the storyline of Estonian Jesus

[BenjaminVoyage]

What’s up Unibet Nation,

Estonian Jesus here..

I have to say I would not have ever thought in my life that I'll start a writing with those two words. Oh well, right. My parents named me Rauno, Twitch chat named me Jesus, but most people call me Ben.

o_O seems I’m sticky with the nick names. That reminds me, I should have had a shower in the morning, aah, we always have tomorrow.

Sticky with my habits overall. I’ve been skateboarding for more that 14 years and playing poker since 2005. Both of these hobbies have been a good teaching tool for life and it’s a road I would not change for anything. Even though every single morning I wake up, I need to go through a physical routine just to stop me screaming from pain.

My focus on poker has been on-and-off. But last couple of years the studying has been the most intense. In June 2015 I joined an Estonian Poker Stable for a year. That was the game changer for me. I was finally surrounded with people, who had the same goal. Not everyone was motivated to work, but as in life it tends to be, it is up to us to put more effort in. After half a year in the stable I found myself paying taxes to the government as a professional tournament poker coach. At some point I had 27 students, yeah, not sustainable.

Fast forward 6 months and time was to start playing for myself. The stable was also getting smaller and they did not need my services as a coach anymore. Timing was great for me. Teaching is a great tool to improve and learn, but it has to be balanced. Too much of my energy was going there and I really needed to focus more time on myself.

For a couple of years I was actively writing in a diary. Looking back it seems that it was time I was growing and improving the fastest as well. Lately I’ve noticed myself not using my time very efficiently, in other other words, I am missing a schedule.

In this diary I plan to write openly about challenges I face in life and how I cope with all the randomness of it. I do have to say my life is 80% about poker, so most of my challenges are facing check-raises on 2-tone boards, when I Cbet with out having the range advantage.

I am in a phase, where I do want to go really deep into the game of poker, so you’ve been warned, it's a rabbit hole.

Now we’ve got the intro out of the way, let’s open up the “the black book of poker” and see what we can find in there. “Black book” is my notebook for poker stuff and it actually has a smiling sheep with sunnies on it, so maybe I should rename it a “Shee….”, jeah, this is not getting us anywhere..

Reasonings for using and overbet size with turn Probes

Playing deep stacked (with high SPR) we want to get lot of chips in the pot with our value combos. This means we should highly consider using a strategy, where we use overbet sizings, especially when our opponents ranges are capped and we are representing a polarized range.

Why would we want to overbet, when our opponent is capped to holding weak holdings and likely can not call us? It seems that population seems to be fairly sticky with their weak showdown value combos, especially when we use a polar sizing. So when our opponents are in a “hero call mode” then they really don’t care what sizing we use. We likely make more money by overbeting compared to a regular size.

Using a bigger sizing also means that we can put more pressure on our opponent with our bluffs.

Reasonings before hero calling

Map out villains perceived range.

How much air has villain in his range?

How easy it is for villain to start over bluffing? The more air in villains range and the more capped our range, is usually a recipe for bluff-mania.

Enough for now..

I will be using lot of “poker jargon” in my texts so feel free to ask if some words do not mean anything to you. Or what I’m saying sounds anecdotal then let us engage and go more in depth with the topics.

I will be on the road for a month now.

I am headed to Berlin, Germany to a friends wedding. From there I’ll head over to Deepstack Open in Malta. That means 5 days under the sun and from there I take a flight to Romania. I’ll be participating in gambling activities during the Pokerstars Festival Bucharest that lasts for a week. Next flight is short one, I am headed to Belgrade, Serbia. It is my first ever youth exchange project that I’m involved in. I am 27 years old, and they wanted me to join a youth project, #grandad.

Alright, then on the 15th of August I should be safe and sound back at home.

 

Catch ya’s,

Jesus

 

[MarcoV]

Nice post, Estonian Jesus :peace: Let's grab a drink here in Malta next week :)

Please teach me how to do this trick:

 

[BenjaminVoyage]

Sup, lads.

