mjw006's Blog

New blog location.

2010-11-09T05:41:00.001-08:00

Just thought id update this and let everyone know that i am blogging at a new location now...

http://www.poker.org/player/mjw006/blogs/

^^^ Hope to see you all there~!

Matt

Welcome to April

2010-04-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

Well so far this year has been pretty much a fail. I am running a ton under expectation and to compound things even further I have been such a volume fish! April is my month to turn it around and start grinding again... Even though it has also not started well :p I'm positive I can find my feet and start winning at my true expectation again, it is just going to take a lot more grinding and a LOT more focus!

Last week I had a nice deep run in the 750k gtd on FTP, but unfortunately finished 23rd... I cannot complain because I won a ton of flips and 60/40s to even get that deep, to go with a couple of big pots with around 100-200 players left that i lost with AJ
I was however impressed by the structure of the 750k on FTP as i felt that it allowed the better players to have a bigger edge as we got deeper. Admittedly I was never in that position because my stack never really got up over 35BBs in the lategame, but there were definately some much deeper stacks as we got deeper which is how it should be when you are playing for that kind of money.

I'm not going to dwell on the "so close yet so far" though. What's done is done and I guess that is one thing I have learnt in time. MTT's are so brutal that you have to try to push things out of your mind once they are done (in poker in general). I am not saying that we shouldn't review our play and look at our mistakes critically, because this is something I believe is necessary to be successful. But more that when we take sick beats or have made an error that we know and can acknowledge may have cost us a lot of money, it is often best to move on and not dwell for too long. Sure, it is frustrating to go deep in MTT's and play for 10 hours only to walk away with 5 BI's, but if you can't handle that then I guess I would suggest you didn't play any MTT's.

In other news, i'm beginning to dabble in some PLO. Nothing to serious at the moment but I believe with action getting consistently slower in HUSNG's it's useful to have another form of poker I can play when action is slow. HUNL cash games are a good option for me, but it is equally as hard, if not harder to get a decent session out of anyone there. PLO seems to be the action game at the moment so I am really trying to learn the game a bit more and particularly short handed play.

Anyways... Happy Easter to everyone!!! Hope the Easter bunny is good to you all and I will hopefully be bringing some more successful blog entries soon!!!

GL in your games!

Matt

NPC is over

2010-03-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

Well the NPC was pretty much a fail in a nutshell. I was very pleased with how i played throughout the series but unfortunately only managed to scrape to break-even for the series.

I did however manage to grab a win in the teams event (Event 6), playing with Nathan Ruprecht and Glenn Randell. Was a fun event and very cool to get a win but the profits were obviously small from that event. I played the 'Pineapple' leg of the event, with the 3 legs being NLHE/PLO/Pineapple. Even though i had contributed throughout the tournament in building our stack, it was the final PLO leg with Glenn getting it in on a 99TJ board on the turn holding J9KQ against a naked AJXX which really got us in there. I was next up and preceded to try to lose the tournament with around 50% of the chips in play 4 handed. Fortunately, after i had dumped off 1/3 of my stack, Nath jumped back in and got it done.

Even though we won this tournament, it kinda highlighted the week for me. I was having no troubles at all building my stack and playing a lot of small pots. However, as soon as it came time to play the big pots i found a way to lose. As frustrating as this is it is a part of poker in general and is why the economy continues to remain relatively stable. The mere fact that random donks can get lucky a few times and take down these tournaments drives the economy.

I also Final Tabled the Deepstack event (Event 8), finishing 6th. Was also a fail given that i really hadn't had to play any major pots but when i finally got my stack in and got called i come up short against run good child Ken Curry (who ended up winning the main event, big congrats!).

When it came to the ME, it resulted in another fail. I built my stack up very easily from the starting 30k to 70k before i took a massive nosedive in the evening session resulting in the first time i've genuinely tilted in a long time. Getting run down by stations always seems so much more brutal in live MTT's because you play so few hands per hour with the following hand a prime example.

My Stack: 65k
Villain: 50k

Blinds 300/600, I am in MP1 holding AcQs.

UTG+1 (villain) limps, I raise to 2200, folds around to villain who calls.

Flop ~ QcTc3h (pot:5300)

Villain checks, I bet 4200, villain calls.

Turn ~ 5c (pot:13700)

Villain checks quickly, and i decide to fire out a big bet of 11000, villain calls quickly.

At this point in time he never has me beat and im pretty sure he has a draw or a pair + FD type hand.

River: Ah (pot:35700)

Not the best card in the deck. But in saying that, it improved our hand strength and only completed one draw. Albeit that it was the only genuine draw out there. Villain checks pretty quickly and I contemplate a bet. If he really had KJ here I cannot understand how he can be c/c and potentially not getting any value when he gets there so i decide to go for a small VB to try to get calls out of his one pair type hands that missed the FD.

Villain checks, I bet 6500, villain instantly announces raise and makes it 15000.

I sigh and feel retarded for betting. I really cannot fold my hand for 8500 into like 60k with top2. So i tell him to show me his KJ as i toss me chips in and obviously he obliges.

That was just a premium example of what was to come in the ME for me. I definately regret V-Betting the river in that hand, but in the same sense I don't feel like it can ever really be that bad.

Anyways, I'm very much looking forward to getting back into the online grind. Hopefully things will start looking up for me. Im contemplating playing maybe the opening event and the HU event at ANZPT Sydney coming up in April, and would love to be in a position by May to think about getting to the WSOP.

For now though im just going to focus on grinding out a ton of games online and spending time with my new family...

GL in all your games~!!!

Matt

Long time no blog.

2010-03-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Long time no blog! Yeah ive been very busy/lazy. But I am sitting here waiting for action at 1am and figured what better to do than do a SHORT update. A LOT has happened in the last few months that i have been awol and i will try to cover it as best as i can, as well as cover something I have been thinking about in light of the upcoming NPC.

Last few months in poker:

- have been an epic struggle. I don't really want to go into this too much but lets just say it hasn't been pretty at all. I don't want to go on about running bad etc etc because no one wants to hear about that, so let's just leave it at things have been rough. Results from December onwards are below.

On Redback

On FTP

As you can see they're very disappointing and im really hoping things turn around soon.

