made, because I knew the fish was bluffing here a majority of the time. And like I stated above the fish did panic here and saw his hand on a $105 pot and just bluff shove his stack in. Sadly I didn’t beat his entire bluffrange in this spot. I think the A high call is a profitable call though in the long run J

Greetz, Morten

Life of a Grinder prt 6

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:02:38 -0500

I’ve been sick all week, and didn’t play much. Friday I was still somewhat sick, but I couldn’t help myself to play some hands. Because I wasn’t 100% sharp I played on 100NL. In two days I grinded 11.000 hands. Everything was going pretty well, and I recorded 45 minutes of a session to make my 3^rd video this week. Sunday I was feeling better and I was eager to join the 200NL and 400NL tables again. Right of the bat I get KK vs AA on the 400NL and I fail to suck out. Even when we run it twice. I like the run it twice option on Full Tilt, to kill the variance on the mid stakes. Everyone is pretty aggressive preflop and I get in a lot of flip situations. So I suggest running it twice when you have the option.

I’ve played 2000 hands sunday on the 200NL and 400NL today and somehow I fail to close winning sessions. I went to my hand history again today and I’ve played pretty solid. So I guess I have to grind it out. It’s getting pretty frustration that I’m winning like 2K over 20K hands on the 100NL and then dumping that on the 200/400Nl in 2000 hands.  So I have to figure out for myself if I should just stay away from the 200/400NL for a while to clear my head. And then really stay away!  I’ve been doing the same dance for a few weeks now. Grind hard on the 100NL and then run bad on the 200NL+. Then go back to the 100NL etc. Right now I’m so frustrated I want to take a break for a month! I am going on vacation to Florida on 8 Okt for 2 weeks, so when I stop playing now for 2 weeks it’s a month of poker playing. Maybe it’s just my frustration talking, but I’m definitely considering it.

Today I wanted to voice over my 3^rd vid. But I still have a little cold. And I guess you don’t want to hear me blowing my nose every couple of minutes. So I hope I can voice it over tomorrow. I’m trying a different mic this time. So I hope the sound is better!

Errol asked me if I was interested to start coaching. And I think I am. I think I can explain my thought process pretty well and I think I have a lot of knowledge I can spread around. So you’ll probably find me on the site pretty soon with the other coaches. I think my field of expertise are the 6 Max games. I’ll could 0,50/1,00 and under. So if you are interested, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Greetz, Morten

Life of a Grinder prt 5

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:39:40 -0500

It’s been a while since I’ve typed my last blog. I’ve been a little busy lately. Been going to the gym regularly.  Played paintball this weekend, and I’m pretty proud to say we ended on 2^nd place this season with our paintball team!

Last time I start showing signs of RSI. Last week I went to the gym and there’s a physiotherapist there. He examined me, and he confirmed that I show a lot of signs of RSI. Lucky for me I can do something about it now! He showed me some exercises I have to work with for a while, and gave me some good advice about my desk set up. I’m working with those exercises and advice now, and I do feel a little progress already, so I am happy with that!

So I’ve been grindin’ a decent amount this week and I moved back up to the 200NL. I didn’t have a very good start but I am just going to grind like 50.000 hands over the next couple of weeks and see how it turns out.

My 2^nd video is online now and I hope you enjoy it!

Here’s an interesting hand I’ve played today.

***** Hand History for Game 24027055218 ***** (Full Tilt)

$200.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, September 19, 10:49:07 ET 2010

Table Weave (6 max) (Real Money)

Seat 6 is the button

Seat 1: KOXIXOS ( $201.45 USD )

Seat 2: IngolMax ( $76.00 USD )

Seat 3: Mort_nmgn ( $203.00 USD )

Seat 4: LiesAndLunacy ( $276.50 USD )

Seat 5: GhostOuts ( $219.05 USD )

Seat 6: US_OBAMA ( $290.80 USD )

KOXIXOS posts small blind [$1.00 USD].

