It's been more than half year since my last post and here I am again,  near the end of last year, I started coaching a colleague of mine and it got me back playing seriously, reading a lot of poker related stuff and working on my focus which translated in a great 1st month of January 2012 come back taking it from the basics, slowly but surely, the way it should be done.

Here are the stats for my January sessions:

ITM: 33/175
IMT %: 19%
1-3 Finishes: 17
Finished Late: 13%
Prizes: 132$
Average BI: 0.51$
ROI%: 47%
Profit: 42$

Goals for Feb:

1. Move up to 1.5$ 45/90 man
2. Try to get a seat to APPT Seoul
3. Make the top 10 at least once in the weekly Asian Poker League

That's it for now, wish me luck and good luck on the tables!

Poker gods lightnings

After a great month of October, my expectations were somewhat high for November, EEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHH (Buzz sound and not the one on those TV game shows where it signals the jackpot for the challenger) I got hit by numerous and continuous strikes of swings and still to this day, here's a lil something something to prove it from my last hand of the last mtt I played today:

MP2: 10,640
CO: 10,265
Hero (BTN): 10,331
SB: 5,651
BB: 5,360
UTG: 9,023
UTG+1: 9,073
UTG+2: 11,685
MP1: 21,968

Pre-Flop: (675) 8 8 dealt to Hero (BTN)
3 folds, MP1 calls 300, MP2 folds, CO raises to 770, Hero calls 770, 2 folds, MP1 calls 470

Flop: (2,985) 5 7 8 (3 Players)
MP1 bets 895, CO raises to 3,000, Hero raises to 9,536 and is All-In, MP1 folds, CO calls 6,470 and is All-In

Turn: (22,820) T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


River: (22,820) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


Results: 22,820 Pot
CO showed T T and WON 22,820 (+12,580 NET)
Hero showed 8 8 and LOST (-10,240 NET)

As you can tell, put my chips in ahead and boom! but oh well that's poker, you gotta be able to float with its waves, good and bad runs, sorta like how life is, don't you think? The funny thing is that after he turned his hands and I saw 10s, I almost predicted a 10 on the turn and there it was...

Although I had some deep runs in some Mtts such as 5th and 2nd in the $2.20 180 man,  a 3rd finish in the $12 45 man, and a 1st place finish in the $5.50 45 man, It still didn't improve my BR or the way my poker month was going....

Going deep in big field Mtts and getting knocked out by bad luck continuously can be very frustrating at times but I'm very grateful to be surrounded by my girlfriend and a family that shows a ton of love and support for what I do and I'll never let them down so here's some of my November's Mtts deep runs and until the next post, may the gods of poker be kind to you and myself as well :)

$4.40 - 1159 - 135th
$3.30 - 5947 - 835th
$2.20 - 2678 - 90th

What a week!

That might be just enough to describe it, I've been putting a lot of time into studying and analyzing my game and it's a feeling like no other when you can see some of the fruits of your hard work, translation, I had a great week grinding the $3.25/$6.50 45 man, I went deep in a couple of Mtts including a 4th finish out of 2285 in a $4.40 regular with a prizepool of 9K and a 9th place finish in a $2.20 turbo on stars as well, the field was huge, 9365 entrants forming a total prizepool of almost 19K, although I was a bit disappointed with the way I finished since with the 3rd biggest stack in the final table, I certainly could've looked for a better spot to jam all of my stack and have a better finish/cash but that's ok, It's by learning from your mistakes that you improve and that's the golden rule in life as well as in Poker.

October Fresh!

After breaking out even in September and reaching the Silver star status for the 1st time on Pokerstars, October comes with new perspectives and goals in mind, I have a couple of bonuses to clear up, with my new SS Vip level, I'm entitled to play in the 30K guaranteed tourney on each Sunday of the month for a buy in of 100fpp which I look forward to, my first day of October was alright I guess, right after coming back from a short trip and a live event in Macau, I immediatelly jumped in the action with 24 tables, managed to make 3 FT at the $3.25/45 man, one which I bubbled, a 6th and a 2nd finish, also managed to go deep in a $2.20 180 man, unfortunately couldn't make it to the FT after my A10o got outdrawn by AKo and finally played a $5.50 Mtt with 12k guaranteed, which went up to ~16k, 3181 entrants and 15 mins blind levels, I managed to build a relatively nice stack in the first hour, after the 2nd break and about 2 and a half hours in, I jam over the top with AJs from the btn on a J89 with 2 spades after UTG+1 3bet me on the flop, hoping he has KJ/QJ but he flips AQs for a flush draw and does hit it on the river, I go down from 8.9K to 2K in a flash, later on I got moved to a new table and the hand that will put me back on track was 108s in the BB after 4 people limped into my BB, I checked, the flop came with an Ace and 2 spades, the 1st limper bet, the 2 other limpers flats and I shove on top, get called by 3 of them and I hit a spade to not only doulbe up, triple up but quadruple up hehe, it felt very nice, got moved to another table once again, where with 8K I'll get in a confrontation with a supernova and my value bet on the river with A9s payed off, managed to grind my stack to 22K and lost 12K on a bad read, in the money, managed to go on with a read of mine and call a guys Jam with A10 from the big blind, and was right he had A2o, I hit a great flop 1066 and he makes runner runner for a flush with his 2 of diamonds for to hit the rail in 308th place, oh well...