Private Coaching Session

Thursday is my private coaching session at PSO. I am quite excited and hope this can help improve my game.

The coaching will be run as a live training session at PokerSchoolOnline which means you are welcome to participate if you would like. You can read about it and register for it here. Although, you might want to wait for video to be posted in the library; 2 in the morning makes for very little sleep! I will be talking to the head trainer via Skype while we look at my play.

We will be looking at a number of sticky postflop situations from my hands at full ring 25NL Zoom. Here is an example of a typical spot where I'm not competely sure of the best line on the flop.



Say hi if you watch the session :)

Roland GTX

PS: FullTilt re-opens its doors today for a return to real money poker! Accounts are intact - Oh Yeah!

PSO Challenge Results

The PSO Full Ring vs 6-Max Challenge ended over the weekend. The 6-Maxers got a well deserved win, mainly due to an astonishing run by one player. He turned an $80 bankroll into $1021 during the month! Even the SuperNova pros hadn't heard of anyone running that well before.

I ran better than I ever have before, as well, especially the final week. My $80 bankroll grew to $369 which was good enough to win the MVP spot on Team Full Ring. The prize for being the MVP is a free one-on-one coaching session from the head coach at PSO! Winning this was my goal from the start of the challenge. Private coaching typically costs at least a hundred bucks an hour. It is something I have wanted to try, but haven't really felt I could justify the investment. Now I get to try it for free!

I also won a few tourney tickets ($22, $5.50 and freeroll) and amassed about 1000 VPPs from playing. The vpps were enough for me to cash out the first $50 Steller Reward and also mean I will make Silverstar some time this week.

This was a very profitable challenge for me. More importantly, I learned quite a bit about cash tabling. I have adjusted my opening range. I have quit calling 3-bets. I am much more aware of position. And I am much more comfortable with post flop action.

I four tabled Zoom the entire challenge.
Week 1            2 NL Zoom    11 000 hands       $20 profit
Week 2&3       5 NL Zoom    25 000 hands     $100 profit
Week 4           10NL Zoom    16 000 Hands   $170 profit

If you are interested in more details, come join our final team training session on Thursday :)

Roland GTX

PS: The number 2 player on Team Full Ring is a Norwegain Goldstar. Don't be surprized if he makes an appearance at our next live game:)

BOOM Hand Replayer

Not much to report guys, Im just testing out the Pokerstars hand replayer. It might be easier to use for posting single hands, especially if you need to vent some steam during the action... :)



Roland GTX

PSO Cash Game Challenge

PokerSchoolOnline (PSO) is running another 6-max vs Full Ring Challenge. Once again I'll be playing for Team Full Ring, and this time MrSmith will be playing as well!

The challenge kicks off on Saturday and will run for a month. Everyone has to start at the 2NL level (0.01/0.02 cents) and you can't move up to the 5 cent level until you have made 20 bucks profit. All the players need to play at least 10 000 hands during the challenge. The team with the most profit is the winner.

There are some added prizes such as tourney tickets, but the main goal is to improve our cash game and have some fun along the way. For me this means working on my post flop play. The best part is that PSO runs live training sessions for each team based on the actual hands that we played (we have to send in our hand histories). So, we get pretty spesific advice on our own play. Here is the Team Full Ring Video  from the previous challenge.

I intend on playing Zoom simply because of the volume. If I 4 table 2NL Zoom, I'll play about 1200 hands an hour. I would need to play 16 regular tables to amass the same volume. You don't get many reads playing Zoom, but at the microstakes, playing ABC poker usually is more than enough.  I hope to move up to the 5NL tables as soon as possible since you earn VPPs considerably faster there...

I'm not sure what MrSmith's strategy is yet, but I'm sure he will let us know.

Be sure to say hi if you are railbirding one of our tables! I'll let you know how things progress:)

Roland GTX

First FT, First Win and Biggest Cash!

Welcome back everyone. We ended a nice long summer with a live game at my place. MrSmith was on a heater knocking me out early in both tourneys. He won one and took second in the other - GG :)

Thankfully, my luck has been better online. The title pretty much says it all for this post. Tuesday evening, I regged about 30 minutes late for a scheduled $5.40 Turbo Knockout with 3 000 players. The cards fell my way when it really mattered.

We are down to  the final two tables at hand nr 168. There were big confrontations on both tables with 10 remaining and several players got knocked out simultaneously. So the final table started with only 7 players. The action starts at hand nr 196. If you click on the "show history button" under the replayer you can jump to any hand you would like.