IngolMax posts big blind [$2.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Mort_nmgn [  5s 5c ]

Mort_nmgn raises [$7.00 USD]

LiesAndLunacy calls [$7.00 USD]

US_OBAMA folds

KOXIXOS folds

IngolMax folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ Ah, Jd, 6s ]

Mort_nmgn checks

LiesAndLunacy checks

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5h ]

Mort_nmgn bets [$14.00 USD]

LiesAndLunacy calls [$14.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ Js ]

Mort_nmgn bets [$12.00 USD]

LiesAndLunacy raises [$50.00 USD]

Mort_nmgn raises [$170.00 USD]

LiesAndLunacy calls [$132.00 USD]

Mort_nmgn shows [5s, 5c ]

Mort_nmgn wins $406.00 USD from main pot

LiesAndLunacy doesn't show [Jc, Kc ]

Stats villain 19/15/36/9.7 over 70 hands

 

It’s a 5 handedgame and I open 55 UTG to 3,5 bb and UTG +1/CO calls. Flop is AJ6 rainbow. I check (to check-fold) and villain checks behind. Turn is a 5h. Now there’s a Heart flushdraw on the board. I bet $14 in a 16$ pot. I bet a high amount because I checked the flop. So when villain picks up a heart draw, checked behind and Ace or has Jx  he is pretty much calling any sized bet. So I almost bet pot and expect a call whenever he connects with this board.

River is a Js. So I make a Full house. The pot is $45 now, and I am thinking how I can extract the most value out of my hand. I can go for a check-raise, assuming he will always bet his Jx and he will get into a tough spot when I check-raise the river and he has a check. Because I checked the flop, it’s hard for him to put me on anything and most likely he will call a check-raise almost every time with a Jx. But when I check, he will most likely check all of his Ax behind.  I don’t think he has a lot of flushdraws in his range. He can have KQhh /KThh/QThh/JQhh/KJhh, which are only 5 handcombo’s. So how can I extract the most value from his Ax hands and his Jx hands and still give him opportunity to bluff missed draws? I make a bet of $12 in a pot of $45. With this amount he can still call me of with any pair like 77/88/99 or Ax. He can still buffraise with the rare missed draws he has in his range, because this size looks like a blockbet a lot, villain will blufraise a decent amount of the times. And he SHOULD valueraise all his Jx here! Villain does make a valueraise to $ 50 and I jamm all in. He even ends up calling my all in with KJ which is kind of thin. I am never bluffing there, and I don’t think I am value shoving QJ/JT there. So he’s calling to split the pot with me if I have KJ aswell, which is kind of bad. But as you can see people can’t really make hero folds, because my value range is so small. I am basicly repping 55 or AA. But sadly for him I will have these hands most of the time, when the hand is played out like this.

 

Greetz, Morten

 

Life of a Grinder prt 4

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 5:33:23 -0500

So I’ve played about 20.000 hands in the past 7 days. I’ve been grindin’ a lot of hands since I came back from my vacation. I am pretty happy with how things are going right now. I’m playing a lot of hands, it’s not going really bad. I am planning most my sessions for the week, and try to keep myself to play at those times I planned them on. This way when I am not playing poker, my life isn’t consumed by it. Of course I take time to analyze my handhistories, read forums and watch pokervidz. But when I am not improving my game or playing, I have spare time! Which I spent going to the gym, playing Paintball and watching series (season 5 of 24 right now) and spending time with my friends, girlfriend and dog. The first few months when I started going pro my  life was really consumed by poker. I’d play online a lot of afternoons and visit life games in the evening.  When I wasn’t playing I was looking for a live game or I was starting up my laptop to play some hands online. This was probably very frustrating for my girlfriend, because I wasn’t spending much time with her. But now I play more hands a week and have more spare time! So I am pretty happy with my poker life and my private life J

Because I’ve been playing a lot of hands the past few weeks, my arm starts to hurt after a few thousand hands a day. I try to stretch before and after sessions, but I can feel it is pretty sensitive all the time. Even after I take a break of 2 days, it is still pretty sensitive. So I am not sure what I can do about this. I’m going to ask some trainer at my gym if I can exercise my lower arm to make it stronger. I am hoping he can help me out, I don’t want to be stuck with RSI and become a full time life poker player. Spending all those hours away from home. So this kind of worries me at the moment.

The WCOOP started on stars, and I might be tempted to play 1 or 2 tournaments. I have to think about this though, because I don’t want to play tournaments long nights and sleep in late. This will effect my handrate on the cashgames. So I am hoping I can find some tournaments which start at a European friendly time J

My vid just came online, I hope you enjoy watching it! You can PM me with feedback and I would appreciate that!

