Insane Poker Session + Interview Results

Yesterday was one of the astonishing turning point of my life as I stayed all night since sunday to play $1/2 poker where I played $18 preflop table in $1/2 with deep stacks. I was deep as $400~$500 had AK from SB. There were these 2 players going crazy each other over $1,000 deep stack and I tried avoiding the action in between as much as can but I can't fold AK :) UTG raised to $18, CO called $18, I made it $92 to go. UTG mucked, CO called. Flop was AK7. I perceptively checked to him and he makes the half size of the bet about $130 and I paused and well all-in for another $350 and he instant called with 89. Turn blank and River completes his flush :)

I further tilted a bit on that table and ended up losting about $1k :)
I had other beats on the other tables where I flop a set the big stack fish bets into me and I make pot-size bet and he keeps completing river flush. At the end of the session, I found myself down a bit over $2.5k during 18 hours session and was under big frustration and went to school at 4pm.

I am doing this web project for the amateur skating company (http://icehound.cs.colorado.edu) as my senior project which is the graduation requirement in the University of Colorado at Boulder. It is written in LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) and it is not fancy but currently somewhat functional :)



When we are done with the meeting whereas the projector was setup and my group members are present. I had to send an email so I logged onto my email account. I found an email titled "Microsoft Interview Result" and my group members screamed to open it and I declined it because I didn't think I did well enough on the interview to get selected. I took care of the business on the email and I scrolled back up to log myself out and realized the email was actually around 800k which means that it contains some sort of attachment. I was kinda spaced out for a momement and opened it.

Surprisingly, it was their congraturation letter with applications for the flight to Raymond, WA where the final interview will be held ^^ (obviously all the costs covered). I checked out the following images from the Google Image and it seems like a sweet place to work for as it is known to be the best software engineering company in the world. Google is probably best right now but hey MS has bigger avenue so :)







I also heard back from the National Instruments and they sent me an invitation to fly to Austin, TX for the final onsite interview. This is my 2nd best preference of my job choice and I better prepare and do well for this in case Microsoft final onsite interview doesn't work out well for me.







They sponsored my stay at the Embassy Suite and offered me to rent a car also but I chose the shuttle method because I don't really need a rental car. Look at the picture below :)



A lot of prestigious company actually invites you to fly to their onsite as their final recruiting evaluation process and I am very pleasured to visit Austin, TX as I will be visiting Hejin again. The last time we saw each other was when I was in Ausin, TX for the CPL Cyber Programming League with my friend Justin and Rob.

We didn't do too well but it was a lot of fun to meet all the people from the world and hang out. I still remember the poker game we had at Gaylord Texan hotel where I had AA and Pillage had KK and we both slow played preflop by not raising and fireworked on the flop :)

Software Engineering Position Offers and Intervews

As many of you already know, I have been pretty diligent about my study on computer science and mathematics. I am graduating this may and have been job hunting :) This semester, in additional to my intership & parttime software engineering experience, I decided to some research assistant work for the professor who I admire in the university. He specializes his area of research in the wireless sensor node network and his paper is awarded and published in Sensys 2007 as 1st place. (http://mantis.cs.colorado.edu)

Therefore, he is receiving funding from the prestigious corporations for his ongoing research. I help him to integrate the operating system for the sensor node network. This was a nice addition on my resume and I applied to a few companies that I was interested at the career fair.



Surprisingly, I have received an interview offer right at the career fair from 2 companies and all the companies I handed my resume to got back to me for the further interview except Motolora ;) (There are probably looking for electrical engineer oh well). I did an interview with National Instruments and got an invitation to Ausin, Texas for the final interview where they cover all the flight and hotel cost for me.

I did an interview with TCS (Tata Consultant Services) (http://www.tcs.com) and they offered me a position in Los Angeles, CA for fulltime. However, they offered me such a sniff salary so I had to decline their offer.

I have also received a nice offer from my current job (http://www.verbalworld.com) and they want me to stay but hey, lets see if I can find anything better first okay?




About an week later, Microsoft informed our engineering department that they will be coming to our campus to recruit interns and fulltime position employees for 2 days. I obviously applied and I am sure most of the students from the engineering department did. I had been chosen to interview with them on this upcoming friday. I went to the website for the time slot selection for the interview and there about 10 slots over 2 days. I was proud of myself for being chosen as one of the candiate which proves that the hard work I have been doing over 4 years during the college wasn't for nothing. I am going to go Allin(...? lol poker) for the interview and get a few days off from my work to prepare for this. It has been one of my dream to work for the prestigous company for my software engineering career. Please wish me good luck!

Recent Poker Improvements

I have been playing $.50/$1 until the end of January of 2008. Although I have been winning a lot of money in that limit, I was unable to move up the limits because I had to spend a lot of money for life essencials :) However, I decided to risk myself a bit to play higher limits as I gradually preceive my improvments on my play. I still make a lot of mistakes on certain types of sitations but hey, who can really play perfect? I am still an amateur :) I felt so bored about my limit and decided to play 12 tables of $1/2 (200NL) 6 handed.

When I first started playing, I didn't do too well, overplaying and misplaying a lot of hands. I was also got little nervous due to drastic change on my bankroll in a short period of the time - Swing. I finally start realizing how people in this limit plays differently from lower limits. People tend to play a lot more aggressively and being able to analyze the pf raising range of the player's hand and consistent 3 betting have started showing some success. I have been playing on $1/2 for about 2 weeks and already being successful.

I think the key to success in higher limit is aggression and 3 betting preflop is definately key - Thanks to Shock from WC3 who advised me to start doing this :) I hope I can make a strong enough bankroll before next week so that I can go to the vegas during the spring break :)

Biggest Pot ever on High Stakes Poker

What a pot! would you really let it run it twice when you are holding top 2 against the nut flush draw? He raised you all in and you made an amazing call! What a nice guy he is. Actually maybe its just too much money in the pot that made them nervous like that.

Las Vegas Trip - December, 2007

I flew to Las Vegas again during the last week of 2007 to play some serious poker for an week. I booked the flight to Las Vegas on the last day of my school. Therefore, when I arrived in Vegas, I was somewhat tired but decided to play some poker and went to Wynn. As always, a very nice poker room and well managed.

I sat down on $2/5 NL table with $500 and started playing. One interesting thing about this poker roon is that there is no buy-in limit in the poker tables at Wynn which means you can even sit down at a table with any amount of cash you desire. I observed how people play for about a half hour and figured out that people are playing tight and timid. I made some nifty moves to steal the bets from the SB/BB with marginal hand. I have had a strong intuition about the players but these consecutive stealing made me to think about my table image on the poker table. I felt that people on the tables are sometimes often too tight/timid that I can steal/bluff the pot from them every time.

Apparently, I also understood that if I keep stealing these bets from them too often, they will get suspicious on my play and try to play back against me. I decided to use reverse psychology and mix up my play by talking to the opponents and making them believe that I have the nutz everytime. I pulled this off by sometime posturing emotion that I got disappointed that people folded when I had a really strong hand or if I steal too often, I tell them what I have but I avoided showing them my hand as much as possible.

I was also often confronted with a player who brings in a lot of cash to the table. One really interesting I realized is that if you show them an image that you are a tight player, these players will try to bully you with cash. I didn't want that to happen and wanted to win a big pot against these players. I decided to loosen myself a bit show them that I gamble and play loose. I often bluffed small pots and showed my card to the table in order to gain further profit when I am holding a big hand.

To make the long story short, I didn't have a single losing day during my 8 day playing session when I was cashing out at the cage. I was convinced that I can play higher limit than $2/5 NL and decided to play some $5/10 NL on the last day. I sat down with a lot of good players and observed how they play. As expected, players in this limit are obviously better players than $2/5 NL. There was a guy who is really good player in the table who often pulled out river check raise all in move. I had this ego on my heart to outplay him. I made $60 to go with AKs in late pos, this guy called. The flop was AQT rainbow, he checks, I lead out with $120 and he check raises me to $300. I thought about it for a while and folded.



I figured out that people will see me playing tight and decided to change my gear a bit. I raised to $80 with 67o after one limper and this same guy from SB called again. The flop was A68, he checks and I made a continuation bet of $140 and he calls very fast, the turn was T, he checks again and I saw how he folds to strong turn bet on certain occastions and decided to bet $300. He folds and I showed everyone that I had 67o to erase my tight image on the table.

The high stakes floor at Wynn poker does something interesting for the rake. They charge $6 per 30 minutes from each player and the dealer rotates every 30 minutes. You also can't change the table and the house assigns you to where to go to balance out the players in the multiple tables. Anyways, after a few hours later, I raised to $80 w AQo because this loose-aggressive player limped in early pos. This dude I was playing with called me late pos. 3 players to the flop. The flop was J96, I made a continuation bet $150 and this guy called me behind and loose player mucks. Turn was T, I get OESD but I maybe well behind and decided to check, this guy bets $260 behind. I thought about it for a while and called. I put him on AJ, KJ, JQ or set. The river was 7, the pot was already over $1,000 and I had about $750 left. I don't even remember what I was thinking at the moment but I just instantly pushed all in without much of a hesitation. It just came right from my heart LOL. He instantly fold and I scoop the pot worth over $1,000! That was the biggest bluff I have ever pulled out in the live cash table :)



That was pretty much end of my run and I walked away home with a sweet amount of cash on my pocket which is more than enough to cover my college tuition bill for the rest of my school career!

P.S. special thanks to my good friend Kevin who helped my stay!

Poker Style Transition to 6 Max Tables

If you have followed my post, I made a transition to 6 handed tables and stopped multi-tabling in 9 handed full ring games. My overall impression is that I just started enjoying more and more about playing Poker since I made this transition. It is not just simply because I keep winning and profit myself a lot, I get to see a lot more action on the table and also find myself to start picking on certain players' tendency and take advantage of that. Whereas 9 handed full ring game was completely boring to wait for a hand and most people play ABC poker although I play 12 tables at the same time - kind of slow too. There is not much of excitement of bluffing and picking on other players as 6 handed Holdem tables. Players make a lot of move, I make a lot of move, and the excitement you gain while bluffing and enjoyment when you catch a bluff is astonishing! plus its very fast and suitable for my 300 APM poker style!

My hour rate is literally doubled since I started playing 12 tables of 6 handed holdem tables. I am no longer best preflop player but a thinking post-flop player. I found it to be just another step for amateur to become a professional poker player. If anyone of you find an interesting article about 6 handed-max NL holdem, please comment in this post!

Wish you all good luck at your tables!

Is Playing Poker Gambling?

Click here to view Original post from 2+2 forum


Many people have perception that gambling is bad for you. Well, I agree in a sense. Image gambling 1/10 of your bankroll with a dice. If you roll 1-4 you double your money, if you roll 5-6, you lose your money. You are getting 2/3 (~67%) odd on your money. Now, imagine gambling your whole bankroll with a dice. If you roll 1-3 you double your money, if you roll 4-6, you lose your money. Would you call both cases a gamble?

Wikipedia defines gambling as

"wagering money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods"

Based on the definition, both of the activities described above are gambling. It is true that you are betting your money on uncertain outcome. However, what if you have a better chance of winning even slightly? Imagine having a favor over 1,000,000 dice rolls. Can you imagine how many times you can double your backroll?



Poker is a game of intellectual guessing - You can never see what the other players are holding. However, there are certain factors to be observed - Odd, amount to bet, tendency of player, betting pattern, the amount of time an opponent take on certain hand, facial expression, shoulder level, eyes movement, the way they talk, and much more! Skilled players make these critical observations and use it on their favor in order to generate the maximum amount of profits. Can you understand the advantages you gain from perceiving these factors? I take these factors as an additional add to win my games. Just like the dice example above, if you have an extra winning number, your profit will enhance significantly in long-term. It is also true that you can lose the money even with these perfect observation skills. However, in a long term, professional players will generate tremendous income from these edge.

This is exactly why I call Poker a skill game and can be a profession. I really get disgusted from people saying Poker is gamble so you should quit. How can one really lecture others without knowing what they are talking about. We see people working on Mcdonald's drive through and make $5 hr vs people working on a law firm making over $200/hr. What do you think is their difference?
Education is my prior investment in my life at this moment. It is just not the schools but becoming an sophiscated and intellecture individual takes a lot of dedication and work. This is exactly why I still go to the school and work as a software enginner although I can afford to live my way just by playing Poker 3-4 hours a day.

Some people just don't say it and just look Poker players with their sunglasses on. This is exactly why I don't share my poker stories with an unintellectual inmates in real life. For the people who heard my deep Poker story in person, you deserve to be an intellectual individual, at least on my own perspective!

If anyone ever visits my blog and have thoughts about this, please comment on this post and it will be greatly appreciated.

LuxuryMaster Decides to go 300APM in Poker!

I have been playing 9-handed full ring game as my main game up to this point. I have been losing a lot of buyin's due to very cold decked cards. I was completely frustrated about this and was looking for a better approach to pursue my poker games further. I just tried fast 6-handed games (~8 tables to start). I was able to manage up to 12 games at one point! There are some delays but the players in $.5/$1 don't need much of thinking to adjust my play. I just tried to remember the tendency of each player and act according. If you have played online poker before, you will understand how crazy it is to manage 12 tables of 6 handed. I first didn't think its possible but it turns out that I really can.

There are other tendency I found out to be interesting on my play. I realized that I recently have been playing much aggressively and became very strong post-flop player. I take this as an improvement and switching to 6 handed play will enhance this efficiency further! Be turned for the results on my games within an week or so.

Pokerstars Supernova Party at Moon Club, Palms

This party was open to members of Team PokerStars and PokerStars VIP Club Supernovas. I've attended various parties (not only including poker company sponsored ones) and this had to be one of the best I've seen. From ice sculptures to signature drinks to a plane circling overhead welcoming PokerStars players, this event was one no Supernova should've missed.

I actually was planning on going to the hellicoper tour package that Pokerstars offered to the players. They not only offered the hellicopter tour and parties but other events such as free entrace to the prestigious shows in the Las Vegas for free! The staffs were really nice although I forgot to bring my registeration ticket before I go to the office. They still did the job for me and offered me a paper to sign. Thank you again Pokerstars!






I first met Umberto Brenes, sitting in a big sofa. I introduced myself and we chatted for a while. Little later, he decided to introduce me to the players on the other table where Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, and Daniel Neaguraneu. Joe asked me whether I have a hundred dollar bill or not, I had a lot of cash on my pocket from winning consistently for past few days at $2/5 no limit @ Wynn. I agreed to play and gave him the bill. He then announced the intructions of his game. The rule is simply to read the series of digits on the bill and whoever has the lowest wins it all. After a few minutes, players started shouting their numbers, "40", "35", "29", I had "26" so I shouted out but Moneymaker had "23" so he won the game. I gave him the money and decided to chat with Joe for a while. We had been talking and talking. The 2006 WPT champion guy (Sorry, I forgot his name) handed cash got corrected from everyone ~$800 and said "YOU WIN!". I was like wtf? and responded back to him "No, Chris had 23 so he wins it all". Without further explanation he kept handing me the money and everyone nodes their head. I declined it first but eventually accepted and thanked everyone.





Later than, I started drinking a lot of different shots, cocktails, and even champaign - for free! I got immediately drunk and was wandering around to take picture with champions and received a lot of autographs - Thanks!. Everyone there was really nice and warm, especially Greg Raymer and Daniel Neugraneu. They were very friendly and caring. Greg Raymer now is trying to run a champain to elect himself as a 2008 vice president of the United States - GOOD LUCK!. Funny thing is there were some hot chicks kept attempting to run over Daniel, literally every 30 minutes lol!

For more pictures, either visit my Cyworld or visit Pokerstars Blog (My picture is there too!)

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2007/07/2007-world-series-supernova-party.html

http://www.cyworld.co.kr/dlawogus844

Pokerstars $50,000 Weekly Supernova+ Freeroll

Well, its saturday morning again. I had to run errands for my father in his business at 8a so I woke up very early. I have been working as an intern @ Verbal World from 8a-5p which means I have been waking up myself at 6a since I had to drive from Aurora to Denver. My sleeping pattern had been changed and I was very tired during the saturday afternoon but decide dot play some poker since I haven't played all week long.

I played $109R, $20NL, $3R, $20,000 FREE roll and $50,000 FREE roll. I cashed in $20NL and $3R but not significant amount :). However, I played very good poker on $50,000 tournament and managed to make 2nd appearance to the final table. A Pokerstars commentator joined the table, congraturating players. I responded back to him by thanking him for hosting a such a great party in moon club at Palms where the drinks and foods were free and all WSOP champions showed up. I had a such a great time at the party, meeting and talking to players like Greg Raymer, Joseph Hachem, Daniel Neagureanu, Chris Moneymaker, Umberto Brenes and more!! I was fortunate enough to get their autographs on the T-shirts I bought and took pictures with them. I also received advices from the world poker champions on how to play WSOP main event!

One critical hand I would like to share is, I had about x5 BB in UTG+2 and dealt KK. The blinds were big relative to the player's remaining chips so I figured if I raise here, I wouldn't get much actions. I decided to limp and everyone else folded except small blind and big blind. The flop was Q 8 2 and small blind immediately bet 1/2 of the pot. I decided to push and got called. He had Q and managed to double myself there which was enough to maintain myself down to final5. People requested to have a deal and I accepted it 1st prize was $10,500 and 5th prize was somewhere $2,500. I was 5th during that point and accepted the deal which leaves me around $4,500 . We all accepted the deal and I ended up finishing 1st at the end :)