In Life:

Real life has been great. As has been mentioned in previous posts we were expecting a baby... He arrived on February 10th 2010, 8lb 8oz, named Madden. He has certainly been a handful but we are really loving every minute of it. Its amazing how time flies by without you realising and we're seeing changes in him every day. I find myself watching him just doing nothing and being utterly consumed/fascinated by it, its quite a strange feeling. Oh and he actually is cute ;)

Everyone thinks their own kids are quite, its just a given. We said all along that if this kid is ugly we will know it :p We think he's adorable (objectively obv;) ) But you can decide for yourself. Dont tell me if u think hes ugly!

Anyways...

I have been playing a few live ANZPT qualifiers of late, partially to get back into playing live again with the NPC coming up. To be honest im not sure yet whether im going to have another crack at the player of the year at NPC this year as i do have a one month old baby at home... I guess i will just see how i start the series and take it from there.

One thing i have found very interesting in the tournaments i have played has come when eff stacks begin to get shallower. I have had absolutely no trouble getting my stack right up, however, when it has come to playing with 25BBs or less i have found myself in some difficult spots. And i don;t mean difficult spots as in people are crushing me or anything, its more an internal battle between what i know should be correct and what is actually correct situationally.

People in these types of live games have no idea about stack sizes and fold equity,nor do they understand how to assign handranges. This is in no way meant in a derogatory manner, most of them will freely admit this. But due to this, things have to change in our games to adjust properly to it. Im still yet to be able to put my finger on the precise adjustments i need to make to people's absurdly tight handranges for both jamming and folding shallow stacks.

One thing i am considering is the possibility of being able to 3x/fold with like 10-15BBs (something i would NEVER do online). Generally speaking i have just been open jamming these stacks which is pretty std in my eyes. However, when people are calling so so tight regardless of whether i am jamming or 3x it is likely going to be mroe profitable for me to just open 3x at these stacks (or potentially 2.7x). Thing is, people are very few and far between that are capable of 3bet jamming anything other than nut hands, so dopting a strategy where i can actually open with the same FE but save an extra 7BBs or so when i get jammed on is obviously very enticing. Its just very hard for me to get this into my mind because i feel so retarded open/folding at them stacks. Hopefully i can keep my discipline and not get too antsy during the NPC and do anything out of line which i have a habit of doing in MTT's in general.

I am probably too loose in general and it is something i certainly need to reign in if i want to do well in the NPC this year. When stacks are deep i feel i have a massive edge on these guys so just need to hang in there when pus comes to shove and exploit the tendancies that a lot of these guys have!

Anyways, this got longer than i wanted. Will try to blog more frequently from now on!!!

GL in your games!

Matt

Loooonggg recap of Europe....

2009-12-01T04:21:00.000-08:00

Blog Entry – 30th November 2009 – Belgium

Hey guys!

I have a ton of time to kill as i’m at Frankfurt International airport at the moment and have around 8 hours to kill before my flight to Singapore. Correspondingly, this post may get kinda long, and i hope i don’t rant on too much but i can’t make any promises... I basically gave a brief overview of what had happened so far in my last entry and really didn’t focus on any of the poker played, therefore, in this entry i will be trying to keep it mostly poker related.

So after arriving in Belgium on the 21st of November I finally got to meet the boys (PrimordialAA, Spamz0r, and Pokiethepanda). We basically immediately gelled well which was nice and the whole time we were together I think a great time was had by all. Now these guys I would definitely consider better than myself and given that we got into a session almost immediately after I arrived I was all ears. It’s important to make the most of opportunities like this when they come along to learn, and even though my standing in the HUSNG world is reasonable and i play reasonably high stakes there is no need to be caught up in yourself and block the potential learning routes out.

After going for dinner on the first night to a French restaurant we headed back to the hotel to grind. On our way back we decided we would all play the FullTilt $20kgtd HU shootout and take 33% of each other’s action. Obviously we hit a good start to the trip when I binked second place for around $6300. Primo and Spamz missed out but it didn’t really matter since Bryan (primo) was up a ton anyways! But yeah nice start to the trip. I didn’t grind for too much longer that night because I was pretty tired. We had the next day off before the tournaments started, but we had to go to the casino to organise our BI’s for the $10k euro HU Teams event (which was basically what we were there for). The casino was definitely the most dis-organised and least customer orientated place i think i have ever been in. You would think a casino would have to be well organised, but seriously, it was a disgrace. They first told us they had no record of our BI’s for the Main Event which had been paid 2 weeks earlier by Spam, worth around 5500EU. After around 45 minutes and after going through about 10 staff, they all of a sudden found it :S .... Once it was sorted it was basically back to grinding online...

The next day was the first day of the main event for us, and we all lacked a little sleep due to a long night grinding, especially Bryan who only went to bed around 8am after playing 700 super-turbos vs the same villain. My first table was really soft and I went about grinding my stack up pretty slowly, especially given how deep we were. There was nothing really notable that happened throughout the day until very late in the day. After the dinner break, i had just been moved tables and had ground my stack up from the 10k starting stack to a touch over 25k.
The dude two to my right had been reasonably active, but had been leading out with all of his strong hands and basically check-folding the rest of the time. He seemed like a donk basically, until he owned my life...

Blinds: 150/300 – ante20.
My Stack: ~25 400
Villain Stack: ~31 000

I am UTG with KdQc and elect to open. There had been a ton of uncontested pots and I don’t expect to get flatted a lot OR played back at lightly. I make it 700 and it folds all around to the guy in SB (2 to my right), and he makes it 1450. Obviously i flat.

(Pot = 3360)

Flop ---> Td 6d 2d

Villain checks pretty quickly, and I decide to bet out given that he had been leading all of his strong hands. So I bet 1900, he thinks for around about a minute and a half and calls. At this point in time I really don’t think his hand range is very strong at all given how long he thought about it, coupled with the fact that he didn’t lead. It’s possible that he has a FD but I have the Kd so even if he binks he has to have exactly the Ad, I pretty much totally excluded overpairs at this point in time.

(Pot = 7160)

Turn ---> 4h

So a total brick turn-card. That card completely misses his range imo, and when he thinks for a second and checks it seems to be a pretty easy bet. I bet 3800ish, and once again he tanks. He thinks this time for a good 2 minutes or maybe even more, then reaches for his chips and calls. WTF??? I’m really not worried here because I think he definitely has a marginal hand (I am like 90%+ sure), and he is never calling a riverbet on a lot of cards!

