It's amazing to me that Absolute Poker is still running commercials on ESPN but the one I just saw has so much more meaning now. It shows a guy on his laptop at work (cubicle) with coworkers around cheering him on. I started laughing my ass off. They must have taken some real footage from the Absolute offices.

Poker Update
I'm taking a small break from poker...a few days. I was running crazy and felt like I was evaluating almost every situation correctly. Then I got too confident and noticed that I was making stupid ass decisions...ones that I would never make. Luckily I know when to stop.

I've been running pretty well lately until an $800 loss today but I thought I'd post a couple of my losing hands which I thought were played fine.


FullTiltPoker Game #3911937945: Table Trails End (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 11:32:40 ET - 2025/10/20
Seat 1: ericberen ($541.50)
Seat 2: Swami54 ($422)
Seat 3: Voronin ($147.20)
Seat 4: FAST4DOOR ($535.10)
Seat 5: bootleg-left ($521.70)
Seat 6: OsUBrutuss ($400)
Voronin posts the small blind of $2
FAST4DOOR posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Swami54 [4c 4h]
bootleg-left folds
OsUBrutuss folds
ericberen raises to $14
Swami54 calls $14
Voronin folds
FAST4DOOR folds
*** FLOP *** [6s 7s 6h]
ericberen bets $24
Swami54 calls $24
*** TURN *** [6s 7s 6h] [Qh]
ericberen has 15 seconds left to act
ericberen checks
Swami54 bets $60
ericberen has 15 seconds left to act
ericberen has requested TIME
ericberen calls $60
*** RIVER *** [6s 7s 6h Qh] [2d]
ericberen checks
Swami54 bets $150
ericberen has 15 seconds left to act
ericberen has requested TIME
ericberen calls $150
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Swami54 shows [4c 4h] two pair, Sixes and Fours
ericberen shows [5h 5d] two pair, Sixes and Fives
ericberen wins the pot ($499) with two pair, Sixes and Fives


I will sometimes rr pre but cold called this time because he had been cbetting any flop and I thought I could take him off a hand on certain flops. I liked the flop and he had only been firing 2 streets when he had the goods so I floated. His call on the turn seemed like a draw and his river check seemed very weak so I fired again. He took a long time to call and must have put me on a draw. Good call for him.


FullTiltPoker Game #3912032766: Table Beeline (6 max) - $3/$6 - No Limit Hold'em - 11:47:38 ET - 2025/10/20
Seat 1: JulienFR ($2,081.05)
Seat 2: Dieselduck ($149.25)
Seat 3: Miscela ($625.80)
Seat 4: Rocky99 ($897.40)
Seat 5: dean06 ($628.65)
Seat 6: Swami54 ($615.75)
Swami54 posts the small blind of $3
JulienFR posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Swami54 [Kd Ad]
Dieselduck raises to $15
Miscela folds
Rocky99 folds
dean06 folds
Swami54 raises to $50
JulienFR folds
Dieselduck calls $35
*** FLOP *** [Ac 2d Th]
Swami54 checks
Dieselduck checks
*** TURN *** [Ac 2d Th] [6c]
Swami54 checks
Dieselduck has 15 seconds left to act
Dieselduck bets $28
Swami54 calls $28
*** RIVER *** [Ac 2d Th 6c] [Qs]
Swami54 bets $162
Dieselduck calls $71.25, and is all in
Uncalled bet of $90.75 returned to Swami54
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Swami54 shows [Kd Ad] a pair of Aces
Dieselduck shows [Kh Jh] a straight, Ace high
Dieselduck wins the pot ($301.50) with a straight, Ace high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $304.50 | Rake $3
Board: [Ac 2d Th 6c Qs]
Seat 1: JulienFR (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: Dieselduck showed [Kh Jh] and won ($301.50) with a straight, Ace high
Seat 3: Miscela didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Rocky99 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: dean06 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Swami54 (small blind) showed [Kd Ad] and lost with a pair of Aces

I suppose I somewhat screwed this hand up but this guy was playing fast and I felt he was getting all in no matter what he had with his short stack after he called my rr so I tried to make it look like I didn't have an ace.



