Que tan malos son los live players .... you tell me

Fui a jugar live unas 5 hrs, esta vez 1-2 NL y siempre es bueno sentir que eres el mejor jugador de la mesa, tuve una buena sesión sin ningún problema para controlar la mesa.

Hubo una jugada que me llamo la atención, porque mas o menos da una idea del nivel de juego, no me acuerdo de todos los detalles, pero la parte importante es el river;

En un board AJJQA con 3 diamantes, están heads up, después de haber llamado en el flop y turn, un regular (malo), apuesta $20, esta heads up con un turista (malo), quien le hace raise a $40, el regular piensa poco y le hace raise a $160, entonces el turista toma su tiempo y yo empiezo a elucubrar que tienen ambos:

La apuesta del $20 no dice mucho, aunque con el board implica que probablemente tiene el A, el donk miniraise implica probablemente otro A, pero entonces el raise enorme ya esta dificil que sea un A naked, asi que yo me pongo a pensar que el regular o tiene AQ o tiene JJ, manos que le ganan a un A naked, el turista piensa y piensa y piensa y al final llama, que tiene, un A? nooooo, una J? noooo, un flush? nooooooo, el inocente tiene KT; I mean, there is bad and BAD, y por su parte que tiene el regular, AQ, JJ? of course not, tiene un A3 y se aventó un tremendo value bet, jajajajajajaja.

Quizas alguien estara pensando que el regular hizo eso para hacer que el turista tirara un A y no hicieran split, (ademas de que no tuviera AQ), nah, zero chance el penso eso, para empezar el turista nunca hubiera tirado el A, ese regular no pensaba mas alla del 2o nivel, y simplemente hizo raise porque tenia full house que es una mano poderosa, jajajajajaja.

La verdad me dio mucha risa la jugada de los 2, pero ilustra muy bien el juego en el que tuve la suerte de sentarme esta noche.

Being 40

Today is my birthday, with our decimal system, it happens to be a multiple of our uber important number 10. But it really feels like bing 27.231 or 34.0011 if you know what I mean.

You don't?, I'll tell you, just feel yourself at this pretty moment, wherever you are and whichever age you happen to be, feel your present .... you did it, there you go, that's it.

Of course I don't remember how did I feel when I was 27.231, and that's precisely the point, you're just your present, ....., always, you can't be anything else, your life happens in this pretty moment.

Busy, busy, ........ never stop improving

I have been pretty busy with poker, spending a lot of hours studying and playing. I remember I used to study a lot of poker situations but I kind of lost that. I'm glad is coming back, since you should never stop studying, you should never stop improving your game.

Since I'm basically haven't studied and played a lot of poker last 2?3? years, I have to make up a lot. There are too many good players, and so many of them work pretty hard on their game, so, it's a big battle. but I'm happy I'm fighting.

Now lets variance pass and the results will come. I always say to my students that if you're pretty good at something and you have the passion and work pretty hard, success will follow.

I don't know if I'm still good enough, but the passion and the work it's here again, lets see if I can maintain the pace.

Where have the fish gone?

To say the online poker No Limit games here in the States are tough is an understatement, they are damn hard and most of the time you're playing against regulars, most of the time against the SAME guys on all your tables, since almost all regulars multitable. I'm trying to learn how to play a lot of tables, I'm not a fan of multitabling since I think it has done a lot of damage to online poker, but I don't think the big sites are going to do anything about it, so I better learn how to do it, it has been a expensive lesson, but I'm on my way, I think I can handle 10 tables now, but still if the rest of the players are pretty good then what's the point. Hopefully I'm wrong and there's still money to be made online, buy boy, it is tough; since I'm pretty stubborn one thing that is good of all this, it makes me study and work harder, since I don't want to be the "bad regular", I want to beat all of them, lets see how it goes, but if I don't see a big change online, probably I just play more live.

Respetar tu bankroll

Empiezo el año con un bankroll pequeño para jugar, asi que yo creo me la pasare grinding 2-4 and 3-6 online y 2-5 live en Las Vegas. Con el ocasional torneo de vez en vez.
Es muy importante que respete uno su bankroll, lo debes tratar con mucha delicadeza, esto es si no te quieres quebrar, si eres profesional no debes de jugar un juego para probar que eres "muy bueno", no tienes que probarle nada a nadie y ademas, nobody cares, si eres profesional, este es tu trabajo y tu bankroll es tu instrumento de trabajo y una de las razones mas importantes por las que juegas es para pagar los bills, claro, para los jugadores jovenes que no tienen familia, es mas dificil que vean el juego de esta forma, pero para los que vivimos de esto, es fundamental.
No niego que la gloria y fama de ganar torneos importantes por ejemplo, sea atractiva, lo es, pero no debe perder uno de vista las prioridades y el jugar poker no es muy diferente de cualquier otro trabajo, debes trabajar duro, debes mejorar profesionalmente, prepararte, sobre todo debes disfrutar lo que haces, you have to do your best and enjoy the ride, ... always.