(Pot = 14760)

River ---> Jc

Oh god! Basically I’m not stopping on this card, but in saying that I really don’t want to bet too big because basically he is folding all of his missed draws to any sized bet, but at the same time I don’t want to price him in to call if he did have Tx (which i expect he folds by now, unless it’s exactly AdTx). Anyways, he thinks again before checking, and I almost immediately bet out 6950. This time he really goes into the tank, and i mean for a god awful long time. Then all of a sudden after about 4 minutes or so, he fucking clicks it back. Yeah, he min-raises. I couldn’t help myself, I literally point and laugh at him and muck my cards. Such a retarded line, he obviously flopped the nuts and sure I got owned but that doesn’t make him not a retard. God i hate live players and their time banks sometimes!

So anyways, that dumped me down to around the 11k mark. I got back to grinding it out again and got up to around 17k again when i got moved to Bryan’s table. Now Bryan had a big stack and had basically been playing around 70% of pots and just owning everyone’s lives. He had about 43k or so when i got to his table and this was after he was 0-3 in all-in’s. It took me about an orbit to get into it, but given that he was 2 to my right I was going to have to start playing back at him or just blind out basically. I think we came out pretty even at the end of the day, but he did own me in one spot really hard.

Blinds: 200/400 – ante50.
Bryan Stack: ~36 000
My Stack: ~18 000

Bryan opens 850 from the HJ and I elect to flat As6s from the button instead of 3-betting. I had 3-bet several times previously, but given how capable he is, I really don’t feel like getting it in pre this deep with A6s. The blinds both fold (which was standard).

(Pot = 2700)

Flop ---> 8c 7d 4h (or similar)

Bryan leads around 1700. Even though his range is really really wide here and does include hands which hit this board, I also think he knows it hits my flatting range. Furthermore, I had an overcard and a gutshot. I decide to click it back and make it 3400. It was really close in my mind at the time between raising a bit bigger and snapping a shove, or raising small and seeing what he does. Well, i obviously elected to go small, and he shoves pretty quickly. I genuinely felt I was getting levelled and was very very close to making the call. In the end I folded, but it was really close in my mind. After the end of the days play he told me he had Q8, so i guess it was a good fold but I don’t know if I should really be raise/folding vs him there still...

So at the end of the days play I end up with 16 900 in chips (below average) and Bryan ends with 43 500. Actually, reversing up a bit, we had Moroccan in the dinner break and it was delicious! =)

We have the Tuesday off which is basically filled with sleeping in (after another all night session online), and then going over to the casino to do the an interview for the Pokerstars Blog. They asked for us to do an interview given how International our HU team was, and with this they also give us entry into the Pokerstars tent at any time during the tournaments, where there are poker tables/PS3/Pool Table/Foosball Table etc. That night we just go back to the hotel and basically grind all night again, this time not quite as late as the HU event is the following day.

So we arrive at the casino around 1:30pm for a scheduled start of around 2:30pm. It actually gets underway around 2:45pm and there were only the 6 teams competing (24 players obv). I am first up as well as Spamz (only 6 matches being played at a time), and I basically crush my opponent really hard. He plays really weakly (which was a sign of things to come) and allows me to get him down to under 3k in chips (start 10k @ 50/100) by the 150/300 level. Nothing at all happened in the match besides me raising, c-betting, barrelling a couple of times, and him open folding a ton of buttons. He has 7BBs in the end and I open shove Q9o, he calls KJo and I flop the Q and win my first match. Spamz unfortunately loses his first match, Bryan wins his first, and Ben gets a start last but against Elky. I railed his match vs Elky and I have to say he completely and utterly annihilated him... Ben ran him over worse than I’ve seen anyone get ran over, and had him down to 1900 chips at 100/200. Ben limp/shoves 44 and gets called by Elky’s AJo, obviously Elky binks his A on the flop and doubles. Then chaos ensues as Elky goes on a tear and is all-in 3 times and wins every single one, then gets Ben all-in and obviously wins that too. Such a sick game, Ben had 3 flips to eliminate him and couldn’t find the knockout blow but I guess that was the story of what was to come.
My second match is against a dude who was much more aggressive than the last one, but essentially it was the same story. He was bad-aggressive in the fact that he would be aggressive but instantly muck when i 3-bet/4-bet/check-raised or displayed any counter-aggression. He had his fair share of hands but at 150/300 we finally got it in.

Blinds: 150/300
My Stack: ~11 000
Villain: ~9000

I am dealt 77 on the button and make it 700 (standard size), he makes it 1900, I shove, and he snap-calls. He rolls over 66, NH sir!

Board---> 2h Jh Th (neither of us had a heart) --> 9s ---> 6c.

Yeah so that was pretty sick and I was down to 3.3BBs. But it was fine because I ended up coming back for the win. He made one particularly bad short stack call with like 7BBs effective, he called Q7o. But I won a couple of flips and ended up shipping, which was pretty fun and left him evidently tilted. (What the fuck dude it should have been over ages ago but you binked the 6 so gtfo with your tilt). In other matches, Spamz won his second match, Bryan went down to a Pokerstars pro, and Ben also lost in once again sick fashion.

We went for dinner break after we had all played two matches, which was delicious at the restaurant in the Casino. The guys who had organised the tournament had also organised free dinner and it was brilliant! We were 4 wins and 4 losses at dinner and it wasn’t looking to good given that two teams had really shot away, and we basically needed to win all 4 matches to have a chance of the finals.

When we got back from dinner, Spamz and Ben were thrown straight into it. Spamz crushed some dude who wanted to yell at Bryan for railing on the wrong side of the table, lol, and Ben’s match was still going when I sat down to play. I played a guy who I later found out has a WSOP bracelet under his belt and is rather famous in Belgium, but essentially he wasn’t particularly good either. I ended up coolering him on a Qc5d7d board when my AQ beat his KQ (I had chipped him down a fair bit already still at 75/150), but i still don’t know if he was right to 4-bet shove the flop. I’m not likely to be 3betting draws in that spot or even QJ, so his KQ really beats nothing that I get it in with, but anyways we got it in and i held. In the meantime, Ben had once again been brutalised, and Bryan was playing some kid from France with a $2k sidebet. Bryan ran absolutely disgracefully after having his opponent down to around 4k in chips or less at 100/200. One hand of note was Bryan opened AQo and the French kid 3-bet shoves 25BB’s with 84s. Obviously he binks the turn and goes on to win the match in the end.