Enjoy! I know I sure did:)

Roland GTX

Sunday Million Attempt

Since I probably won't be playing all July, I treated myself to some higher stakes mtts last night. Pokerstars was running a "half price" special, but note that the payouts were cut in half too. Not that the payouts ended up mattering to me. It wasn't my night!

I regged for the Sunday Million and was seated to the right of a Norwegian Platinum star. The very first orbit I was dealt AKs and it folded around to me in the sb. I made a standard raise and the platinum star reraised. I felt he was testing the waters to see how I would react. I bricked the flop but cbet since I had two overs and a straight draw. He called. I shot another barrel on the turn and again got called. I was confident that I was ahead, but the river gave a flush possibility. I checked and the platinum star bet so little that I had to call it. Yeah, he had QJs and rivered a flush. That hand cost me 20% of my stack, but I was glad to see that my read was good. Unfortunately, I was card dead for the next hundred hands and didn't get much post flop action on the few situations I did play.

On my final hand, I shoved A7 from the sb into the platinum star (same table all game). He called with AK. Lucky for me I caught a 7 on the turn putting me ahead. Lucky, that is, until a K came on the river LOL! I busted out around nr 10 000 of about 20 000 entries. A long way from the money. Next time perhaps...

The $2.50 180 man turbos have been my regular game all year. I wouldn't say I'm crushing them, but I have been consistantly making money on them with about a 30% ROI after about 600 games this year. I've been dabbling in the 8/180s as well. My itm is high in those, but I haven't gotten deep on a final table yet.

Have a great sommer!

Roland GTX

Zoom session 700 hands 0.02/0,05

Here's a few hands that Rolands excellent post addresses. I played approx. 700 hands on two tables(buy-in 5,- each). 1st table was approx +/- even until this happened;



Bummer! I lost 4,10 on that table

Anyway, the upper comes on table 2 with this hand among several;



And this one eases the pain at table 1 too;



All in all 8,- profit for a pretty short session (forgot to check time).

ZOOM Poker

Pokerstars has finally introduced ZOOM poker (aka Rush poker at FT). Zoom is still in beta. They started with the micro stakes ring games and keep rolling out new buyin levels and formats. I've only played the full ring NLHE.

If you are not familiar with Zoom/Rush format, here is the concept. You are not seated at one particular table like a normal cash game. Rather you are put in a player pool with a maximum of 2000 other players. Every time you fold, you automatically, and instantly, get seated at a new table with two new cards and 8 other random players from the pool. You can quickfold out of turn which means no waiting what so ever. You can also play up to four tables within each Zoom game.
PROs:

• More hands per hour. A normal "Fast" full ring game plays 80-100 hands per hour. Zoom is averaging 300 hands per hour. Playing 3 times as many hands per hour means 3 times as many fpps.
• Your style is less exploitable. Since you keep changing tables, no one will know if you are super tight or an agro maniac. Note that both HEM and PT are updating their tracking software. In a few weeks our HUDs will be functional for Zoom.
• No waiting. This is a pure clickfest! It is great for those times when you don't have enough time for a tourney. 

CONs:

• You don't have any reads on the other players either.

Strategy: "Small losses, but Big wins"
I've played about 5K hands of .02/.05NL this week. I've won a ton of big pots, but I also lost several HUGE pots too. All of my losses were situations where I overplayed AA or KK post flop! Remember: "It is just a pair." Well, I made some adjustments to my game. Here is how I've been playing the past few days. It has been consistently profitable.

Preflop (set mining)

• Unopened pot any position: I raise 2.5x with any pocket pair. I raise 3x from any position with QQ, KK, AA. You win quite a few of these due to the quickfold in Zoom. Furthermore, you build the pot for the times when you flop your set. In other words, I've learned from all the AA, KK stacks I've lost post flop and am trying to to the same to other people now.
• Facing a raise any position: I call a 3x raise or less with any pocket pair. I reraise 3x the original raise size with QQ, KK, AA and AK. If i get 4-bet, I move all in with KK and AA, but may fold or call with QQ and AK depending on the situation. I don't risk a big stack by going all in preflop with QQ and AK. I can also call a raise in a multiway pot if I have Axs type hands. However, I am folding AQo every time in this spot.
• Facing limpers: I limp from any position with non-premium pocket pairs. Limp from late postion with Axs and suited connectors IF at least two limpers are already in the pot.
• Unopened pot from btn: Raising 2.5x with standard steal range.
• Unopened from sb: raising 2.5x any above average hand (Q7o+)

Postflop
Vs one opponent: I c-bet 100% of the time if I raised preflop. My standard c-bet is 75% of the pot. If they play back, then I only continue if I have pot odds. If I have an overpair I slow down considerably after my c-bet.