Roadtrip after a roadtrip. I guess it's more about flying, but oh well, same same. First trip to Malta was a successful one. Managed to mincash the €550 Main Event, placing 26th with a fellow team mate David Lappin reaching the top 20 mark out ouf 200 smthing runners. 
I was one of the shortest players when we reached the bubble phase that lasted grueling 2 hours. When the bubble burst I only had 1,3 big blinds left and I was already one foot out the door.

I will go through the handhistories in the VLOG and I'll be sure to link it here as well. At the moment I am in a hostel in Bucharest. It was the best decision to book a hostel instead of a hotel. Lately have spent so many times in hotels and man, the vibe in the hostel is just so nice. Takes me back in time for sure.

About the weather..

 ...jeah, even wearing shorts seems too much.

I've been here now 5 days and it is my first day off, feels good man (sounds so much like Espen's "feels bad man").

In the €170 Megastack we did real good. Finished 27th out of 752 runners. Day one was a hectic flipament with 20min levels, but day 2 was a smoother ride with the 40min levels. Crucial limping game strategies where implemented on both sessions and it helped us sail as far as we did.

€1100 Main Event did not go our way, by the level 6 it was time to take a flip and we ended up being on the bad end after all the five cards where out.

I'll post here 2 hands from the ME:
1st hand:
200/400/50 hero Ks4s bb (27k - ~70bb)
mp2 and hj (both hobbies in 50-60s) LIMP, hero checks.

(1900 3w) AsTs7d hero has FD, HERO? (I think we should lead and set the price ourself, knowing that our opponents likely could have Ax in their range as well. If we get raised we can easily call the raise.
Inagame Hero checked, and everyone else checked as well

5s Hero has FS, Hero b800 (I think we should size up, because never these player types think about the sizing here.If they have a Qs/Js/9s FD hand they will call it all day. I feel like 1200-1400 is reasonable. They could even have Ax here still.)
Both players call.

(4300 3w) Ad Hero?? (Ax is never folding right, so we should size up. We should go like 3200. These players can never get away from trips. These players never look further from their own cards so maybe even bet like 3900 makes us more chips in the long run.)

Hero ingame bets 2200, MP raises to 5k, MP+2 tank folds, Hero ??? (I Think this is the problem of our sizing. If I make it very small, then I know for 100% they will raise weaker holdings. If I make it 3900, they should not ever be raising weaker holdings. Now we are inbetween. Tho given our in-game betsizing I think we still see QsXs flush raising here. Likely even JsXs, not sure about trip aces. But our opponents are hobby players so there should be more randomness included.)
Hero calls and sees bad news. Ac7c - Full House

Learning curves:
Our betsizings should depend on our opponents.
By playing with our bet sizings we can narrow or widen our opponents ranges as we wish.

2nd and the hand that likely cost me the tournament:
200/400/50 Hero 4s5s BU (21k) 50xbb 10max
MP+2 opens 900 (Hobby, in his 40-s, seen him open J9hh from EP)
folded to hero, Hero??
(Do we 3bet only linear here? If we expect villain to have some middling holdings, then is it fine to have some weaker hands in the mix? Do most hobby players tend to be so sticky pre that we should not be mixing in holdings like these, especially given the effective?)
Hero 3B 2700
BB(young 20s,who was very active and Ive seen him run a cold 4-bet bluff) asks how much we are playing with and peels, MP continues as well

(3way 8800) 5d3d3h
checked to me, hero??? (I think we need to protection bet here and deny their equity. Our sizing should be so that they would not have an easy float with Ax hands here.
Hero has 18K behind
3500? so if we get called we have an option to jamm some favourable turns as well.)
Ingame hero bets only 2600 (I feel it's bit too small, gets called by Ax for sure. This bet does not fill it's purpose what so ever)
Both our opponents call. [Got feedback from a player whose insight I trust a lot and he does not mind the small sizing. He asked why is it bad if Ax hands call, especially when our opponents have bigger pairs in their range as well, which never fold anyway. Tho I still feel like we want to deny equity to overcards and set up a better Stack to Pot (SPR) ratio on turn.]