Overall, was a really really fun tournament, especially playing with a group of guys I have a ton of respect for and enjoy their company. Was fun to rail each other and also a ton of fun owning people’s lives, even though results didn’t go our way. We truly crushed, and I think a lot of people look at results and think “well you didn’t win so you obviously suck”... Not true... We could not have given ourselves better opportunities to win the tournament, and sometimes it just goes that way. We were absolutely pumped about how we had played and basically couldn’t have been happier, besides the fact that we busted.

So the next day it was left up to Bryan and I to play day 2 of the main event. And wow, what a day we had. I started the day with 16900 and after one hour of play I was up to around 30k without playing any all-in pots. After 4 hours I had 50k in chips and was cruising. My table was relatively tough, with the guy to my right and three guys to my left all very capable. In particular the guy directly to my left enjoyed 3-betting me and we had a very aggressive dynamic. It all came to a head just before the dinner break in one of those hands that makes or breaks you in an MTT.

Blinds: 450/900 – ante100.
My Stack: ~52 000
Villain: ~35 000

So this was the dude directly to my left and as i mentioned, we had a very aggro dynamic. Blind vs blind had been crazy with a TON of raising/3-betting and 4-betting. Basically this had been happening because the other end of the table was really nitty (they had position on our blinds), and the rest of the table wouldn’t open anything weak on our blinds because they had seen how much we had been 3-betting etc.

I get dealt Qto in the SB and this time elect to limp. This was the first time I had done this, and the reason was simple, my hand flops well but I really didn’t want to play a big pot vs this dude out of position pre-flop. So i limp, he checks.

(Pot = 2600)

Flop ---> Qs 8d 5h

I decide to lead out at this flop, making a pretty small bet of 1200. He doesn’t really think at all before raising to 3600. Pretty sweet spot for me now, he never has better Qx hands and not rise them pre-flop, and he’s bluffing here a huge %. Given how high his bluff % is here I elect to flat, if i 3-bet this flop and he shoves, I think I have to fold because even though he’s really aggressive I don’t believe he is capable of 4-bet bluffing this flop, so he basically has 2-pair+ if that’s the case. If i flat, he may bluff again and I would be much happier taking down a bigger pot on the turn then taking it down on this flop when there isn’t that much in the pot. So i call his raise.

(Pot = 9800)

Turn ---> Ac

Not worried by this turn because he raises all Ax hands pre-flop, and I doubt he is raising Ax on the flop, he will likely just call with his SD value. I check, he bets 7400. Eh, I’m not folding now, it was just a matter of how to best go about it. With the pot so big I think I could potentially induce a bluff by raising small, or I could just jam here. I really felt that jamming only really gets called the few times he has me beat, but I could definitely get it in vs a much weaker range OR bloat the pot for river shove by raising small. That’s exactly what I do, I raise to 14 800, and he SNAP shoves. I basically snap-call as well, and he rolls over 89s for 3rd pair, and I just owned this kids life. I don’t want to keep saying this and sounding arrogant or anything, but basically the whole time we were there all of us just crushed. So i was fading a couple of outs for a 90k stack.

River ---> 9d <<< FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Yeah so he binks. I am short and bust not long after dinner to the same dude when i run TT into JJ pre-flop for my last 15BBs. Bryan also busts late in the day, after he had multiple opportunities to have a 150-200k stack. I guess sometimes it’s just not to be,a dn that was what the whole live poker trip was like.

We go back to the hotel and Bryan, Spamz and I grind out a $30k+ session online to ease the pain. Was a really sick session and involved Spamz and Bryan crushing red pros Andrew Feldman and Romanello (his name is Roberto I think but I call him Raymond in chat). There was certainly some funny funny chat going on, and was definitely the most fun session I have ever been involved in. It’s such a cool experience to grind with them two guys, because not only are they very good players, but their cool guys as well. We had a ton of fun together on the trip in basically everything we did, as well as a couple of Spamz’s mate’s dropping in here and there who were also really cool guys! (Hey Bart and Sander!)

We slept for the large majority of the next day, then went and degen’d at the casino for a while after we ate at a Pizzeria for dinner. Spamz taught me how to play Carribean Stud which I’m now addicted to. Was a sick sick hand too, I was railing Spamz and he looks down at 22237. He was ante’ing 60EU at the time, and he buys a card and calls. The dealer flips up her hand 555XX, and we’re like WTFFFFF how does she do that! WE then go on to say, oh well who cares we’ll just bink! Spamz has 1 deuce in the deck at 20-1 and 3 threes in the deck at 7-1. Dealer flips his draw card, and it’s a beautiful deuce!!!! BINK for almost 2k euro I think. Then we failed miserably after that haha. The next day after not sleeping at all Spamz and I headed back to his place for the past couple of days, which included my biggest losing day ever -$5.5k, and that basically brings me to where I am now here in Frankfurt on my way to Singapore.

Has been an amazing time, but right now I can’t wait to get home! I will do some shopping in Singapore since I haven’t had the chance to do any in Belgium due to grinding so much and hanging out with the boys (who already think i’m slightly female). So in Singapore will definitely be looking to buy gifts for everyone back home, and can’t wait to get back and play APPT Sydney on Sunday!!!!!
I will talk to you all soon, this has been long! Still 5 hours until my flight! Thanks for hanging in there if you got this far and will be posting again once I’m settled back home!

GL in your games!!!

Matt!

BCOP + Europe

2009-11-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!

Not sure how long this will be because not sure of the plans today but will try to do the best i can to re-cap some of what's happened so far.

So i arrived in London a bit over a week ago now and enjoyed my time in London. It's a really nice city but everything is so god damn nitty. Like i arrived at 8am and all i wanted was a big breakfast. I went to look for cafe's etc to get a big breakfast around 10am when i got into the city but apparently everywhere stops serving breakfast at around 10am, they're such life nits. I met up with Radeh for dinner in the evening and i was extremely jet-lagged but he was such a cool and intelligent dude, and i swear i could have talked to him all night, he has an extremely good knowledge of a lot of topics. So we had dinner then went and got a few drinks but all the pubs also close at 11pm in London, haha. But had a cool time with him and grateful for him showing me around some of the baller shopping in and around Picadilly circus as well! =)

I caught the train from London to Belgium which was pretty cool, but the last part of the journey was certainly interesting. I had to change train's from the high speed train to a regular public train and I was under the impression that a lot of people in Belgium spoke English but apprently not as on my train from Brussels to Namur (during peakhour) i was getting yelled at by old ladies because the train was sooooooo packed and i was taking up too much room with all my luggage. The thing was i couldn't understand what they were saying to me haha. So after a very awkward 40 minute train ride i finally arrived in Namur.

