ICM, Push/Fold and the Beauty of 6max turbos

Whatup whatup... I have a sick muscel sore from yesterdays training. Couldn't play too much poker cause I went to the gym and had University class in the evening. But I found a way to spend shorter periods of time: Sit'n'gos.

After I heard so much about the fact that many current pros like Phil Galfond all started with Sit'n'gos I figured it might be a good way to improve my MTT play. Because most MTT players are really good at short stacked play because this is were you make most of the money: with stacks below 30bb in the end game, when every action can basically make you pot committed. At this point 6max turbos are a very good training ground. You get into short stacks very fast, you can practice ICM, cause in Sit'n'gos cashing is worth much more than in MTTs, and you can also practice shortstacked opening and jamming ranges.

So yesterday I played my first 15 games and analysed them right after. I used the ICM calculator as well as some P/F charts and only found 2 mistakes in my P/F and P/F-Call game so far. That's pretty decent for a start I guess. Improving here will probably make my end game more sleek.

That's it for today I guess. Going to play some today, but also have to get some shit done. Vamos!

Rinse and Repeat

Just yesterday I watched a video from Doug Polk about the current state of poker. And eventhough many player say poker is dying he argues, that even with some downsides, the poker dream is well and alive. You just have to work harder to achieve the same goals compared to a couple of years ago. And also I am way better today than some years ago at working my ass off, I would still consider myself a lazy person. My intelligence, and I say this without arrogance, is above average and therefore I often feel entitled to suceeding. That's not good. That's not how things work. Hard work beats talent all day long. So I think I can achieve something good, but I also think I have to work on my working attitude a lot in order to do so.

That's why I am her blogging. I want to track my progress. Not only the progress in the game but also my mindset. Let's just start with the things I am currently doing.

Above all, I try to live healthy. In a game where you are fully reliant on your head, your physical condition as well as your nutrition shouldn't be underrated. I already have something in mind for future post in order to evaluate this topic deeper and maybe get some of you guys off the couch ;).
But for this moment: I do work out 4-5 times a week, I eat healthy, drink enough and also have a healthy sleep schedule. Got a got base here I guess.

Besides that I also started to work on my game regularly. I get coaching from my stable (Team Faultier hype! - also will bring some further infos on that later) but I also work for myself.
Currently I decided that it's the best to start of with my preflop game and go on with my flop game, because I think that in these two stages you can heavily influence how much many you are going to make or loose. Already grasped the basic concept of pot geometry here.
In addition to that I just think it's harder to loose and easier to earn money if you have a good hand selection preflop as well as a good plan pending on the board structure on the flop.
For the moment I mostly work on my preflop decisions. I also have to be a bit more disciplined in that regard. Especially with a hand like AQo I am probably too loose in calling an all-in. But I already see some progress, so I got that going for me, which is nice (memer spotted).

Before I leave, some happy news: yesterday I shipped 2 (!!) tournaments (10$ on BetVictor and 3$ on 888) and got F2T on a third one (5$ deepstack). Hype!

Dealer, shuffle up and deal!

Aaaaand here we go again. Blogging time! This time I want to talk about my hobby: Poker. I mostly want to track my own progress here; not only about my game but also about my mindset and my goals.

 But let's start with the title. Why is this Blog called "The Art of Suited Connectors"? Mostly because I love these kind of hands. There not as easy to play but surely profitable. You can also mix up your game with them quite easily. Windy 3bet in position? Pretty nice with a suited connector in deep stack situations. Basically auto-profiting. One of my main goals in Poker is definitly being a known player for his suited connector play. Pretty much like Daniel Negreanue...love this guy!

 But I will probably find more time for explaining my title selection later on. Since this is my first post I guess it's a good time to talk about history and my goals first. So when I first came to Poker I was thinking this was a good way to make some easy money...well I got rid of that idea preeeetty fast. Loosing my first deposits quickly I stopped playing for a while again. Until I came back to PokerStars in November 2015. I was willing to become a player who was at least able to play profitable on micro stakes cause I couldn't stand a defeat. I was always an ambitious person and whenever I chose a new hobby or something I wanted to achieve I did it, so I didn't want that to change in Poker. I started off with Full Ring Cash game and switching to 6max after a couple of weeks. Full Ring Zoom Poker on the lower stakes is full of nits and hardly playable. Also the playerbase in 6max was larger. After I studied some basic guides on 6max from the site PokerStrategy I became profitable with a decent bb/100 winrate. It was at that time I also decided to finally buy HoldemManger2 to actually progress my stats and work on my game. I was looking for a study group and actually created a small group with other players. We ended up being just 2 people left. My partner was playing SnGs and I was playing Cash game. We both decided to switch to Mtt play after a short period of time in the beginning of December. And the grind began!

 So onwards from here I want to tell you guys a little something about my goals as a Pokerplayer. What I would definitly love to do, and yes I know this sounds very ambitious, is to travel the circuit of the bigger live mtts and still be profitable.
But currently this is a goal far away and I have lots of work to do before I will be there. My smaller goals are currently to be profitable on low and mid stakes online poker as well as attent some smaller low stake live mtts. Obviously Final tabling them would be great and is obviously also a goal. I think the idea of living in a community house with other players sounds quite appealing to me. Probably somewhere abroad. Ireland sounds fun to me at the moment.

 Well I guess that's currently it. I will to this vlog regularly now in order to track what I do in order to achieve my goals. I will talk alot about my daily work as a player and my recent results. Stay tuned!