So July has passed, and I'm not happy about how mine went. The weather has been horrible, it's been raining almost every day. I've only had one single barbeque this "summer", and not a single beer at an outdoors bar. I haven't gotten an apartment yet, I've been staying at my mother's place. This is fine for a short period of time, I usually spend summers here anyway. This summer has been different though, I feel like I'm in limbo between two different lives and I don't like it one bit. I''ve spent the entire summer hanging out with my brother, doing nothing sensible at all. Watched lots of movies, played alot of Wii and generally just goofed around. I'm sleeping all day, staying up all night, and can't seem to get anything done.

Pokerwise, I've only played 15k hands as opposed to my regular 35-40k monthly hands. I've been trying to adjust my game a bit, I've opened up a bit preflop and am trying to improve my value betting postflop. It hasn't been going well though, without Rakeback I'm breaking even for the month and I haven't ran very bad at all. I don't know what the problem is because I'm too damn lazy to analyze sessions properly.

Current plan is to let the summer run it's course, I don't want to start making routines right now that will change in two weeks. I'm going to my hometown for a week in the middle of August, and when I get back to Oslo it's time to get my shit together. I'm gonna make a daily schedule and stick to it religiously, I gotta get some structure back into my life.

/end rant

May is coming to an end, and my career as a poker pro might end along with it. May started out with a bad run/bad play at 3/6 and 5/10, and looked to be my first losing month since I started keeping a spreadsheet back in September (and possibly ever, I don't really remember). Though I still had a healthy bankroll of 30-35k-ish I decided to drop down to 2/4 and grind out 100k hands. I've managed to turn it around and replenish my losses, and then some, running goot at 400NL for 25k hands. Then yesterday I got to my first final table ever and took down the 6th place in the Sunday Warmup on PokerStars for 14.5k, turning this into my biggest winning month yet (thank you Lee Jones! ).

I'm going to stay at 400NL and grind out the other 75k hands. The money is good and the experience and confidence is needed. I said I was going to record and comment every session this month, but my computer ran so slow at times that it tilted me so I stopped. In honour of Slumpy I'm gonna record a session this week and upload it somewhere (why haven't you given me a user/pw for ftp yet, Xianti? ). I believe I've gotten better at thinking things through and taking my time with decisions, and am currently trying to open up my game and to get better at hand reading. I think I lose alot of money in medium sized pots, by both laying down and calling in bad spots, and by value betting too seldom.

One experiment that I did this week was to cut down to 4 tables, drop down to 200NL, and play a much more aggressive game. I was shooting for 28/24-ish but ended up at 30/28! Compared to my usual nittag (Holy shit I just invented a new word! One cyllable , pressure on the 'i'. (c) 2007 HalvSame) style of 19/15.5 it was pretty insane. And it was really, really fun. Most important lesson learned: when they don't have respect for you they don't fold anything, so don't three-barrel air but do felt TPGK if you get the chance. I was also able to get (what I usually think is) thin value in a lot of spots, and against certain opponents who weren't willing to adjust I just stole and stole and stole. I'm going to be doing this experiment more often, incorporating bits and pieces into my main style. Ultimately I want to be able to switch between gears as the session progresses.

I'm going to start my second read of Theory of Poker this week, I first read it last summer and am probably ready to take in some more of the wealth of info that is in it. I'm also going to read more strategy posts, Massimo's teachings thread is one that comes to mind. I always say this, but I'm going to get better at reviewing sessions in PT and posting hands for discussion/advice.

Okay, here's the part I was thinking of when I made the post title. I'm not sure if I'm going to try and play this game for a living yet. Though I think I could make enough money on 400NL, I don't know if the mental pressure is worth it for me. Poker is so great when you're winning, but I don't think I've ever felt so empty as I did when I lost 20k in two weeks. I wasn't feeling sad or angry, just empty. I'm also worried about the lifestyle I've had so far this year, basically I have only been out of the house when I've been drinking with my buddies. I live with a couple of my buddies, and we have other friends over all the time, so it's not like I'm some degenerate just sitting in front of my computer all day. But I haven't really been getting out and meeting new people lately.

