The mind of a wannabe professional poker player

September and October Update

Hi guys,

So the new academic quarter has just started and as expected, I’ve gotten really lazy in tracking/updating my progress. Nevertheless, these two months have been pretty good to me profit wise.

~15k in September.

Ran miles above EV, ran hot obv)

~23k in October

Ran on average throughout, and then downswung like mad (~9k) at the end. Almost thought I was gonna have a massive 30k+ month until I started running like ass at the end of the month.

Maybe I will post some epic hands later.

Bjorn.

New academic year resolution

Hi guys,

So the new academic year is about to start, I thought its probably a good time for some fresh retrospection and perhaps some goals for the upcoming year (obv I’m just bored). All in all, it has been an average year in all respects, not doing so well in school as I thought I should be, and also not doing so well in poker as I thought I should be. However, this is nothing to fret about since I’ve had an overachieving summer + there’s still plenty of time before I become the youngest ever WSOP Main Event winner. That said, I’ll start up with some reasonable new-academic year resolutions so to keep my progress in check.

New academic year resolution:
[ ] Attain at least a 3.6 GPA across all classes
[ ] Make at least $75k USD in online poker across all sites before Mid June 2011
[ ] A $100 daily stoploss for pointless -EV flipping
[ ] Eat at least 2 proper meals a day
[ ] Go exercise/go to the gym at least twice a week
[ ] Do all touristy things in Chicago
[ ] Apply for a summer internship even though there is a very good chance I’ll be going to Vegas for the WSOP in the Summer

End of August update

Hi guys,

August Graph

All in all, I feel I’ve had a very good month considering the slump I went on mid August where I just kept losing to every reg etc.

As for September, I would probably be playing a lot less online poker for various reasons, which is probably a good thing since I’ve been wanting to take a break for a while. That said, I hope I can still make around 6-7k with half the volume.

Time for some monstrous hands, and hopefully some analysis to go with it:

600bb pot against reg

(for the n00bs, you gotta click the link above to view the hand)

So basically this hand is against a reg who I have played a good amount of volume with, around ~3k hands. I feel he is a weakish reg whose postflop action does not correlate with his aggressiveness preflop (opens about 93% and 3bets 16%) and hence gives up way too many pots postflop after firing 1 barrel.

Firstly, I’d like to add that my 5b there with AQo is very unorthodox and is very sickly thin. While it is sickly thin, there has been a dynamic in that I’ve been 3betting 20% (which is on the high side) so he should be 4bet playing back a decent amount/with a wider value range. So I decided to 5b this hand in particular, not exactly for value since I feel his 4b value range is strongish or is at least on par compared with AQ, but because I feel I can better take control of this hand postflop this deep rather than flatting his 4b OOP (folding is never an option here given dynamic) since he can somewhat play perfect. In the hand, he actually flats my 5b, which can mean various things, either he is OCCASIONALLY trapping with a very nutted hand like AA/KK, or he has a middling value hand like 99/TT/JJ/even AK since he should be wary about shipping AK this deep, or VERY OCCASIONALLY he has a decent hand with postflop playability that is stubborn to laydown like 78s/57s/etc. Either way, his range is fairly strong I think if you heavily weigh the times his range falls in the 2nd category (99/TT/JJ/AK), while I can discount hands like KQs/KQo/KJs/KJo because he certainly flats 3bets with those.

So flop comes low suited middling cards, which is not good for me since if I’m behind I am still behind. At that point, I decided to check/fold since I feel his range is strong and even with hands that he may be posturing preflop with could have hit big (hands like 89cc, hands with 2 clubs) and have very good equity against my hand. However, flop checks behind and I turn gin, an offsuit Q. At this point, I feel my hand has improved against a decent portion of his range, and should be rarely behind since with AA/KK he should most certainly have bet the flop given how he played it preflop. So obviously, I value bet the turn and he calls, which allows me to put him on a range of 99-JJ/AK high/random turned flush draws/maybe a flopped flush draw/random pairs below the Q etc.

So river comes a 5c, which obviously completes a flopped flush draw and some random gutshots/2 pairs which for the most part is irrelevant. His range however still consists of many hands that are behind like 99-JJ/QJo/AK high/speculative pairs etc so I decided to make a somewhat massive/thinnish value shove with TPTK. Obviously he could have a flopped flush draw and stuff but hopefully I can still get value from his other bluffcatchers. At this point, I feel there was a decent chance I get looked up by bluffcatchers a decent amount since my line is somewhat FOS/he might percieve that I am unable to make such a big value shove with such a middling value hand/there are not too many Qx in my range since hands like AQs/AQo/KQs/KQo normally flats 4bets and not go for the 5bet. So turns out I get looked up by 99 which I guess is good for me.

Alright, good luck guys, hopefully I’ll make a non poker update pretty soon.

Bjorn.

Almost forgot about this blog

Hey guys,

It occurred to me that I almost forgot about this blog! So I’m gonna make it up to you by poasting some super sexylicious poker graphs. Maybe some Hand Histories?

Also I’m happy to announce that I’ll be coming home on the 29th. Hopefully some mindless fucking around for a week or so before heading to Singapore on the 5th to learn how to trade futures of various different stuff.

As you can see, I’ve recovered from a biggish downswing (~5kish) since I’ve stopped playing regs who I am clearly -EV against. I however did run pretty bad during that period (starting hand ~10500). Should probably just stop playing regs who crush me for now and focus on crushing fish.

Sick 1 outer against me

Some fish who decided to stack off KK on J87r 300bb deep

Okay take care guys.

Bjorn.

First post!

Hi guys,

I’m really bored right now in my hotel room and so a friend successfully bribed/coaxed/induced me into starting blogging in this site.

So anyways, I’m on vacation right now in NYC with my family, and have recently been to Orlando and DC. The Harry Potter theme park in the Universal Studio Orlando was probably the most awesome part of the trip so far. Tried butter beer which frankly is equivalent to extra sweetened jar of honey. Also tried the 2 new rides, one of which involved Harry on his broomstick bringing you around Hogwarts, a Quiditch match, and various other parts of his life, and the other one of which involved being on a “Chinese Dragon” (whatever the heck that is, I haven’t finished all the books) which consisted of 1 360 turn from what I recall.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that we bumped into Ken Leung (Miles on Lost) and Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond on Lost) in a restaurant in NYC just a couple of days ago. I was obviously too freaked out (or too indifferent? take your pick) to ask for a photo with them even though Desmond is hands down the BESTTTT character on Lost (after Evangeline Lilly obviously).

And as for poker, I bumhunted HU a session today and two semibad regs got lucky a couple spots and took 1k from me, whatever no biggie. Watch out for next couple of posts for some mindblowing hand histories!