I’ve Been wanting to get back in to playing online once again.

right now my plan is to play online at pokerstars and stick to 2-3 multi table games per week max.

I want to throw in some sit-n-go sessions on Saturdays but nothing to hardcore.

My main goal is to try to enjoy playing, have fun, not get impatient, and realize i wont have winning sessions every time.

I’ve taken a break from online poker for quite a while now, but i’m interested in getting back in the game.  I’m interested to see how online poker has changed in demographics and the future of legalizing and regulating online gambling in the USA.

I just gave a real Bad beat. At least to me it is!!
I took a picture of it but somehow lost it..anyway..decided to play a lil sng while I was getting ready to play golf at noon….

PokerStars Game #15283139522: Tournament #77418393, $3.00+$0.40 Holdem No Limit – Level III (25/50) – 2008/06/14 – 12:11:03 (ET)
Table ‘77416393 1′ 10-max Seat #10 is the button
Seat 1: Aldoooooo (2983 in chips)
Seat 2: staneltor (2690 in chips)
Seat 3: Der Oll (1507 in chips)
Seat 4: Me (1255 in chips)
Seat 5: DrDonSkinner (3130 in chips)
Seat 8: PARIStyle (1190 in chips)
Seat 9: olivier73 (865 in chips)
Seat 10: bojan83 (1380 in chips)
Aldoooooo: posts small blind 25
staneltor: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Me [6d 6h] <I love my sweet sixes>
Der Oll: folds
CalifNaughti: calls 50
DrDonSkinner: folds
PARIStyle: calls 50
olivier73: calls 50
bojan83: folds
Aldoooooo: calls 25
staneltor: checks
*** FLOP *** [6c 6s Kh] <OOOoooOOO la la what to do?>
Aldoooooo: checks
staneltor: checks
Me: checks <check it see if I get a call, still alot players in hand>
PARIStyle: checks
olivier73: checks
*** TURN *** [6c 6s Kh] [Ah] <someone may raise? hoping..>
Aldoooooo: checks
staneltor: folds
Me: checks <better check see if someone raises>
PARIStyle: bets 150 < there you go!>
olivier73: folds
Aldoooooo: folds
Me: calls 150 <thinking of raising, but deciding not to>
*** RIVER *** [6c 6s Kh Ah] [Ad] <ok turn caused him to raise this should push him all in? hoping..>
Me: bets 100 <I decide to bet small se what happens>
PARIStyle: raises 600 to 700 <OOooOO ok! putting him on a FH>
Me: raises 355 to 1055 and is all-in <I’m calling!!!>
PARIStyle: calls 290 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Me: shows [6d 6h] (four of a kind, Sixes)
PARIStyle: shows [As 4h] (a full house, Aces full of Sixes)
Me collected 2530 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2530 | Rake 0
Board [6c 6s Kh Ah Ad]
Seat 1: Aldoooooo (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 2: staneltor (big blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 3: Der Oll folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: Me showed [6d 6h] and won (2530) with four of a kind, Sixes
Seat 5: DrDonSkinner folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: PARIStyle showed [As 4h] and lost with a full house, Aces full of Sixes
Seat 9: olivier73 folded on the Turn
Seat 10: bojan83 (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Then this is the hand I got knocked out with…

PokerStars Game #15283713037: Tournament #77416393, $3.00+$0.40 Hold’em No Limit – Level IX (300/600) – 2008/02/14 – 14:39:05 (ET)
Table ‘77416393 1′ 10-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Aldoooooo (4084 in chips)
Seat 3: Der Oll (2953 in chips)
Seat 4: Me (1803 in chips)
Seat 9: olivier73 (6160 in chips)
Aldoooooo: posts the ante 50
Der Oll: posts the ante 50
Me: posts the ante 50
olivier73: posts the ante 50
olivier73: posts small blind 300
Aldoooooo: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CalifNaughti [2s 2d]
Der Oll: raises 1200 to 1800
Me: calls 1753 and is all-in
olivier73: folds
Aldoooooo: folds
Der Oll said, “i have kk”
*** FLOP *** [Jh Ks 8s]
*** TURN *** [Jh Ks 8s] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [Jh Ks 8s 5h] [2c]
Der Oll said, “yessss”
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Der Oll: shows [Kd Kc] (three of a kind, Kings)
Me: shows [2s 2d] (three of a kind, Deuces)
Der Oll collected 4606 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4606 | Rake 0
Board [Jh Ks 8s 5h 2c]
Seat 1: Aldoooooo (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Der Oll showed [Kd Kc] and won (4606) with three of a kind, Kings
Seat 4: Me (button) showed [2s 2d] and lost with three of a kind, Deuces
Seat 9: olivier73 (small blind) folded before Flop

Because 1. you play alot, and 2. the players you’re playing against are usually morons. Simple…they’re morons. You raise 3x’s, the imbusile has to know that you have something…he doesn’t have anything but an ace-ten off suite…it doesn’t make any difference if he has a A7o…he has an Ace…did it ever cross his mind that maybe you had an Ace also only with a higher kicker…shit you could already have a pair…which you did…now if you had the AT and he had the KK, then a K would have flopped and he would’t have even had to wait to the river fcr it.
And it wasn’t even a micro it was a $55 game, then the Monday morning quarterbacks here will try to justify his play to you or tell you that you should have laid er down.