In a month I'll be moving to Oslo (the capitol of Norway), and I don't know that many people where I'm going. Having a job to go to gives me a nice secondary social network that I'm afraid of losing by being a poker pro. Of course there are other ways to meet new people and find new stuff to do, but then again I'm kinda shy . I'm also getting some pressure from my family, especially my mother. And of course there's the security of having a steady income. As a programmer I expect to be making 55-70k a year, minus taxes. Also, I want to buy an apartment, and with the housing prices in Oslo I'm going to have to spend around 250-300k. This of course means that I'm gonna have to get a loan, and as you can imagine it won't be easy to convince the bank that I'll be able to pay them back with poker winnings. This means that I'm looking at 12-15k a year in rent that I would have to make up for at the tables. I also happen to love programming, so it's not like I'm getting some shitty job because I have to. Still, I don't know if I will enjoy going to work at 7am every morning to sit and program all day, lol.

One more factor that makes me consider getting a job is the fact that the tax situation for poker players in Norway is very shady and weird due to the fact that live poker is banned. The rule of thumb is that you pay taxes on every single pot/tournament win of more than 10k NOK/~1600$, and if I'm not mistaken the tax is 28%. There's no deduction for losses, so it would probably be smart to stay at 400NL when the pots hardly ever get big enough that they would be taxable. However, if your poker play could be said to be a business you pay taxes on total winnings for the year. I don't know the % in that case, but it's going to be 28% at the lowest and potentially much higher. Whether or not your poker playing is a business is decided on an individual basis. I've mailed the norwegian equivalent of the IRS to get some answers in this regard.

For now I'm going to start looking at available jobs but keep playing poker until I've moved to Oslo and while awaiting the response from the "IRS". Will I still be trying to be a poker pro this time next month? Who knows.

Thanx for reading this loooooong post, comment in the comment thread please .

[ more.. ]

April results:



April has been really swingy, and I'm not really satisfied with the results. Though I'm of course happy with having made $8k, I feel that my game is lacking a lot of the basic stuff that is needed to be a bigger winner in these games. I don't think I've really run that bad at all cards-wise this month, so I've got some serious leak-plugging to do.

First step is to cut down on number of tables and open up my game a bit. I'm gonna be mostly 4-tabling this month, and I'm gonna record all my sessions with audio commentary on video. This is mostly to make myself consciously think about all decisions and not play like a nitty robot, though I might decide to upload a video or two for commentary.

I wrote a slightly longer post but the internet ate it. Here's the result of my first foray into 1k NL:


I'm presently working on loosening up slightly in position, re-evaluating my ranges. My 3-betting and cold-calling ranges in particular, basically I want to try and play more postflop in position rather than push the villain out of the hand preflop.

I'm gonna play a shitload of hands for the next 5 weeks to try and place high in the Party Poker High Roller promotion. The payout is dependent on number of party points collected, with a cash prize for the top 150 earners and a weekly conversion of points to cash.

Weeeeeeee, I just completed my Operation 35 buyins for 1000NL! I opened up a couple of tables on Party just to gather some hand histories to use while developing the BigPotGrabber script, and someone managed to donate a buyin for me in the 5 minutes I was there. Also, the other day I passed the 50k total profit mark with my poker playing and casino whoring. Shipit!!

Report from my shot-taking at 1000NL in a week or so.

After basically breaking even in february it's good to be able to report that March is a winning month. I ended up with a net win of almost $10k after 41k hands mostly at 600NL. This works out to be just over 2 ptBB/100, and while it's not a huge winrate I'm very happy with the result. When I started playing cash games a year ago I didnt imagine in my wildest dreams that I could be playing 600NL and have a 10k profit in one month.