I actually played very poorly on many other hands today. I've been running so well that I was playing too many hands. I guess 6 tabling last night while slightly inebriated doesn't help either :)

"I've reset my goals from winning...to finishing ahead of Swami....to surviving long enough to post an ante." - EdmondDantes

I won the tworags championship...lol. I think Dante and I were the only ones who entered. He was getting some terrible cards and lost a big chunk of his stack with A6 vs 77 on a 667 flop. I took advantage of the weak play early to have 3x my original stack and then misplayed AK twice! It was so bad I don't even want to post the hand.

I stacked back up with some resteals and won AQ vs JJ. My bustout hand was bad. I had QQ in the BB. The tight utg raised 4x and everyone folded to me. At 1500/3000 ante 300, his stack was 200,000 and mine was 85,000. The 4x raise made me believe it was a scared JJ or AK so I thought I would call and see how he reacts. The flop came K 4 2 and I checked. He bet 1/2 pot and I should have folded but my dumb ass reraised. He had AK. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


I also played the 100K guarantee on Bodog and was reminded why I'm starting to lean extremely towards cash games. There was a LP raiser and I had AA in the BB. A few hands earlier he raised UTG+1 and I called in mp with KK because the guy in the blinds was playing crazy and reraising pots with a bunch of callers. Only original raiser and I saw a K 5 3. He bet 2/3 pot and I called. Turn was 8 and he bet 1/2 pot. I reraised 3x and he folded bitching that he had QQ. I reraised him a couple of times after that and he was getting pissed :)

Back to the AA hand. Blinds 75/150 His stack was 3000 and he raised 450. My stack was 10,000 I reraised to 1300 and he called. Q 3 2 Since I had been pushing him around, I shoved knowing he would call with any pair and a Q and he called with 24o. Hello chiplead!!! Oh wait....4 on the river. At least I still had a decent stack.

I eventually busted later when my AK was reraised by a LAG and I shoved. His AQ hit two pair. Oh well. Variance is a bitch.

Well...we'll see if this works because the requirement is to have a blog for a minimum of 2 months. I'm exactly at 2 months to the day tomorrow.

I've been trying to watch the Yankees lose tonight but the TBS feed keeps messing up so it makes it nearly impossible to watch. I figured I would make an update since I haven't in awhile. Sports are actually screwing with my poker playing time. Playoff baseball is fun to watch and Sundays is football time so I haven't played too much...which is ok. The nice thing about poker is being able to play when I feel like it. I can't imagine having to do it for a living. Nath seems really down about his play of late and it's taking a toll on his mental health. You'll get out of the funk Nath.

Everyone says that if you want to make good money playing poker stick to cash games. Yet there are sooooo many people killing the online tournaments that I feel I'm missing out. My schedule right now suits cash games as I can only play for a few hours at a time but if I had more time I wonder what the best avenue to take would be? I know that the top tournament players play 20 tournaments a day and the variance is huge, but couldn't they make more money playing cash games? I continue to read 2+2 posts daily about tournament situations but maybe I should venture into the cash game forums and make myself at home.

Goal update
Even while only playing sparingly I've made my way up to 3/6. Why the hell did I ever bonus whore? lol
I may need to switch over to Full Tilt since they have many more 3/6 games going. At FT I'll also be able to use pokertracker. I've been playing at a site that doesn't support PT so I have no idea what my stats are. Reviewing my stats should really be a part of my growth as a player. The only reason I haven't been playing at FT is because I don't have rakeback there.

For EdmondDante: You may be the only one that reads my blog...lol I need to be more proactive about finding people to talk to about poker. Do you mainly play live? On IM at all? Interested in discussing any hands?