Also I know I said I would try to analyze a hand every blog, but I don’t really have the time for it now. So I apologize if you were looking forward to that.

Greetz, Morten

Life of a Grinder prt 3

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 5:59:29 -0500

I continued played 100NL this week and I think I played around 20.000 hands. Everything was going great and I build my confidence back up to get ready for the 200NL again. Yesterday I ended up playing all kinds of tables. I found a familiar wale who was playing 600NL Full Ring. A seat right next to him was available, so of course I joined the table. I wouldn’t recommend moving up stakes just because there is a fish on it. But when you’re comfortable enough on the limits on a single table, and you can accept the possible “big” losses it is ok. I played some 600NL with him and of course lost a flip against a regular. Today I found the fish again on a 400NL 6MAX table so I ended up playing him. And again I lost a few buy ins with running bad. I ended up running a few buy ins under my EV with kinds of starts to feel familiar. I know variance is a big part of the game and I accept that. It is just frustrating that I run really bad on higher stakes, and I run good on the lower stakes. I wish it could be the other way around, but sadly I can’t chance that :) What tilted me out today, was that I just lost a flip on the 400NL and my Full Tilt FROZE! I had to reboot my laptop and even after that I couldn’t log into my Full Tilt account. So I was down a few K and the fish was still on the table and I couldn’t get back on! I haven’t felt Tilted like this in a LONG time. So I went to walk my dog, called some friends to get my frustration of my chest and ended up playing Pro Evolution Soccer on my Xbox with a friend for a few hours. I decided to take the rest of day off, because I thought I could still be slightly tilted after what happened today. I scanned my computer for viruses, and it did find some Trojans. I got rid of them and my laptop is ready again for a long grind session!

So losing a few K’s playing on 600NL and 400NL I am not sure yet what I will do the next couple of days. Maybe I should take a break, maybe I’ll still move back up to the 200NL. Or maybe I’ll grind a few more hands on the 100NL. I don’t think I am going to take a break. I am kind of a hardcore grinder. Want to play a lot of hands, and if it’s going bad I’m trying to grind even more hands!

Here’s a hand from a Full Ring 600NL session:

Seat 1: regrefvd ($2,616.40)
Seat 2: john gnag ($1,174.50)

Dealer

Seat 3: HERO ($956.10)

Posts small blind $3

Seat 4: F0rM0therRuss1a ($600)

Posts big blind $6

Seat 5: PlayinWitDreams ($1,056.05)
Seat 6: Mister_Tiger ($834)
Seat 7: zero2lose ($2,010)
Seat 8: U_ShOud_fOlD ($639.45)
Seat 9: DisAstro ($782)

Dealt to HERO 5s6s

Preflop: (Pot: $9)

FOLD zero2lose
FOLD U_ShOud_fOlD
FOLD DisAstro
FOLD regrefvd
RAISE john gnag, to $18
CALL HERO, $18
FOLD F0rM0therRuss1a
FOLD PlayinWitDreams  

Flop: (Pot: $45)

3sJc6d

CHECK john gnag
BET HERO, $24
CALL john gnag, $24

Turn: (Pot: $93)

CHECK john gnag
CHECK HERO

River: (Pot: $93)

BET john gnag, $66
RAISE HERO, to $132
CALL john gnag, $66

Showdown:

SHOWS HERO 5s6s

SHOWS john gnag AdJs

john gnag wins the pot of $354 with two pair, Aces and Jacks

John Gnag is a fish who plays 60/30 over a sample of 500 hands. He is a big loser if you look him up on PTR. I am sitting on the button in this hand with 5s6s. Villain opens the CO, and I call the button. Effectively I am 160bb’s deep against villain, so I am calling with a very wide range in position of him. I am also 3betting him a lot with hands like KJ+/AT+/77s+ all for value. This villain has a fold to 3bet of 16%, so he is calling with a lot of random hands when you 3bet him. Because he isn’t folding to 3bets a lot I rather 3bet decent hands for value, then these suited connector type of hands. If he did fold a lot to 3bets I am 3betting a lot of suited connectors, and calling my pairs and AJ/KQ type of hands.

