I know that I have not been very active lately writing blog posts or articles. I apologies for that. A lot of things have happened in my life and I have not played very much poker. Most important was a heart surgery done by my wife that went well and she has now finally recovered. This took a lot of energy and time from me, and poker was what suffered most.

I have played some poker, but very little compared to what I used to do. I can tell that I can see this in my financial status. Every successful poker player will soon get used to an economic standard above average, so have I. When you suddenly stop playing you realize that the money stop ticking as well. During my absence from this blog I have played 2 live tournaments. One was another one in Kumla, the one I won during the autumn. This time I was not as lucky and went out around 16^th place or something with AK against KQ and KJ (both a J and a Q hit). The cash game went quite well afterwards but my car decided to go broke during the time as it was -29 degrees C so it became a costly tournament anyway.

I also played Spring Poker Week in Gothenburg, a $800 buyin tournament with a really good structure. I started out well the first day but in the end of day 1 I lost 2 big pots which took me down almost to start stack again. I ended the day with around 38 000 in chips (30 000 was start). Blinds was 500/1000 with 100 in ante when the game started day 2 so I still had some descent stack. After an hour or so I pick up KK. A good and rather tight girl raises in early position, and I reraise. The Small Blind that have had a really nice rush of cards just calls, but he has a small tell so I am rather sure he does not have a premium hand. Rather a hand like TT-JJ. The original raiser goes all-in and I have to make a really hard decision. I can see a lot of AA in her range, as well as KK even though that is less likely as I have two kings myself. I figure she probably have some QQ and AK in her range as well even though I am not sure about it. I think that if she think I am raising with Kings and Aces only she put me on a too tight spot as I would do the same play with a lot of hands where AK and QQ are still in the lead. I finally decide to call and she shows AA. Unfortunately for me she covers my suits also, as we both hit a flush. I was at least right about the Small Blind that shows JJ and folds.

I have also spent a lot of time coaching other players in mainly SNG and as always in that game it goes up and down. Right now I am trying to decide whether I shall bring my whole family, only my wife or go alone to a tournament in Golden Sands in early June with a €1500 buyin. I have also played a few satellites to WSOP, but nothing too serious yet. I would love to get there but right now I have not put my mind on doing it fully yet. 

It was once again time for a live tournament. It was a long time since I last played live and I have looked forward to this tour for quite a while. Especially as I would meet several players I had only spoken with at Internet. The tournament was played in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Sweden and it was a second chance tour with approximately $80 buyin and $50 for a rebuy or add-on. A solid mix of people showed up, bloggers, Swedish community members, local club members.

The closest neighbors were the chickens and the sheep (a lot of them). I were there in good time and we played a cheap $15 SNG to warmup. I bubbled after a crazy drunk Finnish player pushed out my QQ with A8s. Would be a standard beat unless he had already busted all other players by pushing all hands (and calling all-in with them as well). Not surprisingly did he bust first of everyone and took a nap at the sofa to prepare for the cashgame where he went on in the same style. He is rather famous in communities in Sweden after having spent some time in Estonian jail after being way too drunk when entering an airplane on his way home and claiming he had a bomb in his trunk. The security did not find his joke amusing…but he is a really nice guy!

I had a nice table with especially one player that was at the looser side. Because of the low buyin and the fact that very few of the players that participated had poker as their main income made the games rather soft in general and the atmosphere was very nice and friendly. After some hours of play I take a call in late position with 45s. The structure is very slow and most players are rather deep still. The flop comes 942 rainbow and when the loosest player at the table bets out I take an automatic call with middle pair. Turn is a 5 and he instantly pushes all-in for about 3 times the pot. This is something he has done so I am not that surprised and I call. He holds A6o for a gutshot straightdraw. River comes of course the 3 and he stands up screaming “go f**k yourself, looser”. This might sound a bit unpleasant but with the dialect he has he makes it sound rather nice.

I have my rebuy left and I use it to get back to a descent stack after losing this big pot that would make me one of the chipleaders. Instead this guy that we call “ROCKNROLL” from now on because he stands up screaming “ROCK N ROLL” every time he win a hand from this moment, which is very often. He goes all-in more or less every hand and win a majority of them for more than 5 hours until his luck suddenly ends where he loses a pot of almost 300k chips with 66 against AQ (total chipcount is 540k so this was rather massive). I have so far managed to sit tight, and triple up with AA against J7 and 33.

At the final table the guy busting “RockNRoll” is major chiplead but do not take advantage of it fully. The bubble is tight but a good live player makes a bad call when he is second in chips and busts with a flopped two pair against a turned gutshot. Directly after the bubble breaks I lose A7s in the BB while SB pushes 73o into me. As earlier this evening a 3 comes and I am left with a merely 2 big blinds when my luck changes. I manage to double up 1, 2 and 3 times and I am suddenly second in chips and can take out the other guys being HU with only half the stack of the chipleader.

We make a deal giving me slightly less than the winner and we run high card. I win the first one and we take it another time and I win that one as well for the official title in this tournament (there were sidebets on who should win, 3 bets on the guy ending 2nd and 3 bets on me from those 30 that have made bets).

This was a really fun tournament to play as I met a lot of friends I have only spoken to on the Internet. Poker is most fun when played with friends. Also, the money is not that important, but I have got bragging rights on this community until next tournament at the same place in January. Next time PokerWorld have put a $100 bounty on me to make it more interesting to bust me! I say “they can try!”

Good luck at the tables!