Every day is an opportunity

Wow, we're in 2010, it's like living in the future. Hopefully it will be a good year, I have lots of goals, health, family, poker, economy, happiness in general; living and enjoying every moment.
I finished the year in a bad note pokerwise, I went to play live some 7 hours and won, then came back home at 8 AM and since I could not sleep and was the last day of the month, I decided to try to make it to Gold Status in PokerStars, it was a disastrous decision, since I lost a lot, I shouldn't have played that tired (but I did make it to Gold, lol).

But today it's a new day, a new year indeed and a new opportunity to make things right, but every day is, it does not have to be January 1st to start living a better life and get rid of the old, every day you have that chance, Isn't that wonderful?.
Every day you can do whatever the hell you want and improve yourself and be a better you, the past is gone forever, don't live in the past, don't live in the future either, live here, now !!!!! ....... life is good.

La virtud de ser paciente: sometimes you just have to let it go ... yet again.

Una de las diferencias notables entre jugar poker online y live, es el numero de manos que juegas; mientras que online puedes estar jugando muchas manos a la vez y literalmente estar tomando decisiones importantes cada segundos, live la mayor parte del tiempo es contemplacion.
A veces los juegos son tan buenos live que simplemente una buena dosis de paciencia y tu ABC game es suficiente para ganar. Sin embargo este concepto de paciencia es tricky, a veces piensas que estas siendo muy paciente y por fin te llega una mano jugable contra el maniac, la paciencia no se debe terminar preflop, el hecho de que has tenido suficiente paciencia para aguantar jugar en muchas situaciones marginales, no garantiza que este pot sera tuyo, no debes echar el analisis por la borda, no hay tal cosa como merecer ganar un pot, no cometas el error de desesperarte postflop, esto me ha pasado montones de veces y es un leak que es muy costoso. En mi ultima sesión perdí todo mi stack por ejemplo con un par de 88, en un board T9494, porque el maniac me debía seguramente de estar blofeando, y aun cuando si existía esa posibilidad, analizando mas detenidamente la jugada, era mas mi willingness to play a pot que un objetivo análisis de los posibilidades de estar siendo blofeado lo que me hizo perder un buy in. La paciencia no solo se aplica preflop, nunca eches tu analisis por la borda, la paciencia es importante pero sin tu analisis situacional en realidad no vale gran cosa. Even when you have waiting a lot, sometimes you just have to let it go, yet again.

Live Poker is much better than Internet Poker, I mean if you enjoy having fun

What a night yesterday at Aria, it was full of good poker action, playing 2-5 NL and I was involved in so many good hands to fill the remainder of the year on the blog.
For example one hand I raised preflop with JJ, 2 callers, flop came QJ9, I have a pretty good hand right?, well, I folded in the flop after a bet, call, raise, reraise, all in, all in, fold !!! (my actions bolded), the other 2 guys happened to have QQ and KT !!!!; another one when I was "trapping" with the same JJ and a board QJ447, raising the guy in the river, just the "correct" amount and just being called with QQ !!!!. Another one preflop with a raise, reraise, rereraise, call!, and me going all in and doing my best AA impersonation, making both of them fold !!
I won't tell the details of this and other hands right now, but I do want to make this point. Hands like this is why we love poker, and it's a hell of a lot different to experience them live than online, live all the action mounting, all the decisions, the whole table excited, the all ins, the agonizing sick fold, the agonizing sick call,looking into the souls of your opponents, the trash talk, the mind games, the word games, analyzing all your options, just being there !!!, I guess all that beats the hell of "Honey, can you believe what just happened" (that's when you're one of the lucky ones, some have to settle with talking to their dog about the incredible poker hand).
I know internet poker and live poker are two different animals, hell yeah, just saying live is way, way more fun than online.

Are the nuts, really the nuts? La importancia de la posición cuando compartes las nueces.

Esta noche jugue en Aria 2-5 NL otra vez, esta vez solo unos 90 minutos, gane unos $350 y me fui porque la mesa no estaba muy buena.
La mano mas interesante que jugue fue la siguiente, en la que se puede ver claramente la importancia de estar en posicion:

Con 10c7c llame en LP, quizás era MP que parece LP porque el juego era 10-handed, lol. Llame porque llamaron varios antes de mi y la mesa no estaba haciendo mucho raise, asi que la probabilidad de que alguien hiciera raise despues era poca; llamaron varios mas los $5 y como unos 7 vimos el flop:

AsKhQc

Checan yo checo y todos los demas checan, jajaja

Turn fue Js

Como pueden ver tengo los nuts pero pues con tanta gente jugando, seguramente alguien mas las tiene, aqui mi estrategia es tratar de ganar lo que se pueda, es decir si alguien apuesta solo llamar, si no, apostar poco, para que agun KJ o algo asi se quede, so much for the plan, BB apuesta $20, EP le hace raise a $60, mmmmmmm, no me gusta la accion pero pues los nuts son los nuts y solo llamo los $60, los demas se tiran y ahora BB decide irse all in con $261 mas, arrggghhh, porque arrrggghhh diran ustedes, despues de todo tengo los nuts no?, pues si, pero el problema es que a la mejor todos los que estamos en la mano los tienen y alguien puede tener 10s9s por ejemplo, o sea nos puede ganar en el river, asi que a lo mas vamos a ganar poco (casi nada) o perder mucho, EP se queda pensando y decide llamar los $261 (tiene como $500 mas atras), demontres, ahora mas probabilidad de que alguno tenga el flush draw, pienso un poco y decido que como EP no se fue all in, no tiene el flush draw, asi que si existe un flsh draw solo es posible que lo tenga BB, pero pues este no era particularmente un buen jugador, asi que igual y solo tiene el T y ni cuenta se ha dado del flush draw, asi que decido llamar los $261 y me quedan como $600 atras.

El river es un Ad

Perfecta carta para mi, pues tengo posición sobre EP, el checa como era de esperarse y que hago yo, pues obviamente ya se que tiene así que me voy all in, se queda piense y piense y piense como 3 minutos, agonizando pensando que me llego el full house y que yo andaba llamando con 2 pares, jaja, seguramente, pero pues al final decide llamar y se alivia al ver que todos solo tenemos el T, y hacemos un split, BB efectivamente ni flush draw tenia solo el T, lo cual hace que su movida all in sea bastante mala. Fue una mano divertida donde casi no gane nada pero jugue el river perfecto y casi me sale, pero pues se puede ver claramente la importancia de la posicion y la importancia de poner presion en tus oponentes.

Les dejo aqui una foto mas de City Center, esta es en Crystals, son esculturas de hielo, si, hielo de verdad de ese de agua congelada, jaja, y como dije en el pasado blog, todo City Center es espectacular.

Aria opened at Vegas and of course I was there to inaugurate their poker room

City Center grand opening was today, Aria casino opened at 11:59PM Wednesday, I tried to be there on time, but I couldn't find any parking and wasted a lot of time, at the end I could find one between the Montecarlo and New York New York casinos, I wasn't really late since by 12:10AM I was already in the poker room which was really packed, and by 12:15AM I was already playing my first hand at the Aria, probably the first 2-5 NL game that opened ever !!, my table was good, since only 4 of us (out of 10) bought in for $500, rest of the table bought between $200 and $300 which is always a good sign. My stack at the beginning of the session

The first hand I was UTG, so I was the first to fold a hand, next hand I won my first pot betting a K22 flop with my 78o; everybody started to play really careful, but as usual after a little while people start to get anxious to play pots, and my table didn't dissapoint, there were two German guys, one of them who tried to bluff me a little too much; one guy who was known by a lot of the people there since he was a WPT finalist or something, 3 young friends with one of them pretty happy and drinking, tipping dealers left and right and just hemorrhaging money at the table, 2 other middle age guys who looked like pros but played pretty tight for my taste, basically the table was pretty, pretty good for me, since I could not identify a single player who was going to be a threat. Don't remember many hands, one I raised to 20 with 88 in EP, German guy called me, flop was J72, I made a $35 continuation bet, he called, next card was a 7, I decided to check and he bet $50, I called, river was a 4 and I checked again, he promptly bet $100, I thought for a while and was going to muck but he insisted on showing his hand to his friend and when I hinted I was gonna call, he made a motion to show his hand, there was something about his willingness to show that didn't add up, so I called and he just had AK. Another hand I remember was a pretty funny one, between German guy, happy guy and a pretty nice lady, they were all in after the flop, German guy won the main pot, but happy guy and lady didn't realized there should be a side pot and both mucked their cards !!!, which I found pretty hilarious.
Session went pretty smooth and I booked a pretty good win, without too much effort to be honest, they let me win some pots because they didn't use too much pressure and also some of them insisted on calling all my value bets, so this was my stack at the end after 5 hours of playing (with $3 chip on first plane)

By 5AM I was really tired, so I decided to call it a night, but I think I will be back today and the weekend and hopefully I find some other good tables to play, there is a good chance since the place is new and everybody want to play and be there.

This is a picture I took from the outside when leaving



The place is really something, all City Center looked beautiful, Aria, the Veer towers, Crystals, the tram, everything was great and it was very enjoyable just to walk here and there, there was art everywhere and all was really modern and cool, man, I love Vegas.