Basically, since i have been here i have had an amazing time with Bryan (PrimordialAA), Spamz (mientjeuh), and Ben (pokiethepanda). We haven't really had the results in live poker reflect how badly we have crushed people here but i guess that's just the nature of the game. We have had some sick results online though, and last night i had very close to my biggest winning session ever. The room (was Bryan, Spamz, and I) made about 35k between us which was a pretty sick session for HUSNGers. It's been really cool to meet up and be able to talk to people better than myself about strategy and watch what they do and be able to learn from it. I have learnt a TON from Spamz and Bryan even though we haven't really sat down and done a coaching session or anything like that, i think you can learn a lot more just by paying attention and listening to them in general. I have also learnt how bad Bryan and Spamz fail at CC roulette, since i haven't paid for a meal since i've been here ;) But everyone i have met here has been extremely cool and the group has just got along really really well.

I have a few days left here and not sure exactly what the plans are for the next couple of days, but i intend on writing a poker re-cap on my flight from Frankfurt to Singapore with the re-caps of the tournaments i have played and some of the crucial spots, as well as a little more detailed trip report. In the meantime, good luck in all of your games!!!!

Talk soon!

Matt

Melbourne re-cap part 2.

2009-11-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Going to go over my second match in the Hachem Deepstack HU event, which unfortunately was my last match for the tournament. I had no idea who my opponent was in this case although it become quite clear he was a local regular. To be perfectly honest I thought he was pretty bad overall, but props to him because he got the win.

The first match I decided to come out pretty hard and test him out early, which worked perfectly as I 3bet him twice out of the first 5 hands and got folds and had taken down every pot in position either pre-flop or on the flop. He then did something weird and raised 5.5x on the button as well as 3betting me to 1600 over my 300 open. So at this point in time I basically knew that I had someone who wasn’t particularly familiar with HU play. The first hand of real interest came up at 50/100 level, and was the first real time that we had ran a whole board out.

Blinds: 50/100
My Stack: ~11700
Villain: ~8300

Pre-Flop: I raise Jd8d to 300 and he calls. This was pretty standard as he had been flatting an increasing % pre and c/f a lot of flops.

Flop ---> Ts8s5d

Not the best flop ever but certainly not the worst. I definitely can bet my hand for value vs him at this point in time which I did, c-betting 400. He calls really quickly.

(Pot = 1400)
Turn ---> Ac

This is a good double barrel card if I had air here, but in this case I much prefer to check back my showdown value, and make an informed decision based on the river (to be honest, I intend to call a pretty large % of rivers anyway). He checks, I check back.

River ---> Kh

He thinks for a quick second picking up several grey chips (1k chips), then casually flicks one of them into the pot. Basically every draw had missed and I really wasn’t sure if he was ever floating Kx, although it was likely he floats Ax on that board. I decided to call in the end, and he rolls over Js3s. He then gives me a glare and says “very interesting” in an extraordinarily condescending tone. Haha.

The next hand was about 15 hands later, and not much had happened in the meantime except me raising all of my buttons and mostly taking it down, and him limping most of his and taking it down on a lot of flops.

Blinds: 75/150
My Stack: ~15k
Villain: ~5k

Pre-Flop: I raise 7c9c to 400, and he flats from the BB.

Flop ---> 9dAh5d
He leads out at the flop for 525. He had done this once before and I had raised and taken it down. This time I decide to just flat obviously.

(Pot = 1850)
Turn ---> 6s

He checks pretty quickly, and I decide to just check back as I think he has air a pretty large % of the time, and is folding and furthermore, I have a pretty decent showdown hand anyway. (fwiw, not sure if a bet was more appropriate here, would love to hear thoughts).

River ---> 5h

This card really sucks in hindsight, but at the time I kinda thought it was pretty good. More so because I didn’t really expect him to lead bottom pair on that flop, given that I had raised last time he lead and it sucks to build a pot with bottom pair obviously. But apparently it was good for him as once again he very casually flicks in one grey chip. I don’t think for long before calling given that the FD missed and I really expect him to fire all of his A’s on a relatively harmless turn. He rolls over Q5o for rivered trips and I feel pretty stupid.

Not much really happened for the rest of the match, with the chips basically going back and forth right through to 300/600. By the chips going back and forth I mean we really didn’t play a pot of any significance. The dynamics were pretty passive as he reverted to limping a large % of his buttons, but seemed to like to raise directly after I had made aggressive plays post-flop the hands before. I had established pretty early on that when he limped he was almost always limp/calling. In the end we got it in flipping with relatively close stacks (he had me by about 800 chips at the time), he min-raised and I 3bet shoved KQo, he called 77 and held to take down the first match.

The second match went very similarly to how the first one had ended. Basically he began limping a ton of buttons and flatting a lot OOP. To a degree I felt I lost control of this match pretty early on, partly due to the fact that I had been playing live poker for around 6 hours with basically no break and on very little sleep. Generally speaking I feel my endurance for grinding is great, and I have ground out super long sessions online on a regular basis. But for some reason I really lost my focus in the second match and probably didn’t play as well as I would have liked. It wasn’t so much that I made any significant mistakes in this match, but more I lost the focus that I think you need to pay attention to your opponent when playing live poker. To a degree I went on auto-pilot and didn’t push the edge as much as I would have liked. In the end the following hand took place that saw the end of the tournament for me.

Blinds: 150/300
My Stack: ~9k
Villain: ~11k

I have the button and made a standard open to 800, with 89hh. He flats from the BB (he had actually been folding a TON in the BB in the previous 10 minutes or so).

(Pot = 1600)
Flop ---> Td7h2d

He checks pretty quickly, and I fire out a c-bet of 1000, he c/c and we go to a turn.