Per “Illvillja” Wolf

PokerWorld Pro

This week I am going to continue on how to improve your focus of the game and because of that improve your results. Last week we talked about how to structure your game time. However, having scheduled time to play poker is not going to be enough if you are not being focused when you are actually playing. Are you playing right now at the same time you are reading this?

Are you watching TV, chatting with friends or speaking in the cell phone while you are playing? Those things are distractions that are making you perform worse at the tables. It might seem like small things, but if you have ever tried to speak in the phone at the same time you are watching TV you know what I am talking about. Your main goal at the tables should be to play every hand as good as possible, not to think about whether you are running good, bad or what you are going to do with your girlfriend when you are done.

Every time you get your thoughts on something else than poker you risk losing your main goal, to play optimal poker. Most of the time people are not aware of all distractions, or aware of when they occur. I know that I have trouble with not focusing on the result. I constantly want to know if I am up or down for the session and that knowledge are in fact changing my way of playing. If I know I am up I might play in another way than if I am down, which is not consistent of playing every hand optimal.

The poker tables are much harder nowadays than they were before. You cannot just sit down and take home easy money. In order to make money from your poker game you need to play focused and improve your game constantly. Every time you find yourself thinking of something else than the poker table while playing, try to force yourself to get back to think of what the next optimal move is and you will notice your results will improve almost immediately.

Until next time, good luck at the tables, I will see you there!

Per “Illvillja” Wolf

PokerWorld Pro

OK, you can do both at the same time. I just do not do it, but that is not what I was going to talk about. Today’s topic is going to be how you organize your play for maximal winning over time. Many people I meet and hear about want to start playing poker in order to have a more flexible life. To sit home and be able to decide when they are going to bed, how long they can sleep and not having someone else (most often a boss of some kind) to do it seems to be a big part of why they want to play poker for a living.

I am going to bring a negative surprise to you. If you do not organize your poker game, you are most likely not going to succeed. Even if you love playing poker (and I certainly hope you do if you are considering playing full time, otherwise you should not even think about it) you will pretty soon find out that there are many other things in life that is even more fun to do than playing poker.

Maybe you have kids that want to play with you, or you have a wife or girlfriend that wants a romantic dinner, or just this night is this good TV series that you have seen 10 times but still loves. “I can play more tomorrow” you promise yourself, but the next day a friend gives you a call and asks if you want to go take a beer with him and some friends, and then suddenly it is a new day. This is going to go on. I have seen it happen to SO many players.

What you need to do is to setup when, and how much you are going to play. I cannot give you the exact details because it is an individual thing. My personal goal is 27 hours of poker every week. I play 5 days, 2 hours in the afternoon and 3 hours in the evenings more or less. Above that some time to study my big hands and to work on improving my game. I have friends having a very detailed schedule of 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a 3 minutes break every hour, and I have friends that prefer to grind 5 straight hours without a break. What works best for you is up to you to either find out, or know (once again if you consider playing full time you should know how you are working).

If you have made a schedule, preferably on print it is much harder not to play as you break a promise. Also, it is much easier to say to your girlfriend “between 8 PM and 11 PM I have my poker time all days but Wednesdays and Saturdays, please do not plan anything for us during that time as I need to work”. Even if you are not playing full time organizing your poker time is going to make a huge difference for you.

If your wife and kids knows when, how long and what days you are playing they will also know what days and hours you are free. You will soon find out that you are able to enjoy your “free time” much more when you do not have the agony spinning around in the back of your head that “I should actually be better of playing poker right now”. One last thing, make sure that whether or not you are playing full time, to have SOME time off without poker, work or other duties! What is the money you earn on poker worth if you are never having any time to do something fun with them?

Per “Illvillja” Wolf

PokerWorld Pro

First I would like to apology for the slow updaterate now during the summer. I am now a married man and as such things takes extra time. I have been changing game now for some time and went back to the basics, playing Fixed Limit Holdem. The game that I started to play 5 years ago, and the game I have been able to adjust to the most. I think it is a good idea for all players to play different types of poker to find out what suits them the best, and to develop new skills. I know that many NL players says when they try to FL that this has helped them open up their game in NL as well.

When Texas Holdem was founded it was only played in the Fixed Limit format, but the TV format changed the whole poker scene and nowadays it is nowhere near the same amount of FL games as there is NL games. Here at Pokerworld you can find games going and they are mainly good ones with several weak players. Fixed Limit is a game of small margins. A river descision can be very crucial with huge pot odds that makes an incorrect fold a gigantic mistake that can be the difference between being a winner and a loser. As every Big Bet is important you also have to think more about your last bet.

Is your bet a value bet or are you valuebetting for your opponent? If you think you have the best hand it is of course a value bet, but if you hold a marginal hand it is easy to get it backwards. You might bet and see your opponent fold and become happy that he did, but in those cases you need to look back at what holdings he might have. If you bet and think your opponent will fold a better hand than yours you should be happy, but if he folded a worse hand than yours and you think he might have tried to bluff if you had checked you have lost a bet.

If you bet and get called by a better hand you also need to stop and think. Would my opponent have bet this hand against me if I checked, or did my bet just cost me another bet? Often the answer here is that if the hand is slightly better than yours, but still a very marginal hand, like A high he is just going to check behind you. So before betting the river, stop a second and think. Am I betting because I think I have the best hand, if not, is it likely my opponent will fold a better hand if I bet. If the answer is "no" you have to decide if you think your opponent will check behind his better hands making you save a bet when he does. To stop value betting your opponents hands for them is an important skill both in Fixed and No Limit!

Good luck at the tables to next week, rumours are you can soon bust me in bounty tournaments!

Per “Illvillja” Wolf

PokerWorld Pro