CARDRUNNERS

 I just finished up my final session for the year and happy to say it ended up nicely winning a couple of BI's. 
This month has been pretty action packed. Hit 10k twice this month and then went on some pretty nasty downswings. Ended up recovering pretty well and finished the month off with decent results. Had some pretty sick sessions, one +$2.5k in 50mins 4 tabling a reg, and then a -2.5k session 4 tabling another reg. All in all Im pretty happy with the month despite the downswing at the end. I really felt I ran pretty poorly in some big SD pots but that happens as earlier in the month I won some pretty huge pots as a huge dog. 




Just had a read over my goals from last year and happy to say I have done reasonably well. My goal was to clear 50K and although I fell short it wasnt by much with rakeback and coaching. I was under stake for some of the year though so in terms of money in my pocket/roll it was a decent year but not spectacular. What I am happiest about is the learning progress I felt Ive made this year in both my own game and coaching. My only official goal for poker next year is to improve at the same rate I did last year. I am certain that if I can achieve this I will met my unofficial monetary goals that at this time Im keeping to myself. This is quite exciting as even the past 3 months I feel I have learnt sooo much through hard work and the help of some good friends, theWillofD, PJJ, timyan and all the guys I have worked with in coaching. 

As for 09 it was an interesting year. We started out in Brazil and at this time last year we were really enjoying it there. Unfortunately things didnt work out and we ended up heading back to Sydney end of March. Since we got back though things have been great. I had a shitty period in August/Sept where my results were really poor and effected me greatly. Fortunately I set about getting a qualification out of it and even if it is never put into use Im glad I did it. It certainly put me in a much better state of mind to play poker and with successful recent results Im pretty happy to continue at this point. I have been giving it a lot of thought lately and really need to consider what a fortunate position I am in at the moment. I am feeling really happy with my game and know I can still improve so I think it is really important to keep working hard and be greatful for the position my hard work has put me in.

My other goal for next year is to be smarter with money especially my roll. Too often I get myself in a position where my roll isnt as padded as id like and this really effects me. Not so much at the tables but how I deal with the variance which in turn causes a shit load of stress that I would really prefer to avoid! That said Im planning on doing a decent amount of travel again in 2010 if all goes to plan. We are heading to Melbourne for about a week in Jan, hopefully get to LA / NYC for a friends 30th in Feb and then have another friends wedding in China in August. So plenty to look forward to for the new year that is for sure. 

Anyway some amusing hands from Dec to finish off the new year:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5027851 My thinnest value bet I think I have ever made. And no I didnt expect to be good when I was called.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5027859 Possibly my most -EV Ctrl+M bluff of the year...weeeeeee

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5027863 A sexy little hero call

And this one is my all time favourite hand for the year:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?5027899
GL to you all for a successful 2010! 

November ended up being one of the best months Ive ever had. I hit $10k in profits with about a week to go in the month and decided to give myself a week off as we had some guests from OS staying with us for a week  towards end Nov/ start Dec and I wanted to keep the 5 figure month intact and not go on some downer. I had put in a reasonably amount of hands so was obv really happy. The day they were due to arrive of course I decided to play out of boredom and FTP sent me on a $1500 downer to teach me a lesson. I managed to robusto back about $1k so ended up missing the 5 figure month... oh well. 
We had a cool week showing our friends around Sydney's northern beaches and went for a short trip down to Canberra. Was great catching up with them again. I missed the start of December playing but have managed to post some really good results of late. Ive also been doing a ton of coaching and still really enjoying that a bunch. I have been playing a bit of 100NLHU on stars as I received some money on their for coaching and thought it would be nice to try and run up a roll there to split the action as getting action just on FTP of late has been pretty difficult. I have managed to get some nice 2-4 tabling matches going though vs a number of regs and have been very happy with the results so that has been cool. Ive worked pretty hard on my game the past few months after the break I took so its nice to be seeing the hard work paying off. Ive had a bunch of mutual sweats with theWillofD and Timyan and that has definitely helped me a ton. 
Here are the results for Nov:

Results so far for Dec: 

Not sure how much more Ill get to play with holidays etc coming up - the weather here atm is awesome and with the beach in sight from my balcony its pretty hard to stay motivated to play. 
This hand is pretty awesome:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4975153 I basically fist pump called this. Not a hero call. A fist pump value call. I saw his hand at SD and thought to myself weeeeeeeeeeee. Then the chips fly across the table to him and I literally yell WTF! How the hell do I lose to a 7hi flush when I have the Qhi flu......... Oh I have Qhi. I swore I flopped a FD on the flop which is LOL redic given my cards are black and the board is red. I LOLd to myself and told the guy merry xmas im retarted and literally thought I had the flush there. He obliged by insta sitting out and hit n running me. I mean WTF seriously. I donate a BI, am that retarted I cant read my own hand/board and he quits. It has pretty much summed up just how pathetic some of the action is getting atm. I shouldnt complain as things could be much worse but whatever. 
Havent really got any awesome ctrl+m's atm. Been doing a few but nothing too special. Here is one vs a red pro so that was fun:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4975159 This one was on stars but I dont know how to Ctrl+M on there its something different and I tried but alas no show. Was still fun though...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4975162
Thats all - gl all, crush hard and have an awesome Xmas etc...

Hey all,
Ive just updated my coaching rates and uploaded some screen shots and testemonials.
(This pricing is current as of Feb 01 2010) 

The session pricing will be as follows:

$150 / session for new students
$600 for the 5 session package*
$100 / session for returning students**

 * 5 session package will include 1 theory session and 4 practical

sessions (sweats/video reviews). You will also get a copy of my

HU manual that I have compiled and access to some videos.

** Returning students are those that have completed more than 5 sessions.

For further information please feel free to contact me:

(e) mr_ladrao@hotmail.com

AIM: MRLADRA0 (the o is a zero)

Here is a screenshot of my results at 100NLHU and 200NLHU (April09 - Jan10) 



My teaching philosophy is to help my students in understanding "why" not just "how" to deal with many HU situations and to emphais the key fundamentals crucial in beating the low stake games. I focus on helping students to identify their opponents  tendencies and ranges and how they can adjust effectively to exploit them. To date I have worked with 11 players from all over the world ranging from 25NLHU - 200NLHU.

Peace,

mr ladrao

Here are some testemonials:

Jun 11, 09 08:38:46

well worth it

You are throwing money away if you are playing 100 nl and are not getting lessons from ryan. His rates are very reasonable. Our sweat sessions alone more than financed the lessons. He added so many new aspects to my game that was full of leaks. He makes himself very available and goes above and beyond when it comes to his students and making sure they are getting everything they can out of his lessons. It was a privaledge getting to know ryan. He has given me a base in hu that I can use from now on. If you arent convinced, look up austinlewis on ptr. I started playing hu on ub after our lessons ended. I could have never gotten there without ryans coaching.

alewis8

 

---

Oct 10, 09 20:51:38

 

I have know Ryan around 6 month since the HU challenge at CardRunners and we became good friends. My game really improve when I start to taking lessons with mr ladrao (Ryan), the man is BORN to be a teacher, he explains every little detail with patient and dedication. 
Ryan has nice material (HU theory) to help with theory and make learning easier for his students. Also he makes it very clear that HU is very opponent dependent and momentum dependent, so you can not play the same style against different opponents.
We do live sweat session, video review, hand history review and he is always available at SKYPE and happy to answer any questions.
His knowledge of the game is AMAZING and not just that, it is the way he can explain to you which in my opinion is very important and makes a big difference from other coaches.
So if you want CRUSH HU mr ladrao is the MAN.
JohnnyAbove.

PS. Anybody feel free to PM, if you have any questions about mr ladrao coaching.

JohnnyAbove

So I hate 2-4 and have started up a club. Got a few members already... 
June has started off pretty badly and I would love for FTP to wind back the clocks to May. Ive manged to successfully do the obligatory run bad when first moving up in stakes which seems to be standard for most. In the past few days Ive dropped about $5k at 2-4 HU so will be heading back to 1-2 to grind out for quite some time I imagine. 2-4 swings are really brutal on the mindset for me atm so going to just avoid it. Ill post some hands below to give you an idea... So far this month I have played a silly amount of hours/hands which is a pretty accurate indication that Im definately not playing/running well. Need to be more patient and take breaks etc when things arent going well like I do when running well. Way more Agame required and not bothering about playing a ton of hours of Cgame and worse...

Fortunately this month Ive done well again at 200NL so only stuck about $1k on the month. Still plenty of time to go so all is not lost just yet. I just played a session today and won 4 BIs so getting some confidence back again after getting crushed pretty hard at 400NL. I ended up having my best month ever in May and my first 5 figure+ month which was cool. Not much else to say tbh so will just post some hands...

These were all against the same guy who I was multitabling. He was super aggro and I felt like I had a pretty good edge...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344003 Kinda wish I raised the turn but felt like I was way way ahead of his range here. He was definately capable of making a play here with 9x + a FD or a set / 2P type hand. 

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344004 meh - not a great turn card but I felt he would raise the flop with a strong draw. Against a 2P type I still have some outs with the flush draw, also felt he could have a weak Q with a spade here too.  Read was right results not so much...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344009 Not much to say but...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344007 I love poker...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344006 This one crushed me and ended the session and shot take for me...

