Second APA video

hey guys, check out our second APA video and just to let you guys know we are still recruiting students, so please use the correct links and referral codes to sign up now..

http://www.asiapokeracademy.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=registers&usercode=APA7801V&sid=7801&Itemid=10

Enjoy!

Ryu Dang

First APA Video from yours truly :)

Video of APA Poker coaches Ryu Dang and David Tam doing a *free* introductory course with a trainee. Sign up at http://www.asiapokeracademy.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=registers&usercode=APA7801V&sid=7801&Itemid=10 to receive your FREE introductory lesson today with referral code "APA7801V"

To see the rest of the video, visit us @ APA Thailand

Asia Poker Academy Thailand

Well this is it, get ready for this... as promised, I have started this new project and you can find all the details right --> HERE <-- Remember to register under referral code "APA7801V"

Free Coaching Videos, Freerolls available, and even Free starting bankrolls, just check it out and sign up for a free account! You can't lose out on anything by registering, it's completely free!
if there are any issues, don't be afraid to post something on the forum or send a mail to support

I already have bookings until around January for the room, still accepting students for online coaching ofcourse, and/or grinding for APA points, feel free to email me for positions on the waiting list! will be keeping you all updated on the forum :)

Ryu Dang

Big Project Coming Soon

Hi guys, sorry for another long period without any updates.. but I have been pretty busy with everything as usual :D The trip to Macau was pretty good, basically it was more a holiday trip then really a working trip, but I did do some other work relating stuff which gave birth to this new upcoming project...

Basically I will be the head poker coach for an existing coaching site and become their official Thailand office.
I can't really reveal any more details, since everything is still in the works and we still need to work out a proper structure.. but just know you will be able to get quality poker coaching soon at an affordable price from quality coaches from Thailand poker pros. Awesome no? ;)

I am very excited about this project, because it will also mean that there will be a lot of great opportunities like, people moving over and living in our Thailand grinders house to get live coaching, which is obviously a lot better and have a taste of Thailand's great nightlife ;)
Don't miss out on this chance of a lifetime!

more details will be following soon!

Ryu Dang

poker robot

Yep, have been working my ass off, did like 60k hands in 2 weeks and I'm up in overall + getting a ton of rakeback, so it's been all good past month. Going to get ready now for my live grind in Macau :) Flying in on this Wednesday, hope I run good this time, but I think I need a small break from the online grind anyways. I just booked a one way ticket, so I don't really know when I will be back to Bangkok... I guess I will just see how things fare over there (or when I run out of Hong Kong Dollars lol).

Got a sick promotion right now for the APT Manila main event, upcoming this 21st of August, so I'm definitely going to participate in that one as well, hope I can pick up a good cash once in my life in a big tournament event.. I feel ready haha :D

Will try to write another Macau trip report once I get back.. and I hope my students won't go busto while I'm away, because I won't be bringing my laptop this time, so it will be hard for me to be very reachable.

Cheers!
Ryu

The Good and The Bad

I guess I should start with the bad :p things haven't been working out very well at the tables, I ran like a dog on the high limit tables which got me in a horrible downswing, and I'm stuck a ton of monies for the last month :(

What about the good things then? during the bad run I did work a lot on my game and my biggest weaknesses, which is mainly heads up, so I got coaching for that and it has been paying off a lot for sure. I feel lot more comfortable now playing in HU situations.
I guess I can't really say I have been playing very bad, just very unlucky and a ton of cooler spots. Oh and meanwhile I picked up staking a friend (and coaching him also), and the rest of my students are doing very well, all of them are up on the microstakes, well maybe not all of them. Only my brother in law who is gambling on the midstakes with no bankroll is stuck a little bit :p But that's his own choice, he still is up on overall though :p The rest have been going stable and making profits for like 6 or 7 weeks in a row now. Small amounts but well its microstakes :p I guess that makes me proud as well that the work they have put in is paying off.

I got a trip planned back to Macau end of this month, get out of the online grind for a bit and hope to do better this time in the live grind. I feel very confident about my game right now, so let's hope for the best. Oh I switched playing on a different site now also, mostly because there were almost no midstakes games running anymore on my previous site.. back to holdem manager and HUDs :D well at least I can post some graphs in the future so you can see how clearly below EV im running haha ;)

good luck to you all
Ryu Dang

still alive :)

Hi guys,

I know I haven't been updating much, but I have been pretty busy doing poker related stuff but not really fully committing all my time grinding. Things have been working out pretty slowly at the tables, swinging ups and downs, but in the end mainly end positive, so that's a good thing :D

I have been dedicating more time to my affiliate-rakeback business for poker players, since I think they deserve more of my attention now since black Friday.. if any of u guys were in a black hole, basically the biggest pokersites like Pokerstars and Full Tilt poker have been sued and withdrawn now from the american poker market, leaving a ton of players without a home to play in. So I thought it was a nice opportunity for me to pick up on the market changes and secure some good deals and proper stable spots where people can grind out on. So players still looking for some deals, just hook me up and we will work something out.

As for coming trips, I have decided not to go to the WSOP this year, since the black Friday event will definitely have a huge impact on the event, having a ton of less players, due to no satelite events and it will probably be a lot tougher then previous editions. So I have just decided to make another trip to China (get my visa before leaving this time :p) and hit Macau again for a decent time of live poker grinding. I still think the games are very good there, less ofcourse then a few years ago, but still very profitable imo.

And last but not least my students and closest friends have started to actually grind now on microstakes, playing mainly NL10 after about 8 weeks of getting poker theory by me. And I'm glad to say they are doing pretty well, making a lot of progress, I might even dare say faster then I have expected. So I hope they can catch up on flop experience and keep up the good work and stay focused on their task while moving up the limits.

Ryu Dang

Macau Trip Report

First of all let's start with the beginning, the plan was to take the express link from Macau to China mainland for 2 days of relaxation and degenning before we would actually start working. Me and Dave finally managed to find the correct link and the bus stopped us at the border, however according to the wikitravel we could get a visa on arrival, but the immigration said that the visa office was closed, so we got send back to Macau. We took a cab back to the tourist center and asked some questions on how to get a visa, but alas, nothing was possible so we just gave up and just booked in our hotel at overprized prices ofcourse :p Meanwhile Kane a friend from Singapore was already in mainland China and was waiting for us, and was walking around waiting for my confirmation, because I booked the hotels already in China in advance (yep another 160$ or so thrown away). He was in all panicking mode until I managed to catch him on MSN while he was in some random internet shop :) Told him to get back to Macau :p

Since the tournament started already, we decided to take a look and I found out that I could actually enter the first day already although, I couldn't register online. Just needed to pay the entry fee in cash. I was playing pretty well and got pretty deep until one hand that busted me out in a dramatic way.

I was on the BB and got dealt 5h2d and a few limpers, so I checked and the flop came T52 rainbow
I was second chipleader and the chipleader bets out (he only covered me by about 2000 chips though), I decided to flat his bet there, turn came a 6h, now there is a backdoor flushdraw. He decided to barrel it again, I tank for a bit, looking down again to see if I had the blocker heart on the flushdraw and shoved it in.. he snapcalled with QhTh, having top pair and now the backdoor flushdraw. Sadly enough the river came a 7h which terminated my first day. Still got a nice photo and mentioning on the pokerstars blog though :p which you can find back here: http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/pokerstars_macau/2011/macau-millions-day-1a-levels-11---15-bli-079959.html and the chipleader ended winning Day 1.

I thought I played very decently throughout the whole week though, but I just ran very bad, during the tournaments I lost keymoments like 77 vs A2 preflop all in and there was a hand on the second day that was pretty interesting I think. Blinds were 600/1200 with 100 ante.
UTG made a minraise to 2.4k , UTG+1 made it 6k, I peak down on the button and I see AKo, so I decided to shove 26k into a now 11k pot, I think even if I didn't have a premium hand, it would have still been a good move with all the dead money inside. Sadly enough the UTG+1 guy who had the same amount of chips as me, decided to gamble and couldn't let go of his TT and won the flip. I think if I would have won that flip, it would have been again a totally different story..

Same things went on on the cash game tables, just a ton of coolers and sick beats. I had this pretty nasty hand with TT on a KT8 flop, turn came an 8, river came an A, which made the flush complete, and yeah sadly enough he had the QsJs to complete his straight flush versus my turned full house. Ran against a few flush over flushes and a few set over sets also, pretty much the story of my life at the moment.. same thing when I got back home and started playing online, I lost AK vs AK preflop all in, then KK vs AK, then AA vs AK and then set over set and then flush over flush... lol talking about having a bad run :p Anyways, I still feel very confident about my current play level though, think it will turn around eventually and I definitely got some life upswings during the macau trip, had great fun and gained a ton of experience :)

Ryu Dang

dedicated work

I have been grinding a ton again lately and I think I am back where I have left off before last year. Dedicated again, and having several lockdown and 12 hour grinding days again.. been running terrible but in the end always seems to be clocking profit, so I guess I should not be complaining :) Further on I have been preparing myself for the trip to China and Macau this week, I am leaving this Saturday and will be grinding live and hopefully bring the Macau Millions Cup back home ;) I think it's due time that I get lucky once hehe ;)

I got lucky before actually already because it appears I still needed to go to school to apply for my Student Visa extension papers, and I would have never gone to the school if I wasn't planning on going to Macau in the first place, so that would mean I would have to throw away another visa, which would be my second one lol. Would be a very tilting thing :D So basically by spending money on the trip, I saved money on the visa, so freeroll? lol

I have been making videos lately for my friends back in Belgium to help them ease into their new part time poker carreer, hope they appreciate the work, because it really is very time consuming.. not only the making of it but also the follow up. I think they will be ready soon in a few weeks to actually start playing a hand ;) but that would definitely mean a ton more follow up.

Will be having a friend from Singapore flying over tomorrow, so I will probably hang out with him for a bit instead of going to my regular two times a week football session. Get ready with the packing of my stuff and try to wake up in time Saturday morning around 4 am to catch my flight :) The buy in for the main event is very small, so I won't be selling out any action.. time for a hit though ;)

good luck
Ryu Dang

recovery run

Had the worst afternoon session yesterday, lost 3 pots who were all about 4K$ against this guy who was running hotter then hell... each time was the same scenario. I would flop two pair on the flop and he would flop a flushdraw and just jam it all in... but he hit 3 times in a row. I was like sigh... but then the sickest moment came when this huge fish came down doubled up and we both had 4k$ stacks and he wanted to make a play 4 betted my raise, I 5 betted with AA and he jammed, I snapped he showed 23o... flop 2 6 8 rainbow, then K on turn and BINK 3 on the river. Almost wanted to throw my laptop!! sick freaking hell 8k$ pot gone just like that.. mark that as the biggest losing pot of the year 2011 lol. So in the end I was stuck about over 10k$ total. So much sigh, I quit playing and went to bed.. ofcourse couldn't sleep but I took a rest of about an hour or two.. then went back and did a marathon session (grinded 16 hours total) to end up with making back about 8k$ (had a sick 8k$ stack on the nl2k tables at one point) and then today I managed to make a sick call with A high on a 4K$ pot.. sick adrenaline rush after that.. totally super FISTPUMP!!

So now im slightly up for the week. Oh yeah.. not touching poker for today anymore.. just gonna watch a movie, well if that superfish doesn't sit down again haha... anyways gonna get ready for footie :) have a good one fellas.

Ryu Dang

not the hottest run

Been playing steadily again, putting in the hours.. but it is pretty annoying when you see all your profits go away by running terrible.. had a decent afternoon session to lose almost over half of it during the evening session :( ran KK vs AA twice and set over set twice and then my turned nutflush got owned by set that river paired up, total good for dropping 5 buy ins :/

Not only have I have been picking up more hands and more hours at the tables, I have been playing twice a week football again also, think I will get a good condition and form back in a few months, be afraid lol -_-'

Beginning of next month I'm probably moving to Macau for a week to play the Macau Millions Cup and maybe a few days of degenning in Hong Kong / China ;) Hope I finally will score a big one, and be a lucky koala ;) for the rest I'm gonna keep putting in the hours to coach my friends, which I must say have been steadily improving vastly and ofcourse keep working hard at the tables crushing the asian fish that are around :D

wish you all the best
Ryu Dang

back at work

Been silently putting in average 4 hours days for the last week, but running so incredible bad that im stuck quite a lot for this month, slowly back to my standard 8 hour averages now... the sites im playing on their software is so bad and laggy that I had to buy a new laptop to make sure that im able to grind normally... so say hello to another spew. Bought the best available laptop in the shop, which was either an Acer or an HP with Intel Core i7 and 8gb DDR3 ram and a 4GB DDR3 ATI vga card, which is basically a very high end spec for a laptop lol. Anyways I went for the HP this time because I wasn't too happy with my last laptop which was an Acer... actualy I wanted to buy the Asus NX90 or the Alienware MX17 but first one wasn't available and the last one was so overpriced in Thailand in comparison with Dell online USA shop.