Anyways back to the hand. We go heads up to the flop and I flop 2^nd pair. With a backdoor straight and a backdoor flushdraw. Villain checks to me. I can check behind here, but when he checks to me I have the best hand most of the time. Important to know about these type of fish, is that they don’t think in ranges and they don’t think about position. So they will float a lot out of position, because they simply don’t know what they are doing. I decide to make a half pot bet, because villain can call with straightdraws (gut shots mainly), and just random overcards. Also I bet to protect my hand. When I do have the best hand right now, villain almost always has 6 outs against me with random overcards to my pair of sixes.

Villain check calls me. His range is probably random Ace highs. From A2 to AK. Also some 3x. And some pairs between 22-TT that didn’t hit a set. Which are a lot of hand combo’s! The turn comes an Ace which is a pretty bad card for me. Villain checks to me, and because this Ace hits his range pretty hard I decide to check behind.

The river comes a beautiful 5 to give me two pair. And villain bets $66 which is about 2/3 pot. When he bets here villain has an Ace most of the time. So I decide what to do on the river. I can call it down, and win at showdown like 95% of the time, or I can raise and have him call me and win 90% of the time. That 5% of villains range that is going to bet/fold are some random bluffs with failed floats, or he might bet like 77s on the river and fold to a raise. The few time I lose is when villain slowplays a big hand like a set, or he made two pair with the Ace with like A3/A5. I am sure I have the best hand a great majority of the time though so I have to make a raise. I Decide to minraise on the river to be sure villain would call my raise. I wish I would have raised a little bigger though. Like I said in the beginning of the hand, fish don’t think in ranges. So when I raise big, villain won’t think of the range of hands I am raising here. He just knows he has top pair and wants to see my hand. So when I minraised to $132, I should have probably just bet close to pot which would be around the sizing of $291. Somehow villain showed up with top two pair. Which kind of made me laugh a bit. But I can’t think result orientated. When I break it down like this my conclusion is that I should have raised the river bigger. When I minraise the river I am missing out on great value with my hand!

Hope you liked this hand. When you are playing a weaker player you don’t need to think as deep as when you play a regular. You pretty much need to look at your own hand strength and figure out how much value you can get out of it against the fish. As you can see in the moment I thought I played it fine, but now I realized my river raise was to small.

Greetz, Morten

Life of a Grinder prt 2

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 4:55:04 -0500

Yesterday I made my first instruction video for outstandingpoker.com. It is a demo video I made for Errol and Tim, and they have to evaluate it. If they think it’s good enough they will upload it sooner or later on the website. It’s a video where I am playing on 100 NL 6 Max tables on Full Tilt. I explain the importance of position, table selection and how to get maximum value with big hands. Recording the video didn’t take long, but after that it was time for the voice over….. I can’t call myself a computerwizzard, I’m closer to a computer Noob! So I got the camtasia program to record and voice over a video. Watched a view short instruction videos how to use this program and started working on it. Saving the voice over was the biggest problem somehow. I actually voiced this video over 3 times! After that it still didn’t work so I had to try it another way. Eventually it turned out pretty well then I had to send it over to Errol, which again gave us some problems. I couldn’t send it over msn, so I had to download some ftp program (I thought ftp was short was Full Tilt Poker lol) and had to type in hostnames, server names and ports. All this was new for me and kind of confusing.  Eventually Errol got the video and I could go to sleep. I started at noon and I finished, believe it or not, at 2 am! All this for a video which eventually last about 1 hour.. So I hope it will come online soon so you can watch it and you better enjoy it!

At the end of my last blog I told you I moved down to 100 NL again to regain some confidence and start closing some green sessions!  I played about 24.000 hands on the 100 NL last week and I won about 20 buy ins. I am still running under EV and this still continuous, even this week where I did manage to win 20 buy ins. If you grind like 24.000 hands a week on Full Tilt rakeback is also a few buy ins, which is always nice. If you don’t have a account with rakeback, please get one! On the 100 NL you pay like $ 80 rake every 1000 hands. So if you can get 27% of that back that’s $ 21,60 every 1000 hands you play. So I get about $ 518,40 rakeback this week. If I didn’t have rakeback and I played 24.0000 hands every week for a year I could miss out on $ 26.956,80 a year! Even if you don’t play this many hands. Just do some math how much rakeback you could get every week and multiply this by 52 and you will see you’re missing out on a considerable amount every year!

