TsAgALaGa Blog

[TsAgALaGa]

Hardly anyone knows me in poker circuit, so I would first of all present myself as a little and write something about my background. Some rare of you may know me behind nicks like -playerone- or TsAgALaGa, and also I’ve write some topics in other finnish forum with a nickname BuMtSaGaLaGa.

I’m 23-year-old guy from Finland and last couple of years I’ve played poker mainly instead of university and studies. I started with low limit texas (grinding or what) and fortunately soon aimed to play nl50 and nl100 HU. I did great there and also well in tourneys, like 3rd place finish in Ongame’s “Big Deal” worth $9k and several 1-2k placements. Then 2006 summer I found myself playing PLO and that’s definitely the game for me.

Today I play ~PLO1k, and over 80% my actions are HU. Short-handed is my 2nd choice. HU type of game suites best for me, because I wanna play basically every hand in PLO and also against one opponent the game gets extremely psychology. Style that I prefer to play is very mixed-aggressive, and I hope that hand analyses I will put in other posts will give some fresh ideas. At least I hope I can put more interesting hands than other posters and I believe so

There aren’t many blogs or posts in forums about HU-poker, and that will be the spirit of this blog. I think that HU-poker gives more chance to develop compared to standard poker, and that could be shown watching winrates. Learning HU is important for short-handed and full-handed player as well, almost every hand faces this situation like it or not. Also it’s mentally very demanding due to brutal downswings –PLO HU is the sickest way to play poker. Learning to handle tilting is something I’ve made myself much better and I hope writing down this blog would increase my view over the game (and maybe keeps me away from those 5k games when downswings comes).

Then something about “mystical” statistics of mine; I’ve played PLO like 150k hands during last 2 years. My winrate is roughly +20-25ptBB/100 in HU and +10-15ptBB/100 in short-handed game. I’ve done via PLO $200k+, so I’ve done nice in mid-stakes/lower high stakes games I think. Down there is a graph for my last 4-5 weeks that have been sickest ever. That is only for cash games, i'm also up like +5k$ on SNG. I’ve played some big games for me (deep 1k and 2k), and my last 4 weeks are: -8k$, +25k$,-23k$,+24k$. After that 3rd week I’m really happy the way I came back for sure. I have played lately too big games for my bankroll, but I must admit that’s a lot more rewarding, like we all know. I’ll return with more about my playing and poker life in next entry.

In future I try to play less than in past. Managing my game hours is the biggest thing I need to be better at. I also will start again in school this fall so that should already make some difference. In this blog I’ll usually post with some theme of PLO I think is important and missed generally too much (also something about real life I hope lol). I’d like if there would be some hand posts also for viewers, which I could give my opinion. You can hit me any comments and questions also if something comes in mind, finnish via pm is also fine.

Finally I’m also interested for coaching, there will be more information about that up my blog menu. Good luck 4 all!

[Winnergambling]

Welcome our newest featured blogger, TsAgALaGa!

As he wrote, you can forward him questions and comments.

He will also comment on hand histories sent by users to our NLHE and PLO strategy threads. Especially heads-up is his bread and butter.

[_DJ_]

Hi, and welcome! You say you've made 200k+ playing poker. How much of that do you think you have left? Do you have money management leaks in either big expenses or spewing money off in -ev (poker or casino) games? I know a lot of good players who just spend disproportionate sums of money compared to their income and therefore hinder their bankrolls from really growing.

I'm only asking because you seem to imply you're not rolled for 2k games.

[TsAgALaGa]

Hi, and welcome! You say you've made 200k+ playing poker. How much of that do you think you have left? Do you have money management leaks in either big expenses or spewing money off in -ev (poker or casino) games? I know a lot of good players who just spend disproportionate sums of money compared to their income and therefore hinder their bankrolls from really growing.

I'm only asking because you seem to imply you're not rolled for 2k games.

Life is expensive like we all know, particularly drinking and rents for me I feel like i do pretty tight with winnings, after everything I've paid playing poker I really wanna see some outcome to exist. It helps a lot that I'm not interested playing casinos, I like more sports etc.. Poker is more like a job for me.

I've noticed that I play better more like "on the edge" so I keep my roll relatively low. I could roll myself to play those 2k games, but definitely still not mentaly ready for that. Plo1k is a good challenge to beat well first. I've made some investments outside of poker also that I try to keep separate.

Good and straight question

[TsAgALaGa]

Hello again my loyal blogviewers -the time has come again!

Since opening post I’ve pretty much killed myself playing hours not for human. PLO1k short-handed has now been the main case, and I write this post with short-handed view. It really didn’t start the way I planned, on Thursday-evening I lost 12 buy-ins in about an hour against extremely bad player on FTP. I think that’s my new negative record in HU, in short-handed game comparably 10bi’s in hour (both 1-2 tables). It tells something about Omaha because both times I felt my game was on line. That’s also answer for DJ’s question on last post why I don’t play plo2k regularly yet…Omaha short-handed and HU definitely needs 100bi’s+ of roll, those 30bi’s advices are BS in my opinion. Although this period was profitable and I ended up +11,3k$. Especially last couple of days I played better than ever and also got some cards for sure.

Earlier in this year I spend 4 months without playing any poker. It really was a good move and today my game has reached a new level definitely. Back in the days I overplayed preflop and tried to win every pot post-flop (also some great tilting) which worked relatively good as I think it today. It came from HU for sure. Now I’ve tightened up my preflop raise/call –range and I bluff only 80% off my plays . It’s close that in future I focus more for short-handed game than HU.