(Pot = 3600)
Turn ---> Th

Pretty sick card. He checks after thinking for a brief moment, and I decide to check back. The reason for my check is that I hate my life if he c/shoves on me on this turn, and even though I have a monster draw, i’m essentially behind his range for getting it in on that turn. I hadn’t seen him play one draw aggressively and don’t really expect him to start now. So in the end I decide to check back and see if I can get there on the river.

River ---> 6c

*Bink* I feel really good about my hand obviously, he thinks again before checking (this time for much longer)... I think for a brief moment (deciding on betsize), and end up firing a bet of 2700. He instantly announces “All-In”, and looks ridiculously excited. I tank for a long time because I just felt beat so often, nothing really made much sense besides T7, 66, or 22, but even then I have no idea why he was c/c such a wet flop. In the end I have to call 4500 into a pot of 18000 I think, and the odds were just way too juicy, even though I really really wanted to fold. I told him I thought I was beat and announced call. He stands up and yells out “nuts”, as he rolls over T7o, and gg me.

So that was it for me for Melbourne. I now really look forward to getting over to Belgium and seeing how we go. I’m currently on my flight from Sydney to Singapore. I managed to score myself a Business class ticket on the A380, and I must say that this plane is really the nuts. I have wanted to do a trip on the A380 ever since Qantas first purchased them, but haven’t had the opportunity yet. The take off was one of the most unbelievably smooth flying experiences I have had. Being upstairs obviously helps a lot, but not hearing landing gear or anything like that even, just made the whole take off seem effortless. We have been in rough weather for the large majority of the flight, yet strangely even the turbulence doesn’t seem what it should be, lol. The only concern I guess is the baby crying non-stop about 5 rows in front of me, but that is something I have to get used to anyways. The space in the aircraft is amazing, and with dinner coming soon I guess I should wrap this up. Let’s hope that the next few take-off’s and landing go as smoothly as the first one.
I will be trying to get some more update type blogs done whilst I’m in Belgium, hopefully with better news than I had in this one.

Good Luck in all of your games!

Matt

Hachem Deepstack Event 7

2009-11-17T03:51:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Im very tired after a long day but want to get this written down while its still reasonably fresh and because i don't think i am going to have much time in the next few days to put pen to paper, well fingers to keyboard...

As previously mentioned i headed to Melbourne this morning to play the HU event in this series. I really didn't get much sleep the night before and had a reasonably early (early for me) flight leaving Sydney at 9am. Didn't feel particularly great on the flight and had some pressure/sinus problems on the descent that was pretty aggrevating. First time this has ever happened to me so hopefully i don't have any problems on the upcoming flights. Melbourne is a really nice city overall, and Crown Casino is thoroughly impressive. Anyways to the poker.

In my first round i drew a really tough opponent. He was a HUSNGer and i really didn't expect for there to be any HUSNGers in the field. Besides myself this guy and his mate were both in, the other guy was Oasis00 from FTP (he was also on "the Poker Star - the Australian reality TV series). My opponent was fundamentally very very solid and i found it hard to find a significant edge on him, if anything i thought he gave me a little too much respect and probably folded a little too tight in some spots. The format was such that it was best of 3 matches in every round, so we were going to have to play at least 2 matches and obviously there would be some meta involved vs this thinking player.

The first hand really of note:

Blinds: 75/150
My stack: ~11k
Villain: ~9k

We definately had a 3bet dynamic at this point in time and the first level had basically been a raise/3bet/fold fest. I raise A9o otb to 400, and he flats from BB.

Flop ---> 9c4s6d

He checks, i bet 550, he thinks for a second and raises to 1300. At this point in time he can definately have a ton of air in his range and i figure my hand to be best a large %. However, this was his first c/r (i had c/r him maybe once only before this), and i expect him to be 3betting a lot of his high cards and high pairs, if i were to raise here i think his range for actually getting it in here is pretty strong because i didn't really expect him to get it in with TP hands really. So i flat his c/r.

Turn ---> Kh (board had no FD's)

He checks the turn and i decide to check back because i think he's c/f all his air but i can possibly get a small VB in on river or bluff catch if he bets certain cards, obviously he may also now VB worse 9x hands on the river.

River ---> 6s

Interesting card, i don't ever expect him to be c/r a 6 so it's actually a really good card for me. The pot was 3400 on the river, and when he checked i had to decide on a betsize. I decided to bet 1200 and try to get value out of all of his 9x hands and possibly some random hero calls. I'm still unsure if this bet was a little thin, but i don't really like checking back because it seems so nitty. He calls the 1200 and rolls over AA and i am thoroughly confused.

This match went for a long time and basically i had control for the rest of the match, we managed to get to 200/400 before we played a decent sized pot again which he took down giving him a slight advantage and pushing me down to the 15BB mark. I then re-shoved A9o on him over a 2.5x and got a fold, and the very next BB i once again re-shoved, this time with QQ and 19BBs and he tank-called KQdd. He missed and i took a large chiplead to take the match down.

The second match i was much less in control and he blew out to a big early chiplead after i played a hand like a bit of a donk, and got pretty owned to be honest.

Blinds: 50/100
My Stack: ~8300
Villain: ~11700

Pre-flop: He raises 300 and i decide to flat A2o. This was pretty close at the time because he had been folding/limping a few buttons, but i decided to flat and see what we could conjure up. This match had been played more post-flop thus far and once again there was a very aggressive dynamic.

Flop ---> Jd8h6h

Obviously a horrible board for my hand, but also a board that definately hits my percieved range. Furthermore, a lot of the c/r had been going on with dry boards and he had recently 3bet me when i c/r a K35 flop. He cbet 400 and i decided to give it a shot and c/r this board even though it kinda sucks and isn't a board that is necessarily ideal for bluffing on, however i genuinely thought i could get him to fold a ton of his range either on the flop or with another bet on the turn and possibly river if i got good cards. So i raise to 1250 and he tanks for a long time before calling.

(Pot= 3100)
Turn ---> 3h

This card was one that i still don't know what to think about it. He can definately have FD's here given his line, but it's also extremely feesible for me to have turned a flush. I planned on bluffing any heart turn and after thinking for a second i decided to bet 2200, and he instantly shoved. *sigh* Obviously i snap-folded. (he told me after the match that he had 88).

Three hands later:

Blinds: 75/150
My Stack: ~3800
Villain: ~16200

He limps and i check A2o away in the BB.