I said last time that I wanted to rebuild some confidence on the 100NL and win some buy ins, and then move back up to the 200NL. Right now I am feeling really comfortable on the 100NL and winning buy ins every day. So I am pretty happy how things are going right now. I think I might grind another 50.000 hands on the 100NL, before I move back up. On the 100NL the regulars are still pretty weak. Their range is too face up most of the time, so on the 100NL I am really feeling like I am beating most regs. On the 200NL the regulars are a lot better. They think in ranges too, and most of them have a gameplan in a hand, which is very imortant. This makes most regulars on the 200NL harder to beat, especially when you play them out of position. So what you can learn from this is; Think about your opponents range well, have a gameplan in a hand what you are going to do on later streets. This gameplan should include board texture, opponents ranges, and the actions on the later street by your opponent.

I’d like to discuss this interesting hand that I played in my last session:’

***** Hand History for Game 23354525845 *****

(Full Tilt)$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, August 25, 10:40:53 ET 2010

Table Baltic (6 max) (Real Money)

Seat 5 is the button

Seat 1: CallingYou2 ( $292.55 USD )

Seat 2: AndyH17 ( $81.90 USD )

Seat 3: yanjiegou2007 ( $111.30 USD )

Seat 4: Renegade Snares ( $120.25 USD )

Seat 5: Hero ( $100.00 USD )

Seat 6: zaza 2 ( $189.55 USD )

zaza 2 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].

CallingYou2 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [  6h 9h ]

AndyH17 folds

yanjiegou2007 folds

Renegade Snares folds

Hero raises [$3.00 USD]

zaza 2 calls [$2.50 USD]

CallingYou2 folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 5s, 8s, 8c ]

zaza 2 checks

Hero bets [$4.00 USD]

zaza 2 raises [$13.00 USD]

Hero calls [$9.00 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Kh ]

zaza 2 checks

Hero bets [$20.00 USD]

zaza 2 calls [$20.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ Ac ]

zaza 2 checks

Hero bets [$64.00 USD]

zaza 2 folds

Hero wins $70.00 USD from main pot

Villain is a regular who plays on the 100NL / 200NL and sometimes I find him on the 400NL. His stats are 32/26/48/11.8 His aggression factor is 2.8. He check-raises 14% of his hands on the flop. These stats are based on 4.6K hands so they are pretty reliable.

I open pretty lose from the button. And as you can see I’m opening 96hh on the button here. Zaza2 calls me from the blinds. This regular is really loose-aggressive. And with those 3bet stats I can rule out most of his high pairs from his calling range. So he probably doesn’t have 99+ and AJss+ or KQ type hands. With those stats I think all these hands are in his 3bet range. So what type of hand is he calling me with here? With a gab of 6% between his PFR and VPIP I think this regular is calling too wide, and probably has some connectors/suited one-gabbers and small pocket pairs in his range. He also has some offsuit broadways in his hands like AT/KJ/JT.

I flop a gutterball on a drawheavy board and I cbet it. Zaza2 decide to check-raise me. Since he check-raises 13% of the flop, I can assume he is bluffing and semi-bluffing a decent amount when he check-raises. His value check-raising range is : 55/T8/98/87/86. Since I have a 9 and a 6 those are: 31 handcombo’s. His semibluffing range is: 67off/97/64/JTss/QJss/KJss/ATss/A9ss/A7ss/A6ss/A4ss/A3ss/A2ss those are: 46 handcombo’s. I think this regular also has some “info raising” in his range. Like he’raising 77/66/44/33/22 to fold when I raise him again. Those are: 27 handcombo’s. And now I have to figure out how many times zaza2 is bluffing with just 2 overcards. Let’s say he doenst do that too often and that he online does this with JT en QT. Which are 32 Handcombo’s.

I decide to float this check-raise with my gut shot. If I call a check-raise on a board like this. My range is usually 99+ and sometimes I call his check-raise with an 8, and off course I am calling there when I flop a full house with 85 or 55. So I am sure a regular knows my range is very strong and he will pretty much stop his bluffs at the turn when I call his check-raise on the flop. I still have some equity as well with my gut-shot. So if he has an 8, I still have an opportunity to catch a 7 on the turn! If you decide to float, you will show more profit if you often still have pot equity when you do. Floating when you’re drawing dead is not a good idea. If my range contains a full house an 8 and I have overpairs in my range, regulars will stop bluffing, because it is hard to barrel people of a fullhouse, trips or overpairs.

