Vacations woohoooooooo!

I began vacations this past Thursday, I was waiting for this all the summer. On saturday I made a trip to el Yunque, with my girlfriend a friend of her and a friend of mine. Was awesome, el Yunque is a rainforest located in Puerto RIco, at Rio Grande and Luquillo municipalities. It have a lot of rivers, creeks, falls and ponds and
has many beautiful views of nature. When we arrived to Luquillo, we eat some alcapurrias (a typical food from Puerto Rico) in a place called la Poza (which I recommend) There you can seat to eat in front of the beautiful river, here's a photo.

Then we went to el Yunque, to look for a place called Juan Diego Falls, my friend went to that place some years ago, and he told us the place is awesome. So he lead us to the place, where he found a sign which says Quebrada Juan Diego. So we began to walk to the place, where wasn't any trail, we need to climbed a lot of rocks, made some jumps, got inside the water, passed between trees, something hard even for boyscouts hehehe. We do that for like 3 hours and didn't found the place, my friend was frustrated, saying that he didn't remembered that the place was so difficult to reach, my girlfriend, her friend and I, were very tired. In fact my friend thought that there had been a landslide on the place, because he couldn't recall any part of the trail. So we returned to the road, where we parked out and there my friend walked a little more forward and realized that he lead us to a wrong way. The correct path was quite easy to walk and we arrived in 10 minutes to the place. That was so funny... lol

Here some pics of Juan Diego creek and me inside the waterfall.



In poker not a good week, to be sincere the worst week, since I began to play again. I get tilted, so I played in a higher level to get back my money and lost more than a hundred bucks.

What is good about that? I learned a lot...never play on a higher stake, and less if I am tilted. And in addition to that, so things I discovered the hard way from msnl(micro stakes no limit):

Do not call a reraise PreFlop againts a shortstack without cadillac hands (AA,KK,QQ,AKs).
Do not reraise UTG(under the gun) without cadillac hands.
It's good people get a TAG (Tight Agresive) image of me.
I need to keep in mind that if an opponent call a CBET in the flop, he's not bluffing, he had something, so watch out!!!
Do not call any bet at the river, unless I know, I have the nuts, or very sure I had the best hand...

So tired!

This past week, I was so tired, and crazy to begin the weekend. A lot of work and a lot of tennis, and not too much sleep were the causes of getting so tired. On Saturday, I wake up early to go to my last game of the season of the men's league. Our opponents from Caobo, Ponce didn't arrived so we won the game by default, which means that we secure a place on the Adult Sectionals. If we won the sectionals we are going to represent Puerto Rico at the USTA National Championships on US. It's the first time I enter to the sectionals in the men's adult league, so i'm proud of that. In the afternoon I took my girlfriend to the theater to see Transformers(great effects, but the trama, not so nice), then we went to Plaza Carolina to buy a small grill. Yeah a grill, because my brother call me on Friday to invite me to the beach on Sunday, which is a great opportunnity to fulfill my desires of cooking on a grill to make some Pinchos. WTF are pinchos?...For those of you that doesn't know what Pinchos are, here's a pic of me cooking some.



On Sunday, at the beach we had a good day, I made some hotdogs, chicken and churrasco pinchos...hmmmm, I played paletas (paddle ball) with my bro and my grilfriend..., and share a good time with my family and my girlfriend. At the afternoon, I played basketball with my friends and arrive home extremely tire to wakeup early next day...not good.
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I didn't play a lot of poker, because I was so tired all the week, and finished -$5. That's without adding the rakeback which was almost 2 buyins, so it made my stay in with positive numbers for July. So I dedicate the few time I had to read the Theorem of Poker book I expected to finish it this week, also I read a lot on the 2+2 and leggo poker forums. I hope to play more hands this week after starting the vacations.

Federer Won

Extraordinary!!!, that's how I described men's Wimbledon final yesterday. The king of tennis, Roger Federer broke Sampra's record 14 Grand Slam titles won. Roddick played an excellent match, but Federer found the way to win in 5 sets. The last set score was 16-14. The stage was seen by the great champions Borg, Laver, McEnroe, and the Great Pete Sampras. The last three finals of Wimbledon have been excellent matches to watch. Congratulations to Roger Federer for his achievements, is a great athlete, and has dominated the sport of tennis as no other has dominated any other sport. I always thought that the most dominant player in any sport has been Michael Jordan, for their success inside and outside the courts. But look what Jordan has to say about Federer.

If you watched Roger Federer and Andy Roddick's marathon 5th set all the way to the end, then you probably saw this awesome tribute to Federer, which was played immediately after the match. The commercial features some of the all time greats, both in tennis and and other sports, congratulating Federer on his record-breaking 15th Major championship. It's definitely a fitting tribute to one of the greatest athletes of all time.

This past week I get a new internet connection installed, which works extremely fast. Now its easy to play, see videosm browse de internet and have poker sweat sessions. This month I began playing 2300 hands and winning 1 buyin. My goal its to reach $400 in my bankroll at the end of the month. With $330 on my account now I need 14 buyins more, to achieve my goal.

Nice start

June ended on monday, I finished +37.79 with a Bankroll of $322.73. I didn't won a lot of rakeback because I played micros, so was a very small amount. For those who don't know what rakeback is, I explained it in my own words. Every time you won money in a pot, the casino or the online poker site keep a small % of the winnings, that amount is the rake. Rake back is a rebate or a repayment to a player of a portion of the rake paid by that player, normally from a third-party source such as an affiliate. Rakeback is paid in many ways by online poker rooms, many use direct money payments for online poker play. I personally use Rake the Rake (raketherake.com), which makes rakeback deposits to my fulltilt account weekly. Its nice to receive a weekly check just for playing.

In July I hope I could reach $400 hundred on my bankroll. That's equal to 40 buyins, in 10 ssnl, the goal I want to reach to begin playing 10nl. I used the money sent by the Bush administration for economic stimulus to start my bankroll. I deposited $500 bucks, but after ups and downs, as a rookie I get my bankroll down to $283.00. My main goal is to convert this $500 in $1000, just by playing poker. I know I will do it, I am putting a lot of effort to learn the game and be a winning poker player.

Here some of my stats with the 4450 hands played. Make a click on the image to see it bigger.

Not much rest this weekend

This weekend, I didn't rest too much. On Friday afternoon, after work, I cleaned my apartment, because of next day visit of Onelink at the morning, to install internet. On Saturday morning ,they arrive but didn't complete the installation because the pipe where it is needed to pass the wiring was covered with something that didn't allow them to finish the installation. At Saturday afternoon, my girlfriend and i, install an A/C to my room. Wow that was a hard thing to do, because the hole was covered with wood and a lot of nails. Then the wall sleeve, didn't fit, a total chaos, but after 4 hours we finished the installation saving $100 bucks.

In tennis, at Sunday morning, we had the penultimate game of the league, against the #1 team of my flight(the division to which my team belongs) we lost to them horribly, losing the 5 matches we played against them. Now, we have only one game left, we need to win it to secure a spot in the adult league sectionals, that game is scheduled to be play on July 11. After the game, I went to my girlfriend house, to visit her and her mom made a nice dinner, I like her food a lot, 3 best, next to my mom and grandma. Then in the afternoon, I went to a friend house to play basketball with my friends, were I sweat like an animal, wow I was tired when I went home, I didn't play poker because of that, on Saturday.

Ok now good news on my poker from Thursday to yesterday. I arrive to my goal, I reach the $300 goal on my bankroll, playing 2NL. Then with 60 buy ins, I decided to begin playing at 5nl. My goal here it's to reach $400 on my bankroll. Since I began on 5nl I am +2 buy ins, I need 18 more to reach my goal.

My results until today are: Total hands: 3,294 Total won: $23.07 Bankroll: $308.03.

Suckout of the weekend:

I was trying to steal the blinds from CO because my VP$IP was too low at the moment, see what happened next:

I like a lot how I played this hand after completing the full house on the turn, I gave villain the opportunity to made his flush, which paid off.

R.I.P. King

Yesterday was sad, because of the recent news of Michael Jackson passing. When I heard what happened I get shocked. He was a legend, I had many memories, and I know everybody of my age, tried on the past, at least one day of their live, to practice his movements when dancing. I hope for his family and fans, blessings and support. Click the link to view one of my favorites videos off all time, from the King of POP...Rest In Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACPsfcsg4ZE

From now on I will posts my blogs on english, because, I need to practice my english. In this moment I am reading a lot of books and websitres on english and is a strong way to improve my english, write on english too. I don't like it, but that's why I need to do it, to challenge myself. On poker this week, I was reading The Theory of Poker of David Sklansky, I read the first two chapters. The first chapter was and overview of poker, for you begginers like me, Sklansky explain that "poker is not a game, primary of luck, is a game of skill". Expert players do not rely on luck, they use their skills to minimize luck as much as possible. They use their skills to minimize their losses on their bad hands and maximize their profits on the big hands. They also are able to judge better when a big hand is not the best hand and when a small hand is the best hand.

On poker these last days, I finished practically break even. I am 6 buys + for the month with only 2117 hands. I will try to end this month 10 buyins or better, to began playing at 5NL. Let's see what happen next... On my playing, I am playing with a 14 VP$IP, yeah I know is nitty, but in this stakes everybody call you and played LAG, I like to play the opposite.

