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 last few days have taken a pretty ordinary dive. I played a bunch of 4 table matches at 50NLHU that I recorded and the results were pretty horrid. Had some good matches were I felt in control and playing well. Others, played bad and one just ran like ass. Lost 5 out of 5 flips,  flopped 2P vs set, missed draws, got called bluffing blah blah blah - just one of those sessions were nothing goes right. Unfortunately when this happens 4 tabling its pretty horrific. I ended up losing ~9 BIs to this guy and to make matters worse my laptop crashed while saving the camtasia file and I lost the recording. So gay as it was the session I felt least on my game and prob best to review. Meh - expensive, unproductive hour. 
It turns out that I might possibly be one of the biggest fish at 50NLHU. I have always hated this level for some reason but it seems FTP hates me more. I deleted most of my 50NL hands until this month cos it used ti tilt me looking at it on my PT3. According to PTR though Im sutck like 3.2k there in 30k hands which is just so god awful. I know i play pretty spewy there and its the level I go to try new things etc etc but man - I just suck so bad there. So I think Ill perma ban myself from playing there and just stick to playing 2 tables solid at 100NL and focus on getting back to 200NL shots. I will go over the vids I recorded though and do some reviews that should help plug some leaks. 
6Max has also been shit the last few days but I have played pretty bad. That said I was running pretty hot at the start and last few days played sessions when I didnt really want to and didnt play A game. Playing Laggy at 6max and not bringing A game is definitely burning money for me. So will ty and avoid that as well. 
There have been some moments of madness and fun though. This is one of my new favourite CTRL+M moments, which is something I seem to say every blog but yah I love CTRL+Ms so so much!

mr ladrao: pot sized bet?

Villain: idiot

Villain: kill yourself

mr ladrao: pot size bet...  

mr ladrao: pot 

mr ladrao: size 

mr ladrao: bet 

mr ladrao: bet size pot 

mr ladrao: size pot bet

Villain: idiot shut up

mr ladrao: u lost to an idiot

mr ladrao: if u say im awesome and that that call was so cool you rock ill ship you $20  

Villain: nou wont otherwise i would hahah

mr ladrao: thats like almost 3 pot size bets 

Villain: haha 

mr ladrao: i will ship it

Villain: ship it first then well talk

mr ladrao: u havemy word 

mr ladrao: the word of an idiot  

Villain: okay your awesome and that call was so cool you rock 

mr ladrao: oh and you have to yell it when you type 

Villain: now ship

mr ladrao: i wanna hear it 

mr ladrao: louderrrrrrrrr

Villain: ship it ill put it right on table for u to take back  

mr ladrao: cant believe you believed me

Villain: obvi i didnt believ u

Villain: &&%%

Villain: c u n it

Villain: what why would u really ship me money?

mr ladrao: now reload with it   

Villain: hahah thats the nicest thing anyone has ever done consideringi talked &%!!  

mr ladrao: what can i say 

mr ladrao: im an idiot 

Villain: hahah

Villain: well im the A-hole who yelled at u hahah i just get pissed when i loose sorry for yelling "idiot

Villain:  hahah

mr ladrao: lciking my balls will get you nowhere   

mr ladrao: im just kidding 

Villain: hahah

mr ladrao: no worries  

mr ladrao: ;P

Villain: well i have JJ here but of coarse I see paint but no luck for me  

Villain: that was super nice of u though  

Villain: ill put it back in your pocket when u ebat me then i cant yell at u i can say thanks hahah  

mr ladrao: what can i say i take pleasure in stupid things 

Villain: so yoru up 15K mr ladrao thats legit

Villain: at least on tilt

mr ladrao: not today im not  

Villain: id be busto if it wasnt fo ru 

mr ladrao: im guessing all i did was delay the inevitable

Villain: hahahah exactly

Villain: keep me entertained another 10 mins 

mr ladrao: i do what i can 

Villain: def

Villain: haha

mr ladrao: this is literally more boring then waiting for HU action 

mr ladrao: im out 

mr ladrao: now bet pot this time 

Villain: so haha

mr ladrao: not some half pot then call it piot 

Villain: so check haha

mr ladrao: this is pot  

Villain: so your tellin me u have an ace huh  

mr ladrao: i would have riaed flop

mr ladrao: with an A

  mr ladrao shows a full house, Sixes full of Queens

  mr ladrao wins the pot ($29.95) with a full house, Sixes full of Queens

Villain: ahhahahah

mr ladrao: told ya

Villain: unreal to my Q 10 goddam

Villain: nh

mr ladrao: skill game

mr ladrao: im done donating 

Villain: im not asking my friend

mr ladrao: i meant to the table 

Villain: believe me i never ask anyone for money

Villain: oh hahah

mr ladrao: ipaid you for my own entertainment

Villain: yes hahah

Villain: well good luck playing HU

mr ladrao: and to sned this chat to friends and FTP support so they boomswitch me  

mr ladrao: ty sir   

mr ladrao: gl going busto 

  mr ladrao shows [Ks Ad]

  Villain shows [As Tc]

Villain: hahhaah

Villain: here u go

  mr ladrao shows a pair of Aces

  Villain shows a pair of Aces

  mr ladrao wins the pot ($31.20) with a pair of Aces

Villain: hahahha

  Hand #15653724097

mr ladrao: weeeeeeeeeee

I figured some charity might persuade FTP to undoomswich me and send me on a sick heater...
SO FTP balls in your court muthafuckaaaaaaasssssssssssssssss. Im sure they will reply - our balls in your face mr ladraooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 

Been running pretty horribly the past 10 days or so. Had my worst downswing ever the last week in July, took a few days off and have been battling it out again in August. I ended up stuck about 4k in July after being up about 5k at the 24th. Fuck you July. Got winrate and $$ races at stake with thewillofd this month so need to run good, or at least better than him! Unfortunately August has been pretty frustrating so far, running way below equity again and just getting absolutely crushed at showdown. Managed to send one shorty fish an early Xmas present when he left up 1k after buying in for 40bbs. Anyway, instead of posting graphs/EV calcs/and moaning about how shit I have run, I decided Id be way more productive and make a jpeg expressing my feelings. It certainly feels like I am FTPs gimp at the moment, so without further a do I give you the new FTP lobby and promotion titled, "Release the Gimp"

This hand pretty much sums it all up: Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Villain 1 ($186) -
Seat 2: Hero ($647.15) - -


PRE-FLOP:

Hero posts small blind $1
Villain 1 posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: Hero


RAISE Hero ($6)
RAISE Villain 1 ($20)
RAISE Hero ($52)
CALL Villain 1 ($32)


FLOP:

Pot: $104
   

CHECK Villain 1
BET Hero ($38)
RAISE Villain 1 ($134)
CALL Hero ($96)


TURN:

Pot: $372
     



RIVER:

Pot: $372
      



SHOWDOWN:
Villain 1:

Hero:


Villain 1 collected $371.5 from main pot with a straight, Seven high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $372 Rake: $0.50

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: Villain 1 big blind showed [6c Qc] and won 371.50 with a straight, Seven high - Net Gain/Loss: ($185.5)
  
Seat 2: Hero small blind showed [Ah Ac] and lost with a pair of Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($-187)


Big shout out to all the other FTP gimps out there, and gimps from all other sites. I wouldnt wanna discriminate.
mr ladrao

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