This was the first session I think of the 2-4 shot and first $1k+pot. Guy was a good player and we had a pretty aggro pre flop dynamic... 

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344010 Do you get any points for calling the J river outloud??? U should...

These two are just when the deck flat out hates you...both against guys capable of making dumb plays with weak hands...the first one vs a guy who bought in short and dbld with T9 vs QQ AI pre and then 87 vs JJ on T76 flop

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344015
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4344016
Meh thats enough... Im sure you've all seen it all before a 1000000 times before, as I myself have also. Still, not much fun thats for sure....

mr ladrao

So after  7 months travelling we arrived back home a few days ago to sunny Australia. Its definately great to be home. The trip back from Sao Paulo was as good as it gets travelling economy for about 30 hours. But we made it here alive with all our luggage so I guess thats a bonus. The trip confirmed my disdain for airlines and particularly long haul flights and I really hope one day soon another form of travel is invented that is much more humane.  Or at very least airlines around the world unite and start to treat their customers with just a smidgen of respect and decencey. Stranger things have happened...

Havent played a great deal this month. Was absolutely crushing it for over 7PTBB at the start of the month and then had two shit days where i pretty much lost it all. I havent played the past week or so with the travelling etc but did a couple of short sessions yesterday trying to get back into the swing of it. I dropped down to play some 6max and despite being pretty rusty managed to do ok.  Going to be taking it pretty easy for the rest of the month and then grind my ass off in April so looking forward to that.

Ive also been doing some HU coaching sessions with a few guys from the forum.  It was something Ive been thinking about getting into for a little while now and has been really rewarding. The feedback so far has been good and I feel pretty comfortable with the teaching side. Felt like Ive learnt alot also which is really important.

Managed to luckbox my way into the final of the CR HU forum comp. Going to be playing Johnny "Drama" Above in the final which will be cool. He won the last match we played in the semi's so I definately have my work cut out to beat him twice in the GF. I played pretty damn awful last match we played and he pretty much owned me so at very least I hope I put in a decent performance! We chat alot on AIM and know each others games pretty well so should be fun.  Im going in as the underdog which is always good IMO!

Not much else going on. Going to be catching up with friends and family the next few weeks which will be cool. Really missed them all when we were away.
mrladrao

January... it sucked balls. My first losing month in the past 15. Tilty, Swingy, Frustrating and just plain shit. Got back to even towards the end of the month, celebrated and then went on another 10 BI downswing to finish off the month.  But the good news. Its February.

Despite my best efforts one day this month to repeat my dismail effort in Jan, Ive had a great month. I managed to dig myself out of a 19BI downswing one day to be travelling along at 6.21PTBB/100. Im only running at just under 3PTBB/100 at 100NLHU but owned in the hands I played 50NLHU and some 50/100NLHE 6 max. I miss 6 max. I really enjoy it but its just not possible to play all the time on my laptop. But soon Ill be able to play more. Its great to change things up a bit.

We are heading back to Australia end of March. It has been good here in Brazil but unfortunately the things we were hoping to achieve here just arent working out like we planned. We have been feeling like this for a little while now and have had some really shitty situations lately that helped us reach the decision. 
 
I have always been a grass is always greener sort of person. I was definately like that when I was living in Australia. Life is so easy there. I like easy. Well now anyway. I really had to travel again though and experience life here to help me realise it. Australia is my home and Im looking forward to getting back there and getting settled again. Hopefully this time I wont be so restless and enjoy myself more. Its really up to us to do that though. Im sure we will do more travelling in the near future.

Our decision has been really difficult. For one we have a great place here and some really cool shit that we cant take back with us. Oh well -  its just stuff. But unfortunately we have had to give Shadow away. Australian quarintine dont accept dogs from Brazil. No exceptions. It has been one of the most heart breaking experiences of my life. Fortunately, we were able to find a good home for him and we will be able to stay in touch through photos. We can also visit him before we leave and when we come back on holidays. Fucking shit though. He is an awesome dog and we were lucky we got to have him for the time we did.

As for my goals from my last blog are concerned Im reasonably happy.  I have been behaving myself pretty well in terms of tilt and really well in regards to chat abuse. Ive played some HU omaha this month and played well for a few days then went on a 8 BI downswing in a few hundred hands. Ive come to the conclusion that I am a bit of a fish at omaha at the moment and Im going to avoid it til I get (a) better rolled and (b) much better. I need to watch some more vids etc.  The games are definately profitable if your decent. I would say im probably better than average at HU50PLO but still a fish and the variance at the moment just isnt what i can handle.