That is why I’m getting to like this virtual horse racing so much more…you have donkeys there also…but they lose, there are no miracles, no donkey luck and no bad beats or suck outs…you win with skill, not luck.

I just got in a freeroll and tripled up on the first hand…that put me in 106th place…I guess to get in 1st place you have to take a table of all-in sons a bitches down…LOL

5 hands later of not playing and I’m in 1,215th place.

5th hand and and I took down 3 more donk opponents large stack all-in’s and it got me back to 208th.

Freerolls definitely don’t facilitate a very good learning experience as everyone plays like fucking donkeys.

The secret to winning at no-limit holdem is not what you know…but to do what you know!
We all have a good idea on how we want to play our game…but during the game we seldom follow our own advice. We need to make a noble effort to not stray away from the play that we know is correct and ignore the temptations to deviate…see if you can play a complete tournament following your own advise to a tee.

You might face a lot of challenges during the game, but I find the biggest challenge comes from within side your brain.

When Playing Tournaments Online, There are no advantages in being a small stack in a table full of monsters..everywhere you turn…MONSTER…and all they want is to eat your liver whold…you put up your dukes and fight…ha, they lift up their leg and squash you with their foot….hell you die from fear more times than you die from action.

No thanks that’s not for me, I just tried it and I don’t like it, I will leave it all for you every time! You can say “I’m going to climb this sand dune as an ant, you go ahead with your dune buggy and we will see who gets up the dune first” No thanks, I’ll take my chances with the dune buggy.

Now you might be saying to youself “What The Fuck is he talking about – nobody chooses to be a mid-tournament small stack”….sure you do…when the playing field was level you decided to hide behind the bushes instead of do or die fighting, you had an equal chance then, but you said no, the only way that I will fight him is to climb in a tree and surprise him by jumping on him, if he happens to walk by….the problem is that he always chooses a different route or there is no fucking tree for you to climb.

With this attitude, you will survive longer in tournaments – but you will never win a tournament!

Aside from obvious luck, winning is a balance…not one aspect of your game is going to get you through the game on a continuous basis. Winning involves confusing your opponent by mixing up your poker game, the more you can confuse your opponent, the better off you are.

• Winning Poker is also varying your bets to make it difficult for your opponent to read you.
• Winning poker involves studying your opponents so you can make good reads on them.
• Winning poker involves playing your cards, playing the odds, punching and bluffing, all at the right time. Poker is a chess game played with cards, but unlike chess you also have a bank, bets and calls to worry about besides your moves. In chess you don’t bluff the same way that you do in poker and the bluff is a very important aspect of the game…you cannot rely on getting the cards alone.
• Winning poker involves focus, instinct and timing…three items that you do not get from reading books, yet they are the most important aspects.
• Winning poker is realizing that sometimes a fold is a win, since the chips that you did not call off are still in your stack. When you really look at it, No-Limit poker is a very complex game, that is played against many varying skill levels and varying situations that never repeat from game to game, which is why it is so difficult to master, then you throw in a variety of skill levels against unknown players…at least the pro’s play against each other on a continuous basis so they have a better feel for each other.

Improving on your poker game is done here on my blog as much as it is done by playing. Posting causes you to think more in depth about your game and reading posts might cause you to fill holes in your game. Winning is easy, just follow the above, do it by the book!

Happily, I just won amy seat to the Pokerstars Sunday Million but I was paranoid throughout the entire tournament because of the trash luck that I have been having lately. Throughout the tournament all I could think of was that matter what cards I had was that I was going to lose the hand…this is not good and will keep you from winning…if my attitude doesn’t change by Sunday I will just cash out. I still don’t understand how I won one of the 4 seats with that mindset

I was also in a WSOP qualifier saturday, close to a seat in second place and lost, due to my paranoid attitude!

I need a breath of fresh air and to shake it off.

An Online Poker Player needs to feel good and have the right mindset to have a shot at winning. Maybe I should drink and play, I’m a focused drunk.

Lots of online poker players seem to want to call your strong bets from an early position to a good flop…but what I noticed is that they all fold to a weak bet from your early position. it’s like, they don’t believe your strong bet, but they will believe your weak bet!…so I have made a lot of weak bet steals and the beauty is that your not risking much!

I also laugh at the guy who makes a very strong pre-flop raise and then the under the gun player bets the minimum on a blank flop and the strong pre-flop bettor folds.