(3w 16600) Ah
villains check, hero? (we have around 15.6-16k behind; We also pick up equity. We could put our opponents pocketpairs in a very tough spot and if we run into Ax hand then we still have gutter+trips outs, 6 of them. I feel like our only option is here to jamm)
Hero ingame checks behind. [this is where the hand went real bad. There is no other play than jamm here]

River 5x
bb ch, mp bets 8k, we fold, bb folds

Learning curve:
Be well rested and well fed on the days leading to big events. During the Main Event it seems that I could not reach my intuition and all the knowledge I've gathered through the 12 years of poker I have behind my belt. We need to be at our 100% to play these events profitably. Poker is a game with small edges and there is a small line between a winning and losing player. 

It's been a good day off. Action continues tomoz with a €330 event.

Time to flinch forward, (get on that book guys, great short read. Played my best poker a day after reading it)

Ben

[BenjaminVoyage]

I gave myself a promise and I want my word to mean something.
I really have not got into the gear of keeping a diary. It's been 4 weeks from my last post.

I have been lately on the go all the time and have not really had a base.
I just gave up the lease of my rented apartment, so you could even say I am homeless at the moment. Good place to make a shout out to Espen!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During writing this post I am somewhere above the mighty Deutchland sipping a black americano. Flying to Frankfurt as we speak.

So what's been happening?

Man, where to start... lot of live games, DSO Malta, PSF at Bucharest, erasmus+ project in Serbia, UKtour in Nottingham.
I won't go too detailed with the trip reports as we got some VLOG's lined up and no secrets kept there.

As we know, every experience has something to be gained from. So, what where the biggest learning curves on these live trips?
On a poker note I noticed two big leaks that I have:

First of all, I tend to mirror my thoughts, my playing style to my opponents. Not always, and not with every opponent, but definitely something that I have to keep an eye out.
We all have different backgrounds and different reasonings for our actions.

Secondly, not wanting to call off for my tourney life, especially postflop and in live games.

Just had that happen to me in Bucharest. My opponent check raised me all-in, at first I decided that it's a snap call, knowing that he quite possibly has a weaker value range and lot of draw combos. The more I waited and took time, the more I started saying to myself that I can find better spots, etc.

What can we learn from it? Other players might do the same, so there is more fold equity in spots where we can pressure our opponents on their tourney life.

What we need to change? We need to focus on perceived ranges and equity. Trust our experience and make a decision based on logic and not let the emotions err us on the safe side.
It's a humanly thing to do to keep us safe, but it's a game called poker and all we have is two cards and a bullet. No hiding in the closet.

Let's get back on track with overall activities..
Timeline has lately been more geared towards live poker, but man as much fun as it all has been, online grind is calling.

Couple of days ago I had a review session with my poker mates and it felt amazing, got so much love for this game.

On a positive note I have picked up reading habits again. Half way through the "Switch: How to change things when change is hard" by Heath brothers.
I was big on doing book reviews before, seems we are getting back on track again.

Durind the upload of this post I have found myself in Šao Paulo, Brazil. I will be staying here for 8 night for the 888Live,
where our team is in charge of the live stream coverage.

What happens next?

After this I fly over to the States and meet up with Espen for a 3 week trip in the West Coast that ends with the European Open Special Edition in Las Vegas.

October has MPN Poker Tour Tallinn and UK Tour Brigton. Also being tempted with the WSOPE that takes place in Rozvadov, Czech Republic.

Looking at the schedule it looks like the online streets will be dry for at least another month.

Take care yo,
Benny boy.

[BenjaminVoyage]

edit1: Going to post all my text here in photos, because me and the forum are not quite best friends yet, but we are getting there tho.
edit2: It seems that the forum is not too fund of my winamax Hand history links. You will find the whole post and the HH links from a odt. file on my google drive.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8yAImD45xpmUWdkekdRZmdST2M

Sorry for all this mess, I'm just a skateboarded lost in the poker forums.