I cant really think of anything else at the moment. Heading out tonight which should be interesting - Its Carnaval here now so who knows what will happen. Anyway dinners ready.
Peace out.
mrladrao

Warning: This blog may come of as completely self-loathing. But alas, I think this is the only way I can deal with the following issue. But dont worry mum. No padded room for me...yet. I wish the following was about someone else. But its not.

So I've been a real miserable prick this month. I must have been completely unbearable to be around most of the time and I seriously wonder how my wife puts up with me. I have been apathetic (well even more than normal), self-centered and basically just moped around feeling sorry for myself. Why? Cos unfortunately at times I can be a real ungrateful muthafucka.

I despise this trait in human beings. So when it surfaces its ugly head in myself - WTF!? Seriously. It is just such a selfish act to not appreciate what you have. And please know Im not talking about possessions. The worst part of all this, it was due to "running bad".

I read DogisHead's blog on variance / running bad / tilt / control etc. It is a great read. He is right. Poker is a whore. After playing for as long as I have, I have seen some absolutely crazy shit. But. Its really not that crazy when you stop and think about it. Some people play shit - thank fuck for them. When people play shit they make more mistakes. Sometimes they hit what we consider bullshit hands - Lucky...or else they wouldn't keep playing. And when the deck feels like it smacks us in the face, it is going to happen. It'll happen exactly as many times as it should. Mathematically. We all know this. Well most of us. The thing I took away most from his blog was the point on control. We are only in control of our own actions at the table. So why do I get so worked up over the things I cant control. Well for one I can be a control freak at times. But only in some situations. For eg. I like having the TV remote. I like choosing the music. I like being the driver.  I like telling my dog to sit and shake my hand. But getting the shits at the fact this fucking tard just hit a "miracle" card to suck out on me is completely (logically) insane. Emotionally, it makes complete sense, so what am I then...emotionally unstable. Probably not a good characteristic to play poker then.

Anyway, after yesterdays performace, I have officially  forfieted my right to complain about running bad etc. Yesterday, I played like a complete moron. I tilted like a child who didnt get his own way, and did some of the most rediculous things I have ever done at a poker table. I started open shoving ATC vs one guy (who didnt suck out on me - just completely owned my soul). I got AI for 100BB pre flop 5 bet shoving 42o vs same opponent and not cos I thought he was 4 betting light!  Why? Cos the world hated me and I couldnt win at a highly volatile, high variance gambling game. Right. Fair enough. Makes sense. Oh wait. No it doesnt. 

If I only have control over what I'm doing, then this shit is just embarrasing. Yesterday I also carried on like a complete tool in chat. Id like to think that normally I dont act like a complete wanker/douchebag. But yesterday, I took the cake. So Im banning myself from chat also. Except for the standard pleasantries (like 100BB pls, nh, gg, fark you - just kidding) Im going to make a challenge out of this. I like challenges. Im kinda sick like that. Its really the only way I can ever get anything done...

But I am human and I feel the only way I can get past this is if I get it all of my chest. Out of my system so to speak. So. Here goes. A little 25th hour remedy so to speak...
To the short stacking pieces of shit that hit and run when they shove J3o over my 3bet w/ QQ - Fuck You.
To the short stacking pieces of shit in general - Fuck You.
To the full stacking pieces of shit that hit and run when they double up - Fuck You.
To the lame-o regs that win a cpl of flips AI pre and a cooler, then ask you to play more tables, you comply, own them, and they insta leave up a BI- Fuck You.
To the smart ass cvnts in chat that talk smack when they suck - Fuck You.
To the rude fucks who win a big pot then sit out without saying anything til they're moved from the table - Fuck You.

OK. I think Im done. I may come back and edit this later and add some more when they come up and I cant express myself directly due to my self-ban.

So then where to from now. Well for one I really need to be grateful to the fact that this insane whore of a game means that I dont need to wear a shirt and tie and get up at 700am. Grateful to the fact that this whore of a game means I have the free time to spend with family, friends, dog as much as I like. Grateful to the fact that this whore of a game means I have no boss, no lunch hour, no incoming urgent emails, no complaints, no sales targets, no dress code, no traffic, no staff meetings, no restriction on personal calls, no internet restrictions, no KPI's, OSA's, OH&S, RFW's, PNR's (I think I made some up), no written warnings, no verbal warnings, no phone ringing off the hook and a timer beeping at me telling me this person has now been waiting for longer than a minute oh my God we could lose the account if you dont answer the phone, just answer the phone, the phone. answer - Fuck you.

Now then - Its time for me to stand up - be a man and take ownership of the things that I can control. Pass me the remote cos its time to hit the tables... COME WHAT MAY!