Happy New Year

Just a quick post to wish every one a happy new year.

I'll post my review of 2007 and my aims for 2008 tomorrow.

All the very best for 2008

General Update

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.

I was down at my parents for 4 days and didn't even have a PC to look at. the break did me a world of good. Not sure about all the food and drink though. The usual January health kick is looming fast.

Played a bit of poker since I've been back and have started mixing in a 50NL table into my play. I'm not going to make the jump permanently to NL probably until February just want to test myself a bit and see how I go.

There's a couple of forum links below about moving up in stakes - one I posted and another one posted by Verneer which as usual is a quality post from him. I'll be taking on board some of what he says. Most things I already do but the other's such as playing some HU is something I'll consider doing. Need to watch some HU video's 1st though as never really played any: -

http://www.cardrunners.com/members/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=228420&page=1#Post228420

http://www.cardrunners.com/members/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=228626&page=0#Post228626

One thing I did manage to do whilst I was off was read most of Professional No Limit Holdem. There are some interesting concepts in there which I need to look into further but the book was impressive.

Poker Tracker Problems

Thanks for the comments and advice after my last post, I'll certainly take alot of what was said on board.

I've spent most of this week watching video's by various people - CTS, Fabian, Fruity Pro amongst others. I still plan on watching alot more and re watching the ones I've already watched in more detail.

I also had a go at makong a video this week but I had a couple of technical issues with sound running quicker than the pictures and also PA Hud Stats not showing but I think I have resolved these so will have another go very soon. Hopefully tomorrow but I have issues with Poker Tracker at the moment and don't want to play any where without having PT/PA HUD available. Hopefully Poker Tracker Support will help me resolve what's going on.

I've played a bit today but have started getting error messages popping up every time PT updates and nothing is going into my database. It got to the point where I can no longer play. I've started Datamining and palying at Full Tilt in the past couple of weeks by way of a change whether thats the cause I don't know.

I'm not at work now until 02nd January, and am going down to my parents who live on the South Coast of England on Christmas Eve for Christmas.

Hope everyone has a good Christmas.

Poker Plan Until Christmas

Basically due to Work Committments and also a couple of other reasons mainly the fact that I need to do some serious game study, I have basically decided that I am going to take a break from Cash Games until after Christmas. I may play the odd MTT/Sit & Go

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm reasonably happy with my Pre Flop Game, I have serious issue's and leaks Post Flop which I need to do a lot of work on before taking the game seriously again in the new year. I have the bank roll to move up to 50NL but until I am happy with what I am doing Post Flop on all street's then I am not going to move up.

My plan for Studying at the lower limits is to watch and study as as many of the lower limit video's as I can probably starting with Brystmar's, Fruity Pro's and Verneer's video's. By studying, I fully intend to watch each video 2/3 times. I also plan on reading all the microstakes/Low Limit forum threads at contributing when I can.

One more thing I am going to try and have a go at is making a video tomorrow. Hopefully it will bring up some situations that are causing me the problems I am having post flop.

Finally, I am going to do a serious Poker Tracker analysis of my own game together with any player who I have over 100 hands recorded to try and get a more detailed idea as to how they play and try and spot any trends/patterns in there play.

General Update

Not really played that much this month so far but am slightly up for the month not that I'm overly bothered by results.

I'm generally trying to play with more discipline post flop although the 1st hand below kind of goes against that.

I'm using this month as a serious month for studying the game with a view to hitting the ground running in January. Would like to be moving back up to 50NL by next month but if I'm not ready then so be it and I'm not in any particular hurry.

Here's a couple of hands: -

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1794907

You'd think I'd have got the message here by the Turn but still decided to call the River for what reason I have no idea but it must have been obvious that he had a 5 at least. I have no stats on him.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1788598

I'm happy with how I played this hand up to the Turn but having had my pre flop raise called and also being called on the flop, the other player bet out the turn which made me think I was behind or he had the Flush Draw.

I wasn't considering calling as this would have pretty much left me committed on the River. My options as I saw it were to fold or Raise which would have had to have been an all in shove. I ended up folding as I didn't thing that a pair of J's with possible flush draws was a strong enough hand to continue with.

Is my line correct here or would anyone have played it differently.

His stats are 17.86/8.33

I posted the above hand on the CR forum and got conflicting replies. I have 2 people including Verneer saying I should have called but someone else saying the fold is fine. This is the type of hand that gets me into trouble of late. As I wasn't sure about it I decided to fold.

Examples of The Problems I Get Into Post Flop

Following on from my last post, thanks for the comments, you are all pretty much spot on in what you say, I am losing a lot of big pots of which the hand below is a good example of where I'm going wrong: -

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1770409

Now I think I played this pretty poorly from the flop but it sums up pretty well some of the issues I'm having post flop at the the moment. Looking back, I think I should have bet out the flop but thought I was well ahead at this point so checked with a view to Check Raising if he'd bet out. Then on the Turn, I again checked which was a bit stupid and my check raise was not high enough. On the River, I knew he had the flush but decided to make the call any way. I need to learn to lay down this type of hand. His Stats are 30.64/5.96.