First post- a fresh start.

First i'll just give a little background into my general world but more importantly a look at my poker begginings and current state.

I've been playing online for roughly 3 years. I first started playing when I was 17 years old and quickly developed a passion for the game. I though about it constantly and really strived to improve my game. I was an instant degenerate.

Anyways, I played as often as possible but always had a problem with keeping a bankroll. My money management was absolutely atrocious. As a result it was commonplace that I would be without funds online for extended periods of time. One 'good' thing that came from my bad habits was that I was constantly pushing myself and playing the best players I could(I would play outrageously high stakes with regards to my BR, thus 'allowing' me to sit in games as high as 500-1k limit).

I realize now that I was really not that great of a player. I also realize now that i'm still not a truly great player. I have the utmost confidence in my game, but I think it's an important trait to have, to always want to re-evaluate your game- to always be hungry for more.

I guess the whole purpose I have in writing this blog is that it will keep me in good perspective. All too often I find myself playing for 12 hours straight, while exaughsted, or while distracted. I constantly get wrapped up in the short term of poker, despite my immense knowledge of the fact that it is indeed a longterm game. This is what drives me to move up way too fast in limits, and lose my level headedness/rationality, which consequently leads to poor decision making in all respects and ultimately, a busted poker account. Besides that, I enjoy writing and this should be both fun and serve as a good outlet if nothing else.

To end my intro, i'll leave you with some of my favorite hands throughout the past year(didn't save most HH's/no ptracker until recently). I have several comps so i'll post the hands I have on this one and the rest later. Will also include some brief analysis on each hand. For the most part the best cash game hands I have are on other comps, so i'll start with some of the tourny ones.

$200 Hu SnG turbo on stars: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1446063

I can still remember this hand fairly well as it was a bit of an epiphany for me. Villain was standard and fairly solid so I was preparing to call turn as sort of a set up and see what he did on the river. His river bet sort of shocked me a bit and I almost insta folded as would be the default play. However, I stopped myself and thought through some of the possibilities. I was able to narrow his range quite well, and in the end his bet sizing and my intuition as to HIS perception of MY possible holdings made this a close call.


Another HU SnG: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1446080

Though this hand is significantly lower than I normally play, the absurdity of it is not lessened. this is probably the sickest call i've ever made based simply off normal gameplay standards, (I had jack high and the pot was tiny..) but coming to the conclusion itself wasn't all that difficult. There was simply nothing except possibly the flush (it was completely unlikely that he'd play it this was on both the turn and the river) that he could have here. Trips from this guy wasn't at all a possibility. To top it off, I know he sees my line as weak. This is a great example of how the breakdown of a hand can occur and why knowing opponents tendencies is so crucial in heads up play.

But why did the river have to come a split?


Lemme give a quick shout out to my buddy jared (iversonxx3 on pstars, raping midstakes NL near you) for helping me get the iniative to start a blog. You can check his blog out at youngdegen.blogspot.com.

Anyways, I'll leave it to just two those hands for now, good luck (if no one but me and my buddy reads this- then at least for us both), and i'll be posting some more shortly.