Flop ---> AAK, i think for a second and fire out 200 after he saw me see him go to fold his cards (he clearly made a motion to fold his cards and i thought this was actually pretty strong at the time but there was no way i was folding here anyways and if he did have Kx then i really didn't want to c/r him off his hand). He calls my bet on the flop pretty quickly.

Turn ---> 8 (pot= 700)

I think for a second again and lead out 500 and he calls instantly.

River ---> 3 (pot= 1700)

At this point in time it's a pretty easy shove. It's basically a case where i don't want to check and give him the chance to check back Kx, but i think if i bet here he's calling Kx regardless of my betsize. So i shove pretty quickly, and he basically snapcalls K8. Fwiw, i think his call is actually pretty bad, he doesn't really beat anything but air here because he even chops any worse Kings. I'm never triple barreling this board vs him with air so i'm not really sure why he called the river.

But anyways, this got me back to the better part of 8k and i held onto this and got as high as 11k up until we got to 300/600. At this time i basically went card dead and had to raise/fold twice in a row putting me back down to around 6k, when the next notable hand happened.

Blinds: 300/600
My stack ~6k
Villain: ~14k

We had been limping/shoving/folding for the most part, with a little min-raising when we were slightly deeper and a ton of 3bet shoving.

He raises to 3k, which was LOL insanely strong and I look down at AhJh, and i'm not folding no matter what so i just shove, he snaps AKo. The board rolls out:

---> Qh7h4c Qd Th... And i run good to get the double.

About 5 hands later we get it in again;

Blinds: 300/600
My stack: ~14k
Villain: ~6k

He open shoves and i call KhTh. He rolls over A8o for the lead. Then the board rolls out:

---> 7h8c2d Jh 3h... and *bink* i run good and move on to the round of 16.

The match went for over 3 hours and he was certainly a very good tough opponent. I definately got my fair share of run-good in the second match, but i really felt i got the toughest draw in the tourny.

Anyways, I am insanely tired right now so will re-cap the rest of the tournament tomorrow possibly on my flight i will write it out because this took longer than i thought and i need to sleep so bad so i can get out and see Melbourne tomorrow.

Will finish this in another entry tomorrow~!

GL in your games!

Matt

Super Turbos?

2009-11-10T20:52:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!

Just opened up 2+2 to see that they have added super turbo HUSNG's. I mean this is exciting for everyone and all but personally I'm not really in love with it. To be perfectly honest I think they're really bad for the economy, especially as a reg speed player because now all the degen's have much sweeter options than playing 75BB deep HUSNG's. Redback Poker recently added super-turbos, but i think their structure is much more reasonable and almost equivelant to FTP normal turbos.

So the FTP structure looks like this:

- 300 starting chips
- 3 minute blinds (15/30, 20/40, 25/50, and to be honest it really doesn't matter past there because i doubt a match will ever go beyond the 9 min mark).
- 2.5% rake.

Redback on the other hand:

- 1500 starting chips
- 2 minute blinds (15/30, 20/40, 30/60, 40/80, 50/100, 60/120 etc)
- 4% rake.

I mean the Redback are very comparable to FTP turbos though one level faster for every 3 levels. And even with rake a fair bit higher than FTP, i believe they are actually beatable. I genuinely don't believe that the super-turbos are all that beatable even with 2.5% rake, and if you were to play them i expect the variance to be absurd. I don't really want to make huge judgements one way or another until i play some or see some decent sample's from some good players (which i'm sure we will be seeing very shortly).

In other news, things have been flat out at the moment. Organising my trips to London/Belgium/Singapore (19thNov- 3rdDec) was quite an effort as well as getting everything booked for my short trip to Melbourne on the 17th. As well as this making sure i'm well prepared for the trip in terms of clothing (for cold weather) and ensuring i have everything booked/confirmed has been interesting. Usually when i travel i have my fiance with me so this will be my first time without her so determined to make sure i know shit before i go because usually i can depend on her to know i have to be in X place at X time. I'm not very good at getting my shit together in general, i much prefer the take it as it comes approach, however she is very organised and thank god for that. So instead i got her to help me organise my trip ;) and seems I'm all ready to go now.

Also went and looked into renewing gym membership. We went out to health centre to register Nat for her pre-natal yoga classes, and was looking to do it then but didn't carry my bank details with me so will likely do this when i get back from my trip. Really need to get back into shape as i've definately gotten lazy this year in general. I plan on quitting smoking after my trip and hopefully get myself back into shape as well. Plan on doing a fair bit of swimming, it's something i've always really enjoyed and is great thinking time + great exercise.

Finished my final University exam today (for the moment) so that's a huge load off. In saying it's done, i began my studies at around 11pm last night and slept for about 3 hours before heading off for a 9am start =P

Poker has been very meh. Very very swingy and that's mostly due to me playing $360 turbo 4-mans and myself + partner's running pretty horrendously overall. Still started the month ok (better than last month lol), even though i obviously feel like i should be doing better. I think that's all for now gonna go watch the degen's blow all they're money in super-turbos.

GL in your games~!!

Matt

Sick crazy tilting day.

2009-11-06T04:34:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. Today was one of the sickest days i have endured ever. It started off so very well, and then turned more brutally then a day has ever turned on me. I started the day 10-0 to be +$2k in the blink of an eye and i ran really well. I began playing some 4mans for FTOPS event 9 with deedoubleu a good mate of mine and overall we ran like trash... From that time onwards i just ran worse than i probably ever have for the next 20 or so games, and im saying this after a 60BI downswing. I went from having a really good day, to being stuck around $1200 on FTP.

Im swear im destined to fail in anything above the $200 level because everytime i have sat down to play $300s it becomes impossible to win. Feeling pretty shitty and demoralised at the moment as y month had started well and it seemed i had overcome the downswing. Anyways whining is probably not something anyone wants to read so ill leave it at that for now, just needed to get out some frustration... Thanks for reading, talk soon! Graphs attatched below!

FTP

REDBACK

End of October

2009-10-31T22:20:00.001-07:00

Hey guys.

I know we I only just started this blog but gonna do a re-cap on October. Was my worst month to date by far and endured a 60BI downswing. This is not really normal for HUSNGs and essentially should never really happen. In hindsight i didn't really play all that well, although i ran like garbage throughout the whole month (Graphs are posted below).