532e67aa44289ed003b31f9b20ac810e

cc7dcd8c0430fe9df47d516fd58e9035

40f4e295329f0f61af12a10a5ea068a0

777e738d448beab192be253c3def37d2

[ChapInAChair]

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@BenjaminVoyage wrote:

 

2nd and the hand that likely cost me the tournament:

200/400/50 Hero 4s5s BU (21k) 50xbb 10max

MP+2 opens 900 (Hobby, in his 40-s, seen him open J9hh from EP)

folded to hero, Hero??

(Do we 3bet only linear here? If we expect villain to have some middling holdings, then is it fine to have some weaker hands in the mix? Do most hobby players tend to be so sticky pre that we should not be mixing in holdings like these, especially given the effective?)

Hero 3B 2700

BB(young 20s,who was very active and Ive seen him run a cold 4-bet bluff) asks how much we are playing with and peels, MP continues as well

(3way 8800) 5d3d3h

checked to me, hero??? (I think we need to protection bet here and deny their equity. Our sizing should be so that they would not have an easy float with Ax hands here.

Hero has 18K behind

3500? so if we get called we have an option to jamm some favourable turns as well.)

Ingame hero bets only 2600 (I feel it's bit too small, gets called by Ax for sure. This bet does not fill it's purpose what so ever)

Both our opponents call. [Got feedback from a player whose insight I trust a lot and he does not mind the small sizing. He asked why is it bad if Ax hands call, especially when our opponents have bigger pairs in their range as well, which never fold anyway. Tho I still feel like we want to deny equity to overcards and set up a better Stack to Pot (SPR) ratio on turn.]

(3w 16600) Ah

villains check, hero? (we have around 15.6-16k behind; We also pick up equity. We could put our opponents pocketpairs in a very tough spot and if we run into Ax hand then we still have gutter+trips outs, 6 of them. I feel like our only option is here to jamm)

Hero ingame checks behind. [this is where the hand went real bad. There is no other play than jamm here]

River 5x

bb ch, mp bets 8k, we fold, bb folds

 

Learning curve:

Be well rested and well fed on the days leading to big events. During the Main Event it seems that I could not reach my intuition and all the knowledge I've gathered through the 12 years of poker I have behind my belt. We need to be at our 100% to play these events profitably. Poker is a game with small edges and there is a small line between a winning and losing player. 

It's been a good day off. Action continues tomoz with a €330 event.

Time to flinch forward, (get on that book guys, great short read. Played my best poker a day after reading it)

Ben

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Hi Ben

Great to see some hand histories and thought processes here. I'm a little confused by this hand though, although I'm guessing it's a typo. If the board is 533A5 and we have a 5 in our hand then surely the river bet should be called.

FWIW, given the info I'd probably flat pre-flop, as a fun player opening wide could put you in some weird spots post-flop and I'd prefer not to play a bloated pot. In addition, if the big blind is aggro then calling invites him to squeeze, meaning that we can easily get out of the way if the fun player 4-bets. If fun player calls or folds then we have a nice hand to either play in position or 4-bet as a bluff.

Another option, of course, is to 3-bet and then 5-bet jam if BB gets fruity but perhaps that was your plan all along.

[BenjaminVoyage]

 although I'm guessing it's a typo. If the board is 533A5 

Typo indeed, board was 533, Ax, 4x.

FWIW, given the info I'd probably flat pre-flop, as a fun player opening wide could put you in some weird spots post-flop and I'd prefer not to play a bloated pot.

Completely agree, Today's Rauno would not 3bet there. I am leaning most towards the fold. 

Cheers for posting man. Writing this blog has not been a priority at the moment. I have started again keeping a diary in a notebook, which I did for some time 2 years ago. It's a mixture of life and poker thoughts. I play poker 5 days a week, so most of my energy and thoughts are around the game still. If this could be some what of an interest to you guys then HIT THE LIKE button below this post and I can write some posts from diary.
Take it easy, yo.

[BenjaminVoyage]

Here's a little recap of the Cash Game Festival action from yesterday's feature. All spots seemed fairly standard and our session lasted only for 2 and a half hours. Was good fun tho.