Decerto Poker

Well, I have moved up to 200NL and things have been going well. Rather than playing 8 tables like I was at 50NL and 100NL I have only been playing four tables and really trying to concentrate on my game. It seems to be working for the time being running at 14 ptbb/100 over my first 2.5K hands at that level.

In my oppinion 200NL is much easier to beat than 100NL because the play is much more predictable. Players are not making moves that don't make any sense. They still make bad plays but at least their bad plays have some logic behind them. If I put someone on a range of hands usually I am pretty close to what they actually have, whereas at 100NL sometimes I would be completely off. There are still times at 200NL where players baffle me by doing something stupidly insane, but like I said, things seem to much more simple.

Neteller shutdown to US costumers now and it seems like it is getting more and more difficult for players in the US to put their money into sites and take money out. I keep thinking that it is some kind of bad dream and I will wake up and poker will be legal in the United States again. It seems like the PPA is doing a good job trying to get an exemption for poker, so hopefully that is something that happens in the near future. If so, in a year or two I hope to have the capital to create my own online poker site and make millions of dollars as the casino operator rather than the guy that feeds the rake.

Peace.

Posted by Corey Goldberg at 2:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

So I have played a lot of hands this last week because my g/f has been out of town and I really didn't have anything better to do. I started out on a pretty bad downswing of 7 buy-ins and I have been struggling and sort of breaking even since then. I did go back up the 7 buy-ins and I am finally up for the week, but it has been rough.

I railed one of my friends friends yesterday at 2/4NL and it really opened my eyes to some of the different things that a really good player is thinking about during a hand and also how to become a better player. I think I was focusing too much on what other players were doing to be "good" players and not enough on things that I should be doing to be a good player.

That being said I have started to write my own poker book. I don't think I will ever try to publish it or anything but I thought that I should write out all my thoughts on the game. I wrote about 10 pages today when I was at a cafe and then came back and I seemed to do much better at the tables. Just thinking about the game and what I can do to play better and to have optimum strategy against certian types of players I think is the key to becoming one of the greats.

The thing is though, I don't want to be one of the greats. I just want to make enough money to fill a swimming pool.

Posted by Corey Goldberg at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well it turns out that there are quite a few people that are actually reading this blog...so I better get with it and start posting some real content, eh? Anyhow, poker has been pretty uneventful the last few days. I haven't really had any big upswings or downswings. I have been playing a lot of Omaha and I think that I am getting better at the game dispite no huge boosts to my BR.

My girlfriend is going out of town for a week starting tomorrow and I will be home alone so I will probably be playing A LOT of poker. Not that I don't already play a lot, but I will most likely play a stupid amount. If All goes well I should be moving up stakes at the end of the month.

Posted by Corey Goldberg at 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments

I have been playing pretty good lately and playing a lot of tables. My goal has been to go up at least 2 buy-ins a day every day until I am at the stakes that I want to be playing. So far I have been able to keep right on track.

I am not that big a fan of "The Mathmatics of Poker" mostely because the information you can not really apply to the game while you are playing it. I can not calculate standard deviations in my head while I am playing poker and I don't really think more than .001% of the population can. So, the book is more or less an academic venture for me that doesn't have too much of a bearing on my play.

A book that I have been reading that has helped me out a lot is "Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha". I have only read about half of it now but it has improved my Omaha game tremendoulsy. I think that with very little practice I will be able to have a huge edge at PLO and hopefully supliment my NLH income considerably. If you are interested the PLO I recommend getting that book.

Posted by Corey Goldberg at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

Not really, but it feels like it sometimes. I have been breaking even for the past couple of days not really going, but not going down either (which is good). It just seems like every time I start doing really well at the tables something goes terribly wrong and I get stacked for two buy-ins holding the second nuts. But as the saying goes, "That's Poker".

I just got "The Mathmatics of Poker" and I am looking forward to reading it as I feel my game is a lot more mathmatical than some other players games. I think that having a better understanding of game theory should help me considerably. I'll let you guys know if I find anything interesting in the book and I will give a more formal review when I am done with the book.

I am trying out is Spade Eye which supposedly helps you find the fish at the tables online. So far I don't think it has done me any good. Sure there are more loose passive players at my table, but I think a good player should be able to take advantage of other types of players as well and I don't think that a loose aggressive style works very well against LAPs. I think the trick to the program would be to find the types of players that are most profitable for your personal style of play and tend to play with those players more.

On the bright side of things I am making mad rakeback by eight tabling all the time and I shouldn't have to take any money out of my BR for living expensenses for a long while.

Good luck at the tables.

Posted by Corey Goldberg at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments

Well it's a new year and I am still grinding it away at low stakes poker barely making enough to live on. I have played poker for a living for about a year and a half now and up to this point have had some crazy swings and have almost had to get a job a couple times. But enough is enough, I am tired of grinding away at the low stakes and I am ready to move up to the big time.

I am ending this year with 100K in my bankroll and I plan to do anything and everything to get there with a healthy bankroll. I'm going to stick to 30 buy-ins at each level until 200NL and then 40 buy-ins for 400NL and up. I think that I should be able to move up one level per month and make enough rakeback that I will not have to demenish my bankroll for living expenses.

I ended last month 8 tabling 100NL and went on a horrible downswing due to over confidence and tilt. I cashed out down to 1500 and am starting this month at 50NL. This blog will document my progress, will share some of my insights into the game, and hopefully make the readers and myself better poker players.

Posted by Corey Goldberg at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments