Seems like I am writing something every day. Hope it's not very annoying. Because if I were to read someone's blog I'd quit reading after 7 days. Anyway, it is poker. And I am the type of people who don't like or dislike poker. I live poker.
Yesterday night something crazy started happening at the tables. I was losing in each and every way possible, sometimes even impossible. Being one of the biggest stacks and not making the money in either Holdem or Omaha PLO8 tournaments made me aggravated that night. Luckily for me, I decided not to experience my bad luck anymore and went to bed. Today this continued. I was down approximately 200$. I lost two 50$ heads up games just thanks to bad beats. I couldn't win any double up or triple up tournament. But finally my lucky streak came back to me and I won 25$ triple up, 50$ double up and this.

You know what really sucks? What what? Hunger in Africa? Yes, that too. A war in Iraq? Cannot disagree. Ok, let me rephrase the question. What sucks in the life of a poker player? I always hate to spend 2-5 hours of my life and not to get at least the second place. I always have this feeling when I make the final table and make my first mistake that costs me my tournament life. However it makes me learn something and not to repeat this mistake again. I remember some hands that I played back in 2008 when I worked in a casino. I remember a lot of stuff outside of poker lol. Anyway, please, when you ever make the final table, think about each decision twice. I think I will set something like 5 second rule meaning I will not be making any decision earlier than in 5 seconds. Here what got me disappointed in 7$ buy-in 1000$ guaranteed. Good luck everyone.
To be continued...

Hi everyone. It seems like I started posting too much stuff but hopefully someone finds it interesting. Well, yesterday after my win at 1000$ guaranteed 6-handed I played Omaha, but lost to an idiot who put all of his chips on a flush-draw. It made me mad and I registered to play 100$ heads up game. I won it and turned my computer off. When I woke up this morning, I realized I could go to a casino and see if my luck in Holdem continues. It was 60$ tourney and there was only 42 people. First 4 got paid. I was the biggest stack during the whole tournament until I made two bad calls trying to knock people out and lost about 75% of my stack. However, I got it all back and made it to the final four. I was second in chips. Two shortest stacks made an agreement to split the money for the 3rd and 4th, and me and chip leader split the money for the first and second. Which gave us 609$ each. Pretty good payday for four hours of work =)

Hi everyone who is still reading me. I usually play a lot of poker online and offline, but sometimes there are some days when you just want to sleep. You open 4 tables and can't concentrate, your bluffs are opened, you can't read your opponents correctly and so on. In this cases the best thing to do is not to play poker. Well, today i played 4 tables, 4 SnGs and won only two of them, so I went to bed and slept for a bit. When I woke up I was hungry so I and my sister went to Chinese buffet so I could get some 'fuel'. However, I still felt like I can't play my best poker tonight. But I am addicted so I registered on Bovada 1000$ guaranteed 6max and here is the result =) It feels like I played my best poker in a while. Good bluffs, good reads and a lil of luck.
Thanks for reading me and gl at the tables!

Second Saturday in a row I made the final table playing PLO8. Also I got in the money in Omaha Hi, but it was not a significant amount. I will post the report about my week progress later sometime. This what you can look at right now. Thanks for your attention =)

Even the best player in the world can go broke without proper bankroll management. I understand this, however, I continue trying to hit big. And I never hit. Last week I can say I started a new career. Reading articles with proper bankroll management can get me somewhere, I am pretty sure. I started playing cash games NL4 on Lock poker. And SNGs on Bovada. I haven't lost my bankroll in two weeks, and it is a pretty good sign. This blog should help me to stay concentrated.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I received a 20$ torunament ticket from Bovada and chose to play Omaha Hi/Low and took second place clearing 396 dollars. This should be the new beginning.

Well I got sick (flu or just a cold, feeling like dying) and stayed home and played a lot of online poker on Bovada. They day before I finally read how to play Omaha Hi/Low so I registered in 20$ buy-in 1000$ guaranteed. I was going for lows most of the time since cards were terrible. Got to the final table and finished 5th winning about 130$. As I usually do when I am up, I am tilting. I would play 5 tables and losing all money I just won. On the last 10$ I register to play 1000$ guaranteed and get 4th which give me another 100$. As you already know in a few hours I don't have anything on my account lol. What do I do next? It is about 1am and I deposit 25$ to play 2000$ guaranteed super turbo. Sounds like addicted player, doesn't it? Well I got third and it gave me 360$. Without thinking much I requested to withdraw 300$ since I know what can happen to them lol. Could have gotten first but on 4 handed there was a hand AQ < AA and I lost 250k chips out of 400k. At least I won. What you think?:)

I am not a pro but I am pretty good at poker as a game. That means, if I knew how to manage my money I could be rich. But usually I go broke after I play higher limit cash games thinking to build up my bankroll faster. I decided to share some helpful (or useless for some people) ideas about poker from my own experience. Hope to make it as short as possible.
1. As it's been said, Money management plays a tremendous role in our lives. Not only in poker players' lives. We all gotta pay bills, pay for gas, buy food and so on. But it plays even bigger role in poker players' lives. Please, do not repeat my mistake and do not play limits you can't afford.
2. Find your game and improve. Decide, what game you play best. Whether it is Sng, MTT or cash, just figure out what you do best and start improving. There's a lot of free resources. Even youtube can help you.
3. Do not make big bluffs. Big bets usually look like a bluff. Better players know it. Small or medium sizes bets can look like a value-bet. Just think about it.
4. Play position. BB position can really help you when everyone folded after the raise from the button and you are first to act. You can aggressively play your dro or second/bottom pair. Once again, better players know that raise from first to act can mean some big hands.
5. Set a goal/goals. Just sit down and think what do you want from poker. What limits you want to play. When do you want this to happen. Be realistic. Do it step by step.
Hope it can help anyone. If not, at least I started by managing my thoughts :)

