WPT Bucharest – through to day 2
Posted by Viktoria | Filed under Live Tournaments
We only played 6 levels on the first day – I loved it because long days make me more and more tired being 6 months pregnant.
Anyway, we started with 15k in chips and I have 42k after the first day. Appr. 90 players are left out of 160. I had a good table, I knew some players with whom I played before. I had Sorel Mizzi at my table, I respect his play very much, but his style is very different from mine. He is a good player though. When I play with someone I respect, I usually try to learn something from him even if I wouldn’t ever be able to play his style. I believe that there are things to learn from good players and you can always pick something up.
I felt that I played well and even when my move didn’t work out the way I planned, the board helped me out 
So I was in the wrong spot at the right time ))
I felt I could play correctly against anyone at the table – I made the right calls and the right lay-downs as well (I folded an overpair on a 6 high flop to Mizzi when he had Aces – it is not easy to do that given his image).
I was also lucky to get some hands when I really needed them – exactly at the times when the table started to question that I always had a hand (so I showed them that I did )).
I think tomorrow we will play down to 24 players. It will probably be one of the most important days (except the final table) of the tournament. If I can play well and get a nice stack, anything can happen! I feel like I deserve it finally 
DD
First light 6bet of my life :)
Posted by Viktoria | Filed under Live Tournaments
I played several live tournaments in Austria, the Spring Festival and the EPT Snowfest. I discovered two important leaks in my game which will hopefully help me to improve in the future.
I think I played the best game on the EPT €2000 side-event where I made the first light 6-bet of my life )) Although it sounds risky and very wild on the 2nd level of a tournament, I actually played with that opponent 8 hours the previous day so I knew his game and I knew what I was doing. He was the kind of guy who just keeps 3-betting very light, in and out of position all the time. It was obvious that when somebody first played back at him with a 4-bet, he has to defend his 3-bet by 5-betting light. So I thought one level further and 6-bet him with my pocket 3s and he folded As it turns out I still had the best hand (from what he said afterward and I believe him) which I had thought I probably did.
Anyway, I lost a 150BB pot not long after this against the same guy when he went all-in with his flush draw against my QT on the QJ9 flop and he hit his flush.
KK vs AA pre-flop confrontations also keep hunting me. After I had KK vs AA 3 times on the EPT in Deauville I was very unhappy that on the Main Event here it happened again. That crippled me enough to get knocked out not long after.
I met some good players though and some famous ones as well . On my €1000 side-event, I was sat right next to Boris Becker after a table change. I arrived to the table, said hello, Boris greeted me and as I sat down he said “Hello, I’m Boris!” “Hello, I’m Viktoria, nice to meet you” Then I told him that when he was a big tennis player, I was a sports reporter in Hungary and commentated the Olympics and stuff. He said that was his previous life, so I told him so was mine! We had fun, he is a nice guy, and he sat behind me – you always want to make friends with the guy sitting behind you but not in front of you
Next is WPT Bucharest, I am flying tomorrow, I hope I can finally show some nice results!
Out, but happy
Posted by Viktoria | Filed under Live Tournaments
I played in a €1650 tournament in my home town, Budapest, Hungary. This was the first time ever that I felt proud after getting knocked out. I think it is partly thanks to the Poker Mindset book which emphasizes that if you did it right, the result doesn’t matter.
But previously it did matter and I felt very sad even if I got knocked out with my AA in pre-flop all-in by AK (which happened more than once). This time however I just felt proud that I had a plan, I executed it perfectly and the showdown was great as planned. The little difference was only that I planned to get a maximum of one caller not two.
The hand went like this: I lost half my chips by the end of level 4, BB 200 and I had about 5k. UTG limped and I found 88 in UTG+1. I think limping here on our very aggressive table with the plan of re-raising all-in after a raise is a much superior play to raising. First, I get a nice amount of dead money in the pot that way and that improved the EV of my play. Second, 88 is very difficult to play from this stack oop if I happen to get called pre-flop.
So I limped. Sure enough a raise came from MP to 1050 and to my delight there were two callers from LP, plus one of the blinds and then the UTG player as well. So when I pushed my 5k in the middle there were already over 5k in the pot. The raise over-pushed his 7,5k and the UTG also called (after limping originally!). I knew UTG had AK at this point, we had been playing together for 4 hours by this time. I hoped the MP player also had a big ace which he did. He showed AQ and I had a 44% chance to quadruple up! This was the dream scenario for me and I felt very good about it despite the fact that the Q on the flop and the A on the river gave the pot to the worst pre-flop hand.
Anyway, I don’t mind, I think the plan was good and it also worked out, so I am happy!
The Poker Mindset
Posted by Viktoria | Filed under Baby stuff, Everest Poker, Poker Education
Sigurd from the Everest Poker Live The Dream Team told me about this book so I read it. He said it helped him a lot. I agree, it is a good book although for me it was more of a confirmation of what I already knew. I never had any bankroll problems in my poker career, I never lost my bankroll or played too high stakes for my bankroll.
I used to have serious problems with tilting, but I usually noticed it and stood up from the tables. I only tilted away serious money once and it wasn’t that much money ($4500). I think somehow I also managed to avoid big downswings. I think the main reason for this is that I panic much earlier than a serious downswing could hit and I start to analyze my game, my mistakes well on time. I also drop down a level very easily if I feel I need to recoup my confidence when things aren’t going well.