No hay enemigo pequeño

En mi pasado blog les hable del juego con Ponce y la importancia de ganarlo. Perdimos. El equipo más malo de nuestra sección nos ganó, no hay enemigo pequeño y nos sobre confiamos. Yo perdí mi encuentro, y aunque jugamos muy bien, no pudimos hayar respuesta al servicio de los contrincantes. Nos quedan ahora dos juegos y uno de los dos lo tenemos que ganar si queremos llegar a seccionales.

Luego del juego, me quede en Guánica, en el Hotel Copa Marina, y pase el domingo en la playa, la picina, y el jacuzzi, ademas comí un desayuno bien bueno. El hotel esta bien bonito, adjunto pongo algunas fotos. Me encontre con un buen compañero de P&G, que se casó hace un año y fue a celebrar su aniversario, compartimos con ellos la mayor parte del día. En la tarde fui a casa de unos tíos donde me encontré con mis padres y luego me fui a casa de mis padres, donde le dí un obsequio a mi papá y dejé los de mis hermanos. Fue malo que no pude ver a mis hermanos ayer, pues estaban ambos fuera del área metropolitana, a la hora que llegué a casa de mis papas. Pero le deseo al igual que mi papa muchas felicidades, y a todos los padres que pasen por aquí.

En el poker he estado haciendo varias cosas, he estado analizando las manos que me crearon dudas en pokerstove, para analizar la probabilidades de ganar de las decisiones tomadas en manos donde no estaba seguro. Como me había dicho Lex, la verdad que brega usar el pokerstove para analizar las jugadas. Cuendo me vuelva a ocurrir una situación similar a la analizada, resulta más facil tomar la mejor decisión. Reactive mi cuenta gratis, de leggopoker, que me permite leer los foros y ver los sample videos. La razón de escoger leggopoker, es por recomiendación de lex, y pues confío en que si a el le ha funcionaó porque a mi no. Entre al foro de microstakes y el primer thread que escogí era de Red Joker (RJ) y habla de como funcionaba el foro de microstakes (Welcome to the micro stakes NL fourm 4-21-2009). Esta dirigido a personas principiantes y explica la manera de postear las manos en el site y como hacer preguntas de estrategia. Al final de su post RJ recomienda para los que están comenzando en poker algunos libros, videos y links a leer, para fortalecer tu conociemiento y dice como conseguir todo esto gratis. Ya bajé de internet los libros, so que tengo mucha lectura para la noche y los fines de semana y voy a postiar semanalmente en leggopoker las manos que me causen duda, de la estrategia a utilizar, para obtener el feedback de personas con más experiencia (cuento contigo lex, jejeje) .

Hasta el día de hoy llevo 1608 manos y estoy 6 buyins arriba, de cuando comencé hace una semanita. La muestra no es muy grande, pero se ven bonitos los resultados positivos, sin verme muy afectado por la varianza.

Para finalizar dejo una mano que resulto interesante, para el que quiera comentar.

Tanto tiempo!

Bueno luego de un largo periodo sin pasar por aqui, he vuelto a escribir. Aunque me había alejado de jugar poker por los estudios, ya terminé. Al fin tengo mi maestría, so que puedo tachar eso del todo list. Y como me había propuesto ya estoy listo para meterle duro y aprender a jugar correctamente, sin stress de que tengo que estudiar o terminar algún trabajo. Para ir calentando, entré a los microstakes de FT, ya que la cuenta la habia dejao un poco baja y realmente es lo único que podía jugar. Luego de 1200 manos, estoy en +$11, nada mal, tomando en consideración que estoy jugando 2nl. Me estoy pompiando bien duro, y siento que se me hace bien facil tener sessions positivos en 2nl.

Solicité una conección de internet másrápida, ya que la mía es una porquería (Centennial). El sábado que viene, se supone vengan a instalar, así que esta semanita, me dedicaré a jugar y a analizar mi juego con Hold'em Manager. Ya una vez tenga la conección nueva, podre navegar más rápido, el FT funcionará de manera estable, puedo ver videos streaming así que podre ver más videos de poker y puedo usar el mikogo, para compartir mi juego fácilmente.

Hoy me voy para Ponce a un juego de tennis importante, ya que es decisivo para entrar al seccional (torneo donde compiten los mejores de PR). Debemos ganar, ya que es un equipo que ha perdido todo los juegos. Yo voy a jugar dobles, con mi primo, ya les contaré como nos fué. Nuestro record como pareja está en 2-3, pero hemos entrenao duro esta semana para ganar ese juego. Mientras esté por allá no podre jugar, pero cuando regrese el domingo sino llego muy cansado, le meto. Acutalmente tengo la cuenta en $294. Mi meta para terminar esta semana es llevarla a $300 y $350 al finalizar el mes.