So I call his check-raise and the turn comes a nice offsuit K. Zaza2 checks to me, which indicates he is giving up his bluffs. I can probably delete the flushdraws out of his semibluffingrange, because they still have enough Fold equity to barrel, and enough Pot equity when I call his 2^nd barrel. So I think when he check-raises the flop with a flushdraw, the offsuit K is a good 2^nd barrel card. He will probably keep betting his whole valuerange, because my range seems so strong he will want to get max value out of his value hands. So Zaza2 is pretty much telling me with his check: “I am giving up”.

I can’t beat his bluffs with 9 high, so I have to make a bet to win the pot. I bet $20 in a $31 pot and he calls me. When he check-calls the turn his range is: 77/66/44/33/22/67off and sometimes he hits a K with his 2 overcards bluffrange so I’ll add KT to his range. He still had 64 handcombo’s which he is check-calling the turn with. Of these 64 Handcombo’s he’s probably only going to call a river shove with the few kings he has in his range. So when he check-calls the turn, I pretty much know I am shoving most rivers.

The river is an offsuit A. Zaza2 checks to me and I shove all in with $64 dollars in a $70 pot. I am representing AA/KK/A8/K8/Q8/J8/T8/98/87/86/85/55 when I shove here. Which are all very strong hands. The top of his range when he check-raises the flop and check-calls me on the turn is a King. So he does have two pair with an Ace kicker when he does come up with some sort of King here. In some exceptional situation he will turn up with an 8 himself, but he will keep betting his 8s against my very strong calling range on the flop 90% of the time. And when he does decide to check the turn with and 8, he does it with the intention to check-raise most of the time. I think in even some rare situation, he will slow down with an Ace high flush draw on the turn, and start to play this passively. But loose aggressive players like this villain usually just multibarrel flushdraws when they check-raise them on the flop. So this bluff I am setting on the river with 9 high seems like it’s a risky bluff. But if you think about his range and how he plays this hand. And how the regular will think about my range. This bluff should work out fine more than 90% of the time. The 10% of the times I do lose this pot is when zaza2 herocall’s me with some King, or when he slowed down his Ace high flush draw on the turn. All the other times he will just fold his hand.

I hope I was clear on my analyze of this particular hand. And I hope my video will soon go online on this site and you enjoy watching it!

Greetz, Morten

Life of a Grinder

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 6:32:10 -0500

Let me introduce myself. My name is Morten, I am 24 years old , I live in Holland and since Januari 2010 I am a professional Poker player. Before I played Poker I worked in an office and did administrational work. I got introduced to Poker in 2007. Right from the start I loved the game.  I played it with friends in homegames a lot and soon I joined the online Poker community. I have always been good in sports and games and I quickly figured out how to beat the homegames I was playing in. Online was a whole different story though. There were so many things to try out online, like sit and go’s, tournaments, Full ring/Sixmax/Heads up cashgames that it was difficult for me to create a playing style I was comfortable with and that was profitable. I couldn’t figure out that you needed a different style to beat tournaments, sit and go’s and cashgames. After a while cashgames got my interest and I started playing that the most part of my time.

Between 2007 and 2009 I learned a lot about the game by reading books and reading on forums and especially talk about it with friends. In 2009 I met one of my closest friends right now, his name is Mike. We were playing in our local casino and we connected somehow. We started calling eachother and talk about different spots. And I think that was one of the reasons I dramatically improved my game. In 2009 I made more money playing 20 hours of poker a week, then I made working 40 hours a week. So for a year I was working from 9 to 5, and grinding it out from 7 to 11. This is not a very healthy way to live. And it infected my health and my relationship with my girlfriend. In June 2009 is decided I wanted to play Poker for a living. My girlfriend was fearsly against this, but this is what I wanted to do. So we made a plan for me to build up to a good bankroll and if things didn’t work out the way I planned I would find a  job again. I agreed to this and the 2^nd half of 2009 I was only dreaming about playing poker for a living. This greatly affected the way I worked. I couldn’t enjoy working anymore because my goal was so close. So for 6 months I had to work 40 hours a week while I was only thinking about how I could go pro faster. In December 2009 I almost reached my goal, so I resigned at work and from januari 2010 and I could do what I’de been dreaming about for a long time. I think it was hard for my girlfriend to accept what I was doing, and I don’t think most of my family understand it either. Only my father likes that I am following my own path. I guess that he enjoys freedom and he enjoys the fact that I have a great deal of freedom now.