My golden rule is just like early stages of sngs: Post flop I will NEVER get all in with "just a pair"! This has meant folding AA already. I try to keep the pot small post flop so that I can go to the showdown with an overpair, but I won't call off my stack to a river shove.

If I flop a set or heavy draw hand, I make a pot sized raise. NEVER SLOWPLAY! Note: sometimes you flop a set on a drawing board. If the straight or flush gets filled and they make a big river bet, I fold. I've made enough hero calls the last few days to see that that they usually have the better hand.

If my hand misses the flop, I just fold.

This approach seems looser than my normal game. I play more hands than normal, regardless of postion in hopes of flopping a set. This means I lose a lot of small pots, but I win a stack when I go to the river. However, I'm still only seeing about 10% of the flops. I am winning quite a few steals preflop too.

I'm having fun with Zoom right now. I hate the name, but I love the game! The turbo MTTs are all about preflop shoving/folding ranges. Zoom is all about post flop play with deep stacks.

GL!

Roland GTX

Well, what can u say

Hi friends,

thanks a ton for a great live game yesterday. I haven't been playing much during the last months, and probably I'm getting a bit too rusty for this.
Kind of tired of all those bad beats, and heading to play away the rest of the stack that I've been playing with for the last 3 years.

PS is doing a great job these days, and I got a nasty Déjà vu.




Not much you can do about something like that, lol.

Are You Ready for the Big Game Tonight?

What do you get if you have two Danes, one German, one American, a half Brit and 4 Norwegians at the same table?

Well, we will find out soon because that is how the table is looking for tonight's game.  The table topper is ironed, the cards are washed, the chips are counted out, and I am stoked!

Good Luck!

Roland GTX

WBCOOP Event 21: NLHE Turbo Shootout

I played this WBCOOP event last night. Being a shootout, each table plays like a single table sng with the winner progressing to the next round. It started with 100 tables with two or three players on each and starting stacks of 3000 chips. Top 100 players are itm winning an $11 scoop ticket. Top 10 (round 2 winners) win a $33 ticket and the winner got a $150 ticket or something.

There were three players on my table. To my left was a sitout. To my right was a true donk. He raised every hand preflop and followed with a c-bet. That is fine, but he also showed me his cards every single time he won! If I raised, he would call my raise on every street then reraise all in on the river ending the hand by flashing his hand to me. I had plenty of chips and could afford to be patient. I value raised preflop, but let him have the pot if I missed the flop. Finally after about thirty hands I picked up AQo on the button and made a standard preflop raise. The villian called. The flop was A10J rainbow. I c-bet half the pot and he called. The turn was a K giving me the nut straight. I bet about 30% of the pot and he called. The river was another low card. I checked, he shoved holding two pair with KJ and I stacked him - nice! After that I just needed to finish off the autofolding sitout guy. Once I had won my table I started watching the Pokerstars pros playing in this tourney.

Battle of the Sitouts!

WizardOfAhhs was on a table with only one other player. Both were sitouts which meant they just kept trading blinds back and forth- LOL! I called a mod and she explained that they have rules for handling these types of situations. They kept trading blinds with only a few tables still playing, but finally the table was closed. The pro was deemed the loser but the other guy made the top 100! Perhaps he thought sitting out was his best chance to beat a Pokerstars pro! It is worth mentioning that there is an $11 scoop ticket bounty put on all the pros playing in the WBCOOP. Did the sitout guy win this bounty as well...!?

By the time round two started it was one in the morning. A ten man table was going to take more time than I cared to invest. I waited until I picked up a premium hand and made a move. I reraised all in preflop holding QQ vs a guy that had played 60% of the hands thus far. He called holding K9o. The board rand K9x9x - LOL! I won a $11 ticket and could finally go to bed.

This WBCOOP has been fun!

Roland GTX

Nice cash after a long slump!

After my huge payout for the Milestone hand, things haven't exactly gone my way. I have been getting it in with the best hand, but my stack has been so small that players will call. I needed to amend some for middle tourney play, and l finally got a nice payout last night. Swedestar and I decided to chop it up, we contacted the moderator and the host sorted it out for us, $330 each!