Here is a graph of this months hands, as you can see it's been swingy and I am currently in an upswing:


The last week or so I have been incorporating some new ideas into my game (see my 100k hands checkup thread ) to try and bring the wr up to 3+ptBB/100. I also got a little kick in the confidence butt by Irisheyes (thanks! ) when I wasn't feeling like I could be a long term winner at these stakes, now I feel totally comfortable at any table of 600NL on Party. That said I obviously still table select well and try to stay out of the way of the best regulars. The bankroll is now at 34k, which means I will now start sniffing at the 1000NL game. To begin with I will only play when known fishies from my buddy list are at the tables, and I guess I'll just take it from there.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for the easter holidays. I will be taking my laptop with me but I'm not sure if I will be playing any poker. The last time I was away and was playing on my laptop I played horribly, it is a 12" so it's kinda hard to multitable on it and it hasn't got PT or PAHUD installed. I've been meaning to learn a little Omaha, so I might use this time to look into that. I will also be reading up on theory, hh's and watch a shitload of Cardrunners vids. Hopefully I will come back with a new perspective and be a better player for it.

Thanx for reading, feel free to drop me a comment in my comments thread or on MSN/AIM (details in my forum profile).

Allright. Time to get my act together. If I'm ever going to be able to play for a living I need to get better. Much better. I make huge basic mistakes all the time. I've been way too sloppy in the past when it comes to analyzing my sessions. From now on I will look through all the biggest pots I've played after finishing a session. If I feel lost in a medium sized pot I will take note of the hand number and look it up. I will post more hand histories (or rather, I will start posting hand histories again). I've realized once again that the reason I'm a winning player isn't that I'm good but that many opponents are horrible (salsa4ever's thread in the Beginner's Digest comes to mind). Now that I am at a level where most players have a semi-decent grasp on the game, I need to work harder to stay ahead of the pack. I will not let my ego get in the way of my progress.

With that confession out of the way, here's an update of my poker playing lately:
I haven't played all that much after starting my move up to 600NL. I've been travelling a bit, visiting some buddies and generally taking it easy. In total I've played 10k hands of 600NL and I'm down 3500$ or ~6 buyins. With my 400NL winnings I ended up around 1oo0$ plus rb in february. I'm not running well card-wise, and I haven't played well either. Hopefully both of these will turn around soon.

I'm going to stop being a bankroll nit. I don't need to cash out of my roll for living expenses at least until june so I'm going to use the bankroll for what it's supposed to be used for; moving up in stakes. I've got 38 buyins for 600NL, so I'm going to stay up here for now. If I get down to 25 buyins I will move down to 400NL and rebuild.I'm planning to take a shot at 1000NL when I hit 30 buyins and move back down if I drop 5 buyins. I'll probably play multiple levels, though. I hear that the 1000NL game is a very big increase in skill level, so for me to beat it will require good table selection. When there aren't enough good tables I'm going to play lower stakes.

Observation of the day: Outplaying weak opponents from OOP isn't easy. Outplaying strong opponents from OOP is damn near impossible.

Of course. I make a Running goot-post, and the very next minute I start running bad. Hyachachach, as a certain Tony tuff_fish would put it. I decided to stop being a bankroll nit and move up to 600NL and boom, over the weekend goes 6k down the drain. I overadjusted to the slightly more aggro game by becoming the stupid table sheriff and it cost me a few buyins. Beats and coolers cost me a few more. I then stepped back down to 400NL and dropped a few more buyins there. I don't know if I'm in a downswing right now or if I was on an upswing earlier, probably a bit of both, either way it hurts to lose 1/5 of your bankroll in a few sessions. I can honestly say that I didn't tilt, however, and after I noticed my initial bad play at 600NL I believe I played my A-game the rest of the time. Of course these things happen, and after all it's not like those 20-buyin downswings that they say will happen eventually (knock on wood). I'm gonna to a serious fine-combing of my PT db to be sure, hopefully I can make myself post some hands too.