The best part of poker for me is that it makes possible to do more sports than some other job. My deadlift-record may not be worth to mention, but I like to play almost every game and exercise in different ways. Like many other poker players I also like to golf and my hcp is 4,5. Essential priority for me is that poker isn’t taking place for sports –with good amount of other stuff poker also goes better. This is more like first posts data but I added it now here

Lastly hands that got some poker:

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=806372794 Huge bluff by me. Really felt that was a great place to bluff with solid tableimage and even though villain was aggressive he probably would muck top 2 or small set.

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=216701212 I was a bit tilt here but didn’t get the idea of minraising me on the turn. What hand would do so? I decided to follow my feeling and shove. This was an €-table.

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=186225638 Villain has played a lot of high stakes nl and got me here. I think this call is horrible after he potbets the river and our history is low. I still like that raise.

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=247385263 I’ve made so much cash making good calls on river. This is pretty obvious one against one FTP-pro. The way he plays this turn is more like plo10 I think. There is pretty much always a good value to make that 2nd bullet. My call on flop was more for later bluff.

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=638336648 I think villain felt pretty comfortable after he saw the river . Impossible to put him on TTT there, I don’t get that call on flop because I could have 2-pairs and possible turn would scare me away. I think I’ve never seen that kind of call in these limits.

[_DJ_]

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=806372794 Huge bluff by me. Really felt that was a great place to bluff with solid tableimage and even though villain was aggressive he probably would muck top 2 or small set.

I think a big % of the time you have the best hand here. I like the play though.

[TsAgALaGa]

I think a big % of the time you have the best hand here. I like the play though.

I played 5 times too big game for me, so I thought it would be better to steal pot right away Calling remaining streets would definitely be fine there, but my "winnergambling" wasn't gutsy enough to do that

[TsAgALaGa]

Running good, playing good.

I’ve never ever in my pokercareer run this hot. I’ve thought a lot about my pokerswings (especially during downs), and usually if I’m winning my running is little better than EV, but in downswing it usually gets as sick as possible. There can easily be like 7-8 5 outer suck outs or 10 coin flips all mucked in a row by me. So I’m extremely glad to see that I can run superhot awhile. I made yesterday my daily winning record, and also last couple of weeks together are way bigger than the biggest month so far. I finished +14k$ up yesterday playing 2-4 to 5-10, close to 5-10 on average. My score for last seven days is +31k$, and last 2 weeks I’ve made massive +56k$. And all the way I’ve tried to play more solid poker than before.

I must say that after 23k$ downswing early in this month I thought it could take rest of this year to fill it. It always feel like that after big amount of losing. But luckily for me I’ve made some huge ups after like 10-15k$ downswings, and it’s probably the best feature of my poker. Now it just happened way bigger than before.

Today I posted this: http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=594621278 very interesting hand on finnish pokerforum, and I promised to return to it here with comments. There has been many opinions how the situation should be played out, and here is mine. First of all there is absolutely no way I could fold that on flop. It’s definitely way too weak no doubt about it. I really was surprised how many of you would have shoved that hand on flop. In my opinion it’s clearly call there. With calling hero is able to fold pairing turn, and the pot is so big that I can not believe villain would fold on any turn. So it’s obvious that all the money is going to end up center and hero can save ~1k if board pairs on turn. I was pretty shocked to see button calling behind me that doesn’t happen very often. Button said he had top 2, and he made good fold on turn. The hand is first one, and I also post few other interesting ones I think. There is also my graph for last 2 weeks below.

Any comments and questions are welcomed!

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=642791618 I don’t think this one needs any comments lol. There must be some serious reads for this call. I was obviously bluffing, the river gave good chance for it.

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=939511048 In this kind of situations hero must raise. It’s almost sure that villain is on draw and hero dominates him greatly.

http://www.pokerihanska.com/?h=296000689 These kind of playes I do sometimes. Villain played weak, and the river and outcome were just like I planned.

Graph:

[TsAgALaGa]

It’s sick how fast everything can change in poker! Just few days ago everything was perfectly on line like my last post showed. After that deck went cold and my game-level also dropped few steps. It was like missed flops and draws, 2nd nuts, too much bluffing, didn’t follow my read etc. on semi-big pots. I still runned close to EV when it comes to all-in cases and that saved me for big crush. I just made so big hours during last week so it really do suck when outcome is negative. I played mainly plo1k short-handed, and dropped 4k total. Yesterday was the worst with -8k and there was one terrible plo1k hu-session in which villain runned superhot and took 6BI’s for me in an hour. I know that -4k ain’t that huge swing, and last month I’ve runned still definitely +EV. It’s just more like a perfect golf round that ends up making triple-bogey on 18th

Last 7 weeks I’ve played a lot, especially last 3-4 weeks. Now I’ll take some fresh air and come back on tables after few weeks. I know I play much better then, and probably starting first with lower stakes than plo1k. I also planned to play more HU because it brings back the right level of bluffing and aggression for me. HU is also more poker: I’m actually pretty tired for those set-set or set-15 outs draw –situations to be honest

As I wrote on first post, I could be interested for coaching. I’ll add further details to this blog forum of mine in a few days. If someone is interested to learn plo hu and/or short-handed more just contact me. It’s also possible that I make plo video in near future probably about HU, not just sure yet. Any suggestions will be heard

[TsAgALaGa]

Actually I just recorded some plo HU, will upload it likely on monday here!

It has some HU SnG and HU cash game material in it.