Anyway, here is the HH (permalink);
8/180 Turbo

I'm interested in comments on my play/hands closing in on the bubble. I was chipleader with about 50 players remaining and lost the lead with approx 30 left. From there I remained in top 6-7, but was anxious to get to FT and not mincash placing 18 to 10th. Nevermind the HU, I got it in with JJ vs his KQ, but the hands only reflect that we are discussing and autofolding a lot while the host sorts out the chop.

WBCOOP 2012 Event 18: PLO Turbo

I played in the PLO turbo event last night. There were about 180 entries. You know I am pretty clueless when it comes to Omaha. So don't expect any brilliant play in this one, but I did get deep! Here we pick up the action on the final table bubble - 10 players remaining:

EDIT: problems with the replayer right now. here is the link until I get it fixed- sorry!

Event 18 FT replay

I took 3rd place, won a SCOOP $55 ticket, a WBCOOP Main Event ticket, and had plenty of fun!

Roland GTX

Vote Now!

EDIT 29 Feb: I think the voting is over now. We didn't make the cut, but thanks for the support nonetheless. There is an interesting post on the Pokerstars blog if you are interested:
WBCOOP Best Blogger Award special announcement

If you want Roland's Room and yours truly to be in the running for the Best Blog competition, then please follow this link to PokerNews and vote for our blog:
http://blogs.pokernews.com/WBCOOP_en/wbcoop-2012-taking-a-shot-at-the-dream.htm

Thanks guys!

Roland GTX

PS: Feel free to spread the word:)

Red Spade, WBCOOP and other things

Hi guys,

Red Spade
I got back to the tables last night after a few days break for winter vacation. Yesterday's big event was the $55 Red Spade Tourney which both MrSmith and myself played. I believe Klokkhammer was railbirding, too.

I was in it for four hours, but was pretty much card dead the whole time making for a lot of folding. Very early on I picked up AQo in the bb and called a standard preflop raise from early/mid position. I gave him credit as being a solid player just based on the fact that he was also playing the Sunday Million and assumed that he had a medium pocket pair. I flopped top pair, top kicker with Q high flop. I bet out on the flop and got flatted. Next street was a blank and the villain made a small raise. I wasn't sure if he was making a blocking bet or value bet so i called hoping to keep the pot small. The river was a repeat with another low card and another small bet. Now I was pretty sure I was behind but was priced in to call. He had flopped a set and got nearly half my stack on the hand. I'm not sure how I could have gotten away from this hand.

I recovered but a bit later I picked up QQ and got all in against a short stack with K9 and lost. I recovered again, but never got above the average stack size the rest of the tourney. Later I made a desperation reraise shove with JJ. A big stack misclicked (he had 1010 on another table and thought he was playing that one...) and moved all in over the top. He was holding J3o - LOL! For once JJ held up and I survived a bit longer.

I managed to creep into the money mincashing for 134 bucks and 2274th place out of 25K players. I lasted about 300 hands out of which I only had one AK, no AAs and very few playable situations. I like the concept of this tourney with all the pros, but none landed on my table. Plus, I agree with MrSmith that 180 minute late reg is too long. We were almost itm then...

WBCOOP
The WBCOOP has also started up. I would ask you to vote for our blog, but haven't figured out the voting system LOL! I got 10 tickets to use on a bunch of different tourneys and have regged for a mix of NLHE and Omaha. My first tourney will be the 28th, but most that I'm playing are running March 1st to 3rd. You can win anything from $215 to $5 SCOOP tickets in these plus bounties on the pros. The payout structures make it fairly easy to mincash, but I think I'll be trying to get deep.

Live Home Game 
Don't forget our live game on Wed March 7th! I hope we can show the Danes a good time while taking their money...

Roland GTX

Milestone Hand # 74988000000

Boys!

We have all dreamt about participating in one of those mouthwatering milestone hands over at Stars. I came home from a party slightly intoxicated last friday and fired up 2 cash tables at $0,05/0,10. After a couple of hours the table freezed and host Jarred announced that we were about to be dealt into milestone hand #74988000000.



I held 22 in BB and shoved my last $16+. 1 guy folded (never understand why people fold in milestone hands) and another dude didn't post, so he never got in on the hand. Anyway, minimum payout is $20, then you get an additional $60 for every VPP you have collected in the last 50 hands.......needless to say, I had been playing extremely LAG contrary to my usual TAG, thus racking up loads of VPP's. The winner collected $684. I was quite anxious when I checked my bankroll, hoping for at least $100, my LAG donk style had gotten me...................