I am proud of the fact that since the summer of 2008 I haven’t had a losing month.
I still found the book very useful, just to summarize whatever is important in this subject, but also got some good advice. I know that making good decisions is more important than winning or losing, but I wouldn’t say I am indifferent to money in poker – although that is what you should aim for.
I also noticed looking at the Amazon poker books, that I basically read all the educational books (not story-telling) on the first 4-5 pages. It took me 4 years of only reading poker books, nothing else.
So now I will turn more to the videos on the internet, some of which are very useful. Last summer I met Annette at the Everest Poker party during the WSOP and she said she watches 2-3 videos every day. So I signed up on some sites on her advice and she was right
Oh, and of course, I started to read baby-books instead of the poker books
Congrats Francesco!
Posted by Viktoria | Filed under Live Tournaments
Just a very quick post – I would like to say congrats to our Everest Live The Dream Team fellow member, Francesco De Vivo for coming 2nd in EPT Copenhagen!
NAPT Main Event – busted, but played well
Posted by Viktoria | Filed under Live Tournaments
I must say although I was out at the end of the first day, I think I played the best poker of my life. I feel that I am capable of winning a big tournament and that it will happen if the cards come just a little bit my way.
I like the structure on these tournaments very much – 30,000 starting chips, 60 min. levels and slow increase in the blinds. There is just so much poker you can play and it allows for some mistakes as well as to get away from some big hands if you need to.
So what happened was that right on the first level I lost 10,000 of my chips. I was very happy that I only lost that much, I think many players would have gone broke on this hand. I raised from the HJ with AKo to 250 (BB is 100) and got re-raised by the weakest link at the table, the girl in seat 1 to 650.
The flop comes AK3r, she bets 1000, I call. Turn is a 3. She bets 1000, I raise to 3800. She calls (she didn’t like to fold any of her hands.) River is K. She bets 5k. I was thinking very long if there was any value in raising. My thought process was: there is no way she re-raised me with KQ, KJ-type of hand, so basically with any K. Those would be the hands that pay me off if I raise. She can’t have 33 either for the same reason.
Would she bet 5k with just an A on this board? I don’t think so and she is not likely to call a big raise without a K anyway. She might bluff with QQ or JJ but she would fold those to a raise. So basically I came to the conclusion that there is no value whatsoever in raising and I am probably beat anyway. So I just called and she showed me AA.
I was down to 21k. I worked my way back up to 44k, I think I played well and felt good about it too. Then this hand came up where I raise from EP with 33, only the BB called (one of the best players at the table) and the flop came 963 with two hearts. He checked and I bet, he re-raised to 6000 and he has 8000 more left so I put him all-in, he turns over QT of hearts. Turn is a 7, river is an 8 and he makes a straight and takes the 40k pot. I am down to 25k.
Then the blinds started to get higher in the last hour, 800/400/75. I worked my way back up to 38k again, but I had a though table.
There were 2 very good players at the table, another 3 also competent, 2 that had some idea and 2 weaker ones. The table wasn’t overly aggressive until the blinds got big enough but on the last level of the day all hands started with a raise and a re-raise followed by a 4bet multiple times. For the last 4 times I raised, I got re-raised 3 times and I folded all my hands. (My AQ UTG vs. AK UTG+1, my AT vs an all-in, etc.) I am sure that most of my folds were correct. When I re-raised, I also got a 4bet, I had AK this time and she had KK. I folded again. However, I know from the frequency of the 3bets and 4bets that there were some light 3bets and light 4bets (shown) as well. I also squeezed a raise and a call twice by this time.
So when I raised from EP again and the same looser but very good player re-raised me again, I shoved with my AQs and he insta-called with AK. I still had appr. 38k at this point so I could have folded again. (And most likely should have.)
I think I probably made a mistake by shoving at this spot but probably the mistake is not particularly big. Sooner or later I had to take a stand. The problem was that I raised from EP so I should have thought that even if he is a loose raiser-reraiser, he will give me some credit for it. At the same time I folded my last 2 raises from EP and they saw me raising with 33 from EP.
So it is debatable if this was the spot to sort of semi-light 4bet. I probably should have waited for a hand where I raise from late position, I have a hand that is not easily dominated and make a stand then. However I don’t think I could have waited much longer because they would have just ran over me.
Anyway, I felt that I probably could have picked my spot better. Anyone has some insights about it?
First tournament win as a Live The Dream member!
Posted by Viktoria | Filed under Live Tournaments
First of all, I must say that I am absolutely delighted to be a member of the Everest Poker Live The Dream 2010 Team! I will be traveling the world for the first time in my life as a poker pro! This is really a dream come true.
I played my first tournament as a team member in Deauville at the EPT where I didn’t cash. However on my second trip I won a tournament already!
I came to Las Vegas a couple of days ago for the NAPT (North-American Poker Tour) and I decided to play several smaller side events for $350 and $560. The first one I played I won right away ))))
I am very happy, this was the first live international tournament that I won. I made some final tables before but never actually won outside of Hungary.
I had very good cards during the whole tournament, I think I played well too, and my edges held up most of the time. Even my AA held up on the Final Table (It never did so before!)
I know it wasn’t a huge tournament, 327 players and $350 buy-in, but for example WSOP Main Event champion, Jerry Yang was playing it too!
I will play some more of these side events and then the Main Event which has a $5000 buy-in. I think I am ready to win one of the big tournaments now ))