I'm getting better at table selecting (thanks, zook! ) and will play both 400NL and 600NL depending on where the fish are sitting. Also I've come to realize that I don't have to play 8 tables all the time, if there are only 4 good tables going when I play a session then I will only play those 4 tables. I've been playing both levels the last couple of days and it seems do be working out ok, I'm not making any mistakes related to playing multiple levels.

I've still got 22k/35 buyins at 600NL in my roll, so I'm going to keep taking shots. I would love some comments on mid-high stakes bankroll management in my comment thread, I've heard anything from 25 to 100 buyins so a discussion on this would be nice. Anyway I'm not afraid to move back down permanently should the need arise, and also I have enough savings to survive for another year if need be. Yes, I'm now considering playing this game for a living. I've got a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and could get a job as a software developer, but for now I'm not going to be applying for jobs. I also volounteer (sp? ) as a programmer for the local student newspaper so it's not like I won't have any relevant experience if/when I decide to get a job later on.

Finally, here's a graph of my 65k hands on 6max so far:

February started out a little slow. My Windows XP died brutally, and since I was gonna get a new computer anyway I decided to go with Ubuntu on the old one instead of reinstalling XP. This meant that I only had my laptop to play on until my new computer arrived, and thus I barely put in any hands until last weekend.

But no worries, I've ran shit hot since then, at 9 ptBB/100 while 8 tabling. I've played well, had good cards and gotten them paid off well. I did play pretty lousy in one session, but managed to recognize this and walk away for the day without tilting. I've only played 7k hands so far this month though, so I'm not going to even come close to my goal of 40k hands in february. Still, it looks like I'm going to be (over? )rolled for 600NL in time for my target date march 15th. BR is now 28k, I'm planning to move up at 30k/50 buy-ins after withdrawing 2k. Hopefully I don't jinx myself with this post and go on a massive downswing.

Enough with the brags, on to something interesting. I feel like I can beat pretty much any 400NL table at Party right now (lol a poorly hidden brag), but it should be obvious that sitting with the biggest fish will be more profitable. So I'm going to get better at table selection, possibly across several sites. I used to just open up the tables with the biggest avg pot, but now I use PAHUD to scout out the tables before sitting down. I'm looking into programs like SixthSense and SpadeEye to help me with this, so if anyone has experience with those or similar let me know.

In poker strategy, after reading the FTR Book club discussion on preflop raise sizing I've begun opening to 3xBB to be able to cope with reraises, and also to have more manueverability (sp? ) post-flop. Small sample size but I think I like it. I also started reading Phil Gordons Little Green Book today (got it from the FTP store). I've only read a little bit of it, but I'm liking it so far. It seems to deal with general thought process related issues in a very decent way.

Thanks for reading this long post, now head over to my comment thread with comments, questions and the like!

Short summary of the month:
- moved up to 400NL 6m
- started 8-tabling
- played ~40k hands
- made ~8.5k.

... and I'm pretty annoyed right now. My desktop PC suddenly decided that I wasn't going to see a login screen anymore, just a blue background. Luckily the new one is already on the way, but the motherboard and CPU hasn't arrived yet. This means that I won't be playing much for the first days of february. Extra irritating because I've just gotten some money back on Party Poker. I guess I'll spend the first days reading up on some theory and watching some CR videos.

... or lack thereof is a huge leak of mine. I have found that when I don't have a set timeframe for a session I lose my A-game. I'll play pretty well for the first hour and a half or so and from there on my play deteriorates into FPS spew. To combat this I'm going to decide how long I'm going to play before I sit down at the tables. I think I play my best in 1.5-2 hour sessions, so I'm going to set that as a target. Instead of using a stopwatch to keep track of the time I'm going to set up a winamp playlist and just stop when it finishes. 400NL 6m has been very swingy for me so far. I need to be more careful with game selection. I still haven't managed to get started on Party again, I hear that the games over there are still soft. If anyone knows a way to fund a ClickAndBuy (not Click2Pay) account from a NETeller account without having to go through my bank account, pretty please tell me how in my comment thread or on a PM. Here are a few screenshots from PT with my 200NL 6-max stats on two different sites. The last set of stats is my combined WR at all PT-compatible sites. Small sample size for sure, but it seems obvious that site A is tougher than site B. Though I dropped a whole lot of cash just making stupid, stupid plays, the game is so much more aggressive that I really don't feel comfortable playing in it. Weird to think that this is actually my favorite site, I don't know why. Anyways, I'm just gonna quit playing there at all, I'm not good enough for that game and there is no need for me to stay there when there's more money to be had elsewhere. Some will perhaps say that I should learn to adjust to the more aggro games, but for now I really don't care. I'll have to re-adjust when I move up in levels anyway.

So I decided to try out the 400NL 6m game on the Prima/Microgaming network, and there's only one thing to say about it; it's a total fishtank! Might be because it's a weekend, but I've had to tighten up my starting hand requirements significantly. Steals work much less freqently than expected, but big hands get paid hugely. Too bad there's only 4-8 tables going.

Here's a hand I played with a big draw, I lost my way because of stack sizes. Comments in my comment thread are very welcome.

BB : $548.20
UTG: $493.02
Hero/MP: $786.00
CO $331.69
BTN is sitting out
SB (unknown): $1177.61


SB posted the small blind - $2.00
BB posted the big blind - $4.00
** Dealing card to Hero: A, K
UTG called - $4.00
Hero raised - $18.00
CO folded
SB called - $18.00
SB folded
UTG folded

** Dealing the flop: 2, 4, 7
SB checked
Hero bet - $32.00
SB raised - $70.00
Hero called - $70.00

** Dealing the turn: 3
SB bet - $92.00
Hero called - $92.00

** Dealing the river: 9
SB bet - $92.00
Hero folded

------------

In other news; last night I had a lot of fun donking off some chips at 10NL with taxesix and mrhappy33 along with a few of my room-mates. Got a little drunk and played some 5cd draw 50PL too, and actually ended the night down almost 100$. Don't try this at home, kids.

Wow. I've been playing absolutely terrible the last couple of days. I've dropped almost 8 buyins, and I haven't even run that bad, cardwise. With that I mean that I haven't received so many bad beats, although I have had a remarkable ability to get played back against when bluffing but not when I have a big hand. No, the reason for my downswing is that I've made way too many "fancy" plays; weak calldowns, multistreet bluffs for stacks, preflop 4-bet re-resteals - the list goes on.

I am now in the red at 400NL after 11500 hands, though only by half a buyin. No worries, I still have 40 buyins in my roll. I am however going to move back down to 200NL for a day or two to regain my confidence and get back to my A-game. Hopefully I'll run good enough to not have to redeposit on FullTiltPoker.net to move back to 400NL there, as I only have like 2k onsite at the moment. Since they deduct deposits from MGR that'll hurt my Rakeback some, but if it comes to that I will of course redeposit.

I still haven't managed to get my ass back on Party, but I'm not stressing it at the moment.

Santa was a little late this christmas, but today my presents arrived. First off I got a Samsung 204B 20" screen to complement my Dell 2007. Now I can (try to) 8-table 6-max without overlap. Second, I got a new cell phone, the LG KE820. This thing is so cool, it's soooooo small, thin and light.

Speaking of new toys, I've decided to build a new computer. I'm a silence freak so it won't be the most powerful one out there. If anyone wants to help me in the search for parts, I have a thread over at silentpcreview.com..

Now to the poker talk. I played two 1.5-hour sessions of 8-tabling 400NL on FTP today, basically breaking even at -0.09ptBB/100 for 2500 hands. The two extra tables did add alot of stress, especially when I was trying to change out a table or two. I think I was a bit overwhelmed, and it was difficult to keep track of opponents as well as my own image on all the tables. I did not get good reads at all. So I basically just took standard-ish lines, and made some moves every now and then. Also I made too many loose calls of reraises preflop, this is a leak that will need to be fixed asap.