Anyways, I got injured playing football last week, got a stubbed left toe and a bruised shin after the game.. so have to take it a bit easy for the coming week.. although I just felt that I was making improvements on my conditioning lol.

Honestly felt that coaching my friends takes up so much time, was hoping it would be less.. but no turning back now. One guy already dropped the course, that's one less I suppose.. yep it's not easy to make money out of poker nowadays.. it takes a lot of time, dedication and hard work. That's just how it is... after my long break, I feel like I have to start over again, definitely not playing good also in combo with running bad. Hope my focus will be back and I can make some monies again soon.

Ryu Dang

sick :(

have been sick the past few weeks, it really all started just before I made my trip out of Bangkok for my student visa to Vientiane, started to cough a little bit, and it only got worse by then sigh.. didn't do much during my trip, just did a few touristy spots and chilled out at a few nice restaurants and enjoyed the quiet atmosphere. I got my visa fixed pretty quickly so I'm pretty much settled for at least a year here in Bangkok. Only thing that annoyed me the last week is that my coughing doesn't seem to be stopping very quickly, and I can't really focus or concentrate on my grinding, so I decided to take a (well now extremely) long break from the felt and just do some side work like my affiliate business. I'm on like a ton of medication, so I guess it's normal that I'm not able to fully focus and feel a bit dizzy and very tired all the time. Hope this will go away soon and I can make another sick month. Wish all you guys a happy chinese new year also, hopefully the rabbit brings us all good fortune.

Ryu Dang

holidays!

Yeah, I haven't been really playing last few weeks to be honest.. been morphing from a working robot into a party animal haha. I guess I deserved a good amount of degen after working so hard the last few months. I can't let it all devour my attention though, the plan is still to work hard and to make enough money to buy my first condo around March. I did make a return today at the tables, and grinded like 4 or 5 hours and I was running pretty bad, had a few cooler spots like KK vs AA twice and a flopped flush vs overflush, but in the end still managed to make some money, so I can't complain :)
I have to do a visa run and get my student visa done before the end of this month, so I'm thinking about flying to Laos and back, not that there is anything there, but it's just the quickest and fastest option. Losing a couple of days, but it will be the last time because I will be good for at least a year (extendable up to 3 years) so, it's all good ^_^
anyways, gonna try to put in more hours and warm up for next month when my visa and all that stuff is clear, gonna seriously grind my hours then, back to the robot.

Further on, although I said I quit coaching, I am coaching 4 of my friends back home in Belgium, giving them assignments and theory of poker while checking up on them every week. Ofcourse I had to start from scratch, so it will take a while before they will actually hit the felt, but I hope they appreciate the effort (because I do lose a lot of time because of it) but well, it's my last shot of helping them, and they know it. Hope they will listen this time and put in the effort! Because it's well worth it imo....

cheers,
Ryu Dang

Happy New Year! 2011 yay!

Just have to start the year with a bang.. my first hand of 2011 on NL2000 went like this..
I waited for BB to post then got QQ, there was a raise before, and then a flat, a minraise, then a flat, and I was already going for it, in my mind I already decided I will never fold already no matter what so I shoved the 2000$ in it and I saw one guy snapcall, and then another guy snapcalling behind me.. I couldn't believe what I saw, it was QQ vs KK vs AA ... wow.. nice first hand of the year.. all the cards went blank and the last card was a pretty lady haha, scooping the 5k$+ pot to me.. yep.. it's gonna be an awesome 2011, I just know it now already :D

had a nice party at the penthouse from the poker crushers, lots of people, I was guessing around 100 for sure, place was booming and it was a very enjoyable evening, gonna continue to relax for a bit this week since I did work pretty hard the last few months, and I don't wanna burn out although I'm playing really solid lately imo and I feel like I'm on the top of my game

but for now it's catching up on a few series, watching a few movies, watching UFC and more things like that to enjoy my life a bit, although I did still put in hands every day, it's just cutting down a bit on the marathons or standard 8 hour day workschedule hehe :)

here are my new year goals for 2011:

1. buy a (few) condo's in Thailand or a house back in Belgium
2. ship 400k$
3. keep this trend updating my blog :)
4. focus on keeping improving my game, and not make the same mistake as before being stuck in it
5. be a good friend and person overall

wishing you all a prosper 2011!

Ryu Dang