At the start of my poker career my girlfriend would ask for my results every day, which was a sign that she was probably worried about the finances. If I had a huge loss day I would lie about the amount I lost, so she wouldn’t worry about it. I’ve always been honest about the month results though, but I just don’t want her to worry about the finances too much. Lucky for me the first 3 months were great and in 3 months I made enough money that I would earn working for a year. So my girlfriend and family stopped worrying about me and my new ‘job’.

Yesterday I typed a long story about how I improved my game and what types of games I’ve been playing. I published the blog, but somehow because of a bug it didn’t save, and sadly I didn’t back it up on my laptop. So I have to retype my whole blog (yes, I am typing in Word now!). So my journey from the start of my career up till now, I am going to give you the short version now.

I started playing 6 6 Max tables on 100NL online and in our local casino I played 400NL deepstacked. I always have periods where I play more online or more live. It mostly depends on how I am running live. Live is great when your winning. The field of players are usually really weak! I can play with Mike and his brother who are usually playing. I get to meet new people and one huge advantage is the tax free money in the casino’s. But if I am running bad you see all the bad things about live poker. Like you only play like 25 hands and hour. The rake is 10% here with a cap of € 10 which sucks! You have to tip the dealers when you win a decent pot. So all these things really bug me when I am losing in a live game. And usually when I run bad I start leaning towards online a lot more.

What I love about this job are the trips I can take. In April Mike and I went to Namur in Belgium for a week where we played 5/10 deepstacked. The location of this casino is kind of bad, but the tables are really good! In June Mike and I went to Vegas to visit the WSOP. Both of us only played 1 event (where we both didn’t last longer then 2 blind levels!), but we played a lot of cashgames in the RIO and Bellagio. We loved the uncapped 5/10 games with the button straddle in the RIO. But we also loved the Pokerroom in Bellagio. Though we couldn’t button straddle there and they did have a cap on the 5/10 games, we spend quite a lot of time in the Bellagio. This was a great trip where we loved the games we played, we loved the environment and we met some great people.This is a trip we will surely take annually. In November this year the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam start. So that’s where I will be then. I might visit the EPT in Barcelona as well this year, I am not sure about that yet though.

Online I had played about 250.000 hands on the 100NL from Januari till April. I went from 6 tables to 12 tables over these months. I won a decent amount on this level and it was time for a new challenge. So I moved up to 200NL and started playing this on 4 tables and I rapidly started playing more tables.  This was going great and in June I was already taking shots on the 400NL. The end of June I started running bad online and in July I encountered my first losing month. This month was a result of running really bad. Because of I was running bad for so many hands eventually I don’t think I was playing my A game all the time. I also got into a bad sleeping rhythm where I was staying up till 5 am and sleeping in till 2 pm. Because I got up this late every day I failed to go the gym regularly, which also effected my health and my mindstate. At the end of July my vacation started and I went to Indonesia with my girlfriend for 2 weeks. Here I realized I should just be confident about my game and grind it out. This downswing has to end eventually, as long as I can play my A game all the time things should turn out fine. So when I got back on August 11^th I started grinding again. Sadly the downswing continued. I decided to move down to the 100NL to grind it out there. When the downswing stops I am moving back up. I also checked my own hand history for countless of hours and watched a lot of instruction videos in the last couple of weeks. I am working on my own game dramatically so I can kick this downswing! Moving back down was a good decision, because I was really getting in confident about my own game after so many losing sessions. I started asking fellow grinders standard spots where I was just up against the top of my opponents range. But I couldn’t think about my game straight anymore. Now after watching a lot of videos. A few sweat sessions and going trough my handhistory, I am happy with my game again and I am feeling good. The only thing missing is the profit. But I am sure it will come back soon!

I’ll will update this blog regularly and I will talk about sessions and might put some interesting hands in it. Don’t know what the next blog will look like exactly. So if you have any suggestions feel free to let me know.

Greetz, Morten