Hopefully this will change as I get used to more tables, if not then I don't have a problem with going back to 6 tables. I also think that I will need to start using PAHUD again if I want to keep playing 8. This time around I won't be using as many stats as before, I think I'm gonna go with the basic PFR/VPIP/AF and perhaps WTSD.

I'm now 4.27ptBB/100 over 8500 hands. Hopefully I'll get in another 15k hands this week for a more meaningful sample.

So I've got me a blog thingy. What to use it for? We'll see where it goes, but speaking out of experience it will probably deteriorate into brags/whines (hopefully the former ).

A little bit about me;
I'm 24 years old and from Norway, and have just quit my University studies. I just decided that a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science will have to do for now. I haven't started to apply for jobs yet, but I guess I will start looking for a job as a software developer/programmer soon. It's not good to have big holes in your CV.

I started playing poker around August 2005. When I say "playing" I mean gambling. I started out by depositing 200NOK (which amounts to around 35$) at Expekt.com. I had joined FTR at this point but was only lurking a little, reading the articles and forums but not really applying my newfound information. Some time during the autumn I went busto playing 3.30$ and 5.50$ SnG's.

Christmas 2005 I decided to redeposit and be more serious with my poker playing. I deposited 100$ at Bodog, and started being a bit more active in the Sit n Go subforum. Sometime during the early spring 2006 I withdrew from Bodog and took the bankroll to Pacific. My bankroll was still only 100$, so I added 300$ on top of that to take full advantage of their 25% upfront Bonus. After a short while I withdrew the 400$ I'd put in and continued to play using only the Bonus.

Months went and I never made any progress. I took shots at the 11$ SnG's but had to move back down every time. So right after easter 2006 I decided to cash out my around 150$ roll from Pacific and start Bonus whoring playing 10NL full ring. There were some pretty good Bonuses back then, and by May I was playing 25NL with an adequate roll. From there I went up through 50NL and 100NL until I reached 200NL in late August. Bonus whoring had played a huge part in my bankroll building, so I decided to stay at 200NL until I felt comfortable moving up. I set my BR goal for 400NL at 14000$ plus 1200$ cashout. Then Party shut out the US fishies.

I then switched to FullTiltPoker.net for the most part, and stayed at 200NL because I was unsure of wether I could beat the new field. After a while I proved myself a small winner at 2.5ptBB/100 or so, but I felt like my game was too poor to move up. I also wanted to play 6-max because alot of people were saying that it was more profitable. But I had not done well in my few small 6-max attempts at 25NL to 100NL. I would lose a buyin or two in my first session and then go back to FR.

So a couple of weeks before christmas 2006 I set aside 2k as a potential learning fee to get into 6-max without fearing the money loss. Things went a bit up and down, but I was well in the green in PT. Most importantly I was really really enjoying playing poker. When I got back from my vacation I had re-read NLTAP twice and couldn't wait to get back to the tables. I also had watched alot of poker videos. After playing 200NL for a week or so, experiencing my biggest upswing yet, I moved up to 400NL.

This is where I'm currently at, 6-tabling 400NL 6-max with a almost 20k bankroll. I've run 6ptBB/100 at 400NL so far, but the sample size is only a measly 7.5k hands. I suspect I will be way overrolled for 600NL when I feel that I've played a big enough sample, but I'm not in a rush to move up. I'm thinking about moving up at 26k, after cashing out a few k to get a new computer, a Wii, and perhaps some other toys.

That's it for a long introduction and summery of my poker adventure so far. A big thank you goes out to Tyson, Eric and the X-man for holding the site and forum together. If I hadn't found FTR I would've probably lost my second deposit as well as the first one. And of course to all the forum members, wether you're a regular or a lurker.

Thanks for reading this and following me on my road to (hopefully) become a high-stakes balla!

-HalvSame