670522373
04/02/2012 @ 05.37
HANDAWARD PURCHASE
$620,00 USD

.....................for my drunk efforts. Poker IS, and should always be played for fun!

WBCOOP 2012: Taking a Shot at the Dream

Winning the Pokerstar’s Best Blogger prize would fulfill one dream and pave the way for another!

Roland GTX

The World Blogger Championship of Online Poker (WBCOOP) is back once again! I’ve been actively blogging about poker for three years, and have been playing for even longer. Being recognized as Pokerstar’s Best Blogger would definitely fulfill a longstanding dream as a writer and poker enthusiast. It would do wonders for my blog, Roland’s Room, as well! The honor of winning would be a huge milestone on its own merits. Yet, the $5000 prize it carries would pave the way toward fulfilling yet another dream – making the final table of a major tournament!

The Sunday Million

I play poker because it is fun! Of course, I want to win, but what is the point of chasing that big payday if you aren’t enjoying the journey? Strict bankroll management, aka - responsible fun, normally keeps me at the micro buyin levels. The allure, however, has always been the Sunday Million and the EPT live tournaments. Winning $ 5000 would be my biggest cash to date and would allow me to take a direct shot at my final table dream! I would allot $1075 of the Best Blogger prize money toward five Sunday Million Tickets. At worst, I would finish outside the money in all five, but will have had fun along the way. Perhaps I’ll cash in one or two padding my bankroll even further; thus, allowing for more Sunday Million entries. And maybe, just maybe, I will parley one of those tickets into a final table appearance!

The EPT

You can find me most days of the week multi-tabling micro and low stakes tourneys. I’m profitable in the $2.50/180s where I’m a regular, but my profits tend to get spent playing higher buyin MTTs like the Sunday Storm or on EPT Steps tickets. I have gotten close several times, but that final table or EPT package keeps eluding me. To help me along this line, $2000 of the Best Blogger prize money would be used to pad my bankroll. This would let me comfortably, and responsibly, move up a level from the $2.50/180s to the $8/180 man turbos. This move would hopefully result in an increase in profit from my bread and butter games that can then be invested in a more sustained effort to win on these two other fronts. These profits could be used to play more low and medium stakes MTTs and could also be used to make a serious EPT Steps run. Trying to win some pots, to win some respect, and to outlast Daniel Negreanu and the other Pokerstars pros would definitely make for a memorable poker experience!

Upgrading my Rig

To make chasing these dreams a bit more comfortable I would also put my decrepit 11” laptop to rest. Running more than eight tables on this old friend isn’t optimal. Therefore, $900 of the prize money would be invested in a new 17" gaming laptop. The larger screen would allow me to squeeze in a few more tables. More tables equal more fun! More tables also mean less time (not games) between ITMs, and this helps me keep tilt at bay.

Keeping my Priorities Straight

Finally, $1000 of the Best Blogger prize money would go to my family. I have fun playing poker regardless of the result (as long as I made the right move that is...). But if I’m successful, then my family deserves to reap the benefits as much as I do!

Good Luck and Have Fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

Follow me: TWITTER  -----  PSO -----  BLOGSPOT

Plenty going on at Pokerstars

Hey guys!

If you haven't been playing much lately, there is some good stuff going on at Pokerstars.

The current 100 Billion Hand promo makes cash tabling a bit more exciting. Also, Pstars is changing the rake system again, this time for the better it seems...

There are a ton of great videos available at the Poker School Online (PSO) too. I watched the "Spacegravy" SnG series and was surprized by his early position hand range! These are free if you want to watch. I also took part in a Live Training session last night. The trainer was talking us through his thought process while playing a 0.01/0.02 cash table, and we could ask questions - good stuff!

I'm still working on my February Challenge to play 100 2.2/180s and 100 3.5/45s - profitably. After 120 games I am way up on the 180s, still down a bit on the 45, but showing a $200 at the moment :)

Snakkes
Roland GTX

Pokerstars PSO

Thanks for a great live game last week MrEMC2! Lots of fun:)

It has been far too long since any of us have posted here. I'm still playing and am currently focusing on mtt sngs. I just started a new challenge: 100 2/180s and 100 3/45s in the next month  with a profit. I've been bouncing around from format to format lately and needed something to help get focused. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Furthermore, I regged for the PokerStars poker school online (PSO) the other day. The community there is pretty active, and it will hopefully help me plug some leaks in my game. I'll probably be posting over there for the next month or so, but still keep an eye on the blog.

Stay in touch!
Roland