Poker journey.

I think I'll start using this blog as a mini journal of my little quest for a poker career. Life wise.. things have never been better. I have a wonderful girlfriend, everyday our love grows and it seems like nothing could go wrong.

So I've been playing zygna alot nowadays, it's my training platform to improve my game and learn how to play at different stakes. I realized that I play alot better at the lower stakes. Why? At lower stakes I can afford to fold lots of blinds and play only the decent hands, or even limp in with non decent hands. I can afford to play aggressive when the time is right, and fold even if I know I am beat by the river and still continue on without faltering. With chips, you can do so many things. With short stack, decisions are alittle easier but it's alot more gambling.

At low stakes I mean 40k/80k, 100x BB(Big Blinds) buy in which is 8m is relatively comfortable with 100m bankroll of mine. How do I define comfortable? I think of it as, if I go all in with 8m with pocket Aces and lose, will I still be okay? Well losing with pocket Aces is an instant curse at the god of poker but that is poker. Sometimes you lose with a seemingly best hand due to a huge turn of luck which can completely change your hand on the turn and river. If you can't take bad beats, then you shouldn't play poker.

One bad beat I had recently was a flop of K Q 5. I had pocket 5's, that gave me trips on the flop. I raised to the size of pot, a value bet I guess. Turn came K Q 5 Q. Wow I hit a full house, so I made a seemingly same amount of bet and most folded except 1 fella. River came K Q 5 Q Q. See how I suddenly became the weakest hand of all? I checked, theres no way I can bluff my way out after so much in the pot, he raised me with a value bet, I knew I was beat but I just couldnt let down my hand. I lost a relatively large stack of chips. He had K rags, giving him Kings full on the river.

At high stakes I would have probably lost all my money there and theres no reset button in poker. It's a life game, you're betting your life. I'd like to play my games with as much life points as possible. Money breeds money, as long as you have a certain amount of money, you'll be able to generate a certain amount of percentage of your bankroll. I realized at least in zygna, people are just gambling in high stakes, they buy in like 10-20 BB and hope for the best. In my opinion with that stack of money you really need to be damn lucky to compete with the whole table, and in fact you're forced to go all in with anything you hit and wish for the best. That's not how it should be played. Buy in with a decent amount of BB and play proper poker, then you can afford to play tight when you need to and aggressive when the time is right.

Anyhow... looking at my previous post... I look kinda childish there haha. Everyone is a player at poker, even newbies get lucky sometimes, it takes a true pro to decipher what they have and what is their playing styles. I lost $20 last week due to my lousy playing style towards the end. After taking a few bad beats I went on tilt and wanted to do a bad beat on someone else too and played way too loose and aggressive. Lesson learnt, and lesson taken.

July 06 2012 : Poker at Ben's

Never before had I so many good pockets and premium hands in a night and that also came with several bad beats. I think overall I played most of my hands right, made about $30 towards the end. My stack was pretty violatile taking huge swings up and down but somehow making it all back including profits with a single buy in. I played well I believe.. I should maintain this attitude on the table.