Lifetime FTP Graph.

October FTP.

October Redback.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU October!

In saying all of this and as terrible as my month was, I'm actually really proud of how i handled it. I went through a period in April/May this year that was no where near the extremity of this downswing, and to be honest it was just a long breakeven stretch. This period almost broke me between April and May, and as close as i've come to quitting. I didn't really tilt once throughout this current downswing though, nor did it really affect my life in general. Its tough to get up every day and get back to it when you've had 12 losing days in a row, and as i said before i certainly didn't play my best and my confidence was hurt, but i pushed through it and towards the end of the month it slowly began to turn slightly.

The biggest challenge in being a professional poker player is definately the mental challenge and being able to pull through the tough times and continue to play well. I don;t claim to have mastered this because it certainly did affect my play to a degree but not nearly as much as it would have 6 months ago.

In other news, recorded 2 new videos last night for Pokersavvy Plus. I was inspired by a series of matches i played vs a fish to record them. Essentially i was thinking about how we approach playing fish and how often we don't focus on playing our A-game because they're just fish. Obviously our B or C game is effective vs fish so why put all our mental strength into playing our A-game? Even though we would still have an edge it's certainly not what it could be when we don't show up with our A-game and in a game where variance can so adversely affect our results it is important to be at our best regardless of who we're playing against. And if you do this you will be surprised how easy playing some types of players actually is!!! So that will be out hopefully sometime in the next 7 days.

Almost finished University for the semester looking forward to it a lot. After that i have a pretty busy time coming up, with trips to Melbourne for the Hachem Series at Crown Casino where i plan on playing the HU event, and straight after that i'll be off to Belgium for the Belgium Poker Championships. Mainly going for the HU team event that i'll be playing with two people i have a great deal of respect for and are two of the top HUSNGers in the world in PrimordialAA and Spamz0r (mientjeuh on FTP). After that i arrive back in time for APPT finals in Sydney where i also plan on playing the HU event, so should be a really fun month and hopefully ship something big.

Hardest part of all this will be being away from Nat (fiance), i don't think we've been apart for more than like 4 days at any time. Our parenting classes start just before i go so will be missing some of that too which is disappointing because it's something i def need to do haha. I have no idea on children and have never really dealt with a baby in my life so need all the education i can get! haha. But anyways i think that's all for now, gonna try to get some sleep had a long day grinding and sick of staring at the screen!

~Good luck in all your games~

Matt

Introductory blog.

2009-10-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. Doing a blog upon request of a couple of people and i guess a desire to write more frequently than i do.

My name is Matt Wakeman, also known as "mjw006" or "rocky2810" at the tables. I am currently a $200 HUSNG reg and i play mostly on FTP and Redback Poker (on the cake network). I also work for Pokersavvy Plus as a video instructor dealing with HUSNG's specifically, and am a member of Team Redback. I thought id make this first blog post a longish one and introduce myself a little bit to the blog world.

Poker Background:

I started playing poker recreationally in 2007 and I was essentially a donk for the first year of my poker life. Once i first discovered 2+2 and pokersavvy i started to think about the game differently and began to grind out 25NL 6-max cash games. I grinded these out for a few months and did a ton of study in an attempt to learn the game. I was playing mostly on stars at this time and was 6-tabling 50NL whilst building my roll. Once i was ready to take on 100NL i decided to chop my BR between sites and deposit on FTP. Once i moved to FTP i went on epic downswing in cash games, and looked to start playing some MTT's again (by again, i mean i used to play these back when i was a total donk). I got hooked on the MTT world and chasing big scores and had some pretty decent success in MTT's, then once again, EPIC downswing.

This lead me to HUSNG's after i had played HU cash with a lot of success and always fancied myself as a HU player haha. But with my recently acquired tourny skills combined with a natural enjoyment/ability in playing HU poker, it kinda made sense looking back on it. This brings me to my first real general comment on some of my thoughts on poker in general (something if you read this blog you will have to get used to lol).

--> A lot of people ask me why they should play cash/MTTs/SNGs etc etc? I am a firm believer that you have to find your strengths. In my case that involved going through several forms of poker before i found my real strength, HUSNG's. Some people are super-talented at various forms of poker, but generally speaking a lot of people will be more suited to play a certain type. No one will be able to tell you what your best at, and just because you saw Durrr playing high stakes cash games or you watched Bond18 crushing MTT's doesn't mean that the style of poker will necessarily be your best format no matter how much you desire it to be. Poker is a skill and it can be learned, therefore focussing all your attention on one style will obviously yield the best results, this still doesn't mean that is your best format.

Anyways, back to the blog. Since that time i have almost solely played HUSNG's. I began playing professionally (probably a little too early), in January 2009 and have worked my way up from the $50 level up to the $200s and occasionally above at the moment. My results have been very good, but you can't get complacant based on results. Im fortunate enough to be able to talk to a lot of good high stakes HUSNG regs, and it ensures that i continue to think about the game on the highest level that i can. I do not consider myself as even close to the level of player as some people i know and i feel very lucky to be able to associate with them. Playing professionally is a tough job, much tougher than its made out to be. The biggest challenge is the mental challenge which i will more than likely address regularly throughout the course of my writing future blog posts.

My Life:

In "the real world" i live a pretty simple life. I am currently completing my final semester of University, a degree in Business, majoring in Management and Human Resources. I have a gorgeous fiance who is currently 25 weeks pregnant with our first child. Wasn't necessarily planned but im extremely excited about having a little boy!

I was born in South Korea and was adopted to Australian parents when i was a baby. I am incredibly lucky to have been adopted into the family i was, and to live in a place as great as Australia. I guess we take it for granted to live in such a peaceful and developed nation sometimes, but when i think about what could have been had i stayed in South Korea, it kinda makes me cringe. I have a wonderful loving family and have been afforded many luxuries in my life (not spoiled or anything) that many people don't have available to them, and i would not have had available to me had i ended up elsewhere.

OK, so i guess i've kinda introduced myself pretty extensively now haha. Thats basically my life story. Will try to update this at least on a weekly basis with my random thoughts on both poker and life. I have a pretty busy schedule coming up with some live HU tournies in both Australia and Europe and will also use this blog as a place to discuss my travels =)

Thanks for reading! Talk to you all soon!

Matt