Hi everyone!
I was looking at my pictures from Las Vegas today and then I recognized that I absolutely forgot to tell you all how it went. So, it is better later than never. Here it comes the short story.
One guy at work told me about one airway company with which I could fly from our village called Lexington non-stop to Las Vegas. I was really excited and was preparing to go. So, I was about to order tickets, but they said it is their last flight, from Lex to LAS. One way. Anyway, I couldn't miss this great opportunity to go to Las Vegas just for 60$ taxes included. I'd say it's free. I booked a room in the hotel called Plaza in downtown (I didn't think how far it is from the strip, and also I wanted to get the cheapest deals possible). I paid about 75$ for 3 nights. Needless to say it was like free either. Because when me and my girlfriend wanted to spend a night in hotel in Russia we had to pay about 100$ per night. I really enjoyed how my room looked like, it was pretty big, clean and neat. However, there was a lot of noise every time I was going to sleep, but I guess it's anywhere in Las Vegas. Through the travbuddywebsite I found a girl from Switzerland who was going to sin city at the same time, so as soon as I got checked in the hotel we met up. I guess everybody would agree that being alone in Vegas is not much fun. So we went to dinner cuz I wanted to eat so badly. We went to some asian restaurant or something, and I paid for both of us. I think that was the key. Because after that, we were just hanging out and went to Flamengo. I saw a roulette with one zero on it, and got twenty 5$ chips. Since I worked in a casino in Russia, I know the row of numbers on the spinning wheel. As I usually do, I bet decent on zero sector, numbers like 28-29-32-35-3 etc. And it hit!!! I think it was 28. My payout was like $500+. People who were playing there told me to leave till it's not to late lol. I bet another spin with the colour chips I was given, lost them, and went to cashier. I said to Sylvia 'I love Las Vegas'. I've done that several more times in different casinos, and I think I was doing pretty good at roulette tables. Then I decided to play a poker tournament in Venecia. I was running really good, was pretty decent stack, cards were coming to me. Until I got QQ and called the other guy's all-in with it. QQ vs AT. You already know what card was on the river. Couple hands later I shoved my AT from the small blind, and Big blind and the button both called. AT vs QQ vs KK. Got out 14th. Spent four hours of play and got nothing... I thought 'man you are here just for three days, you can't just spend your time so futile'. So I didn't play anymore tournaments. However, I played cash game in Riviera, spent couple hours and I think finished about even. Anyways, I made pretty good money at the roulette tables so I could afford shopping. I went to Vegas without any clothes in my bag lol. Just whatever was on me. And I loved shopping in Vegas. I went to the store called 'GUESS'. There was a nice beautiful girl. I just told her that she needs to choose what will be good on me. So I bought a really nice shirt and jeans. It was expensive thought, I think about 260$. Anyways, I like it a lot and wear it with joy lol. They didn't have the shoes I wanted, so I told her that she needs to go to another store with me to help me choose shoes. So she said I can wait for her for about 30 minutes since she is leaving anyway. I was hanging around and when she was done working, she went with me to another store. Of course, you all should ask, what happened next. Unfortunately, nothing. She said that her dog is like locked for 12 hours at home and she needs a walk. I don't know if I believed her, but If I will ever meet her again, something will definitely happen :)
Me, Sylvia, and two other guys who she found through the same website went to Stratosphere and it was really great experience. I would recommend that to absolutely everyone!
Also, I went to Cosmopolitan just to see it from the inside. I found a sportbar and a soccer game was on one of the TV's. However, there was sound coming from other TV, and it was showing some crap like baseball of American football. I asked barmen if he can make my TV louder. So he told me that if I will switch seats, he will put soccer on a big screen. I don't know if I could have this experience anywhere else in the USA. I tried to do that in a casino in Indiana during the poker tournament and they said nobody watches soccer in America haha.
Then it was time to leave.... I was really sad about leaving. You know, I have never had that feeling before in any town or city, that Yeah it's my city. But i felt that as soon as I got there. I was so depressed when I got back to Kentucky. And also it was kinda hard to come from a lot of sun to the storm weather. But anyways, I know it was not my last time and I am glad I have experienced Las Vegas. I wish I could have more time though. But with that freaking work schedule it was impossible. Next time I will go at least for a week. And if any of the members would like to join me, everybody is very welcome.
I love you, Las Vegas.

Hi everyone!
I haven't been on this website for a couple of months and missed it a lot. It's good to see that the great job has been done to continuously improvement of this resource. The life has been pretty crazy lately, I haven't played a lot of poker either on or off line. I just have been thinking about my whole life, how unhappy I was after moving to the United States and how my life has been changing and how I am trying to become a better person. I have made a lot of mistakes, but what's good about mistakes - you learn from them. Unless your name is Bart Simpson. Anyways, my message today is do not be afraid of making mistakes. If you lose, analyze. And it works not only in poker, but anywhere in life. In relationships with the girlfriend, at work, with parents or at any other thing you like to do. Of course, it won't work if you made a mistake and then analyzed what you had done wrong but still doing the same. It's called stupidness. There's not a single successful person who has not done any mistakes in their lives. But they know, that if this didn't work, they have to try something different. Just don't give up. Make mistakes, learn from them and go on.