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of u guys were in a black hole, basically the biggest pokersites like Pokerstars and Full Tilt poker have been sued and withdrawn now from the american poker market, leaving a ton of players without a home to play in.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