After talking with Edmond tonight I figured I would write an entry. Poker is a side venture for me and one of the main things I'd like to spend my winnings on is traveling. I've been doing fairly well recently and decided I would fork over the money for my girlfriend and myself to take a trip over my Christmas break. I've always wanted to spend New Year's in another country and thought I might as well do it this year. We decided on Mexico...specifically the Mexico City and Oaxaca areas. I'm not a huge beach fan and would much rather see sites and culture. I like the beach but not for multiple days in a row. We've booked the flight and are still working out things to do, places to stay, eat, etc. If you have any suggestions please post them. We'll be there for 10 days.

I was pretty excited about Mexico and then dropped my biggest loss ever today...$1700. I'm not going to lie...I felt a little sick about it. At 3/6 the villain floated his A2s on a 943 rainbow board against my KK. I hit a K and then he hit a 5. I was upset but actually proud of myself for not tilting. This hand would have put me extremely close to my roll for 5/10.

Then I lost my stack again on a 4-outer river and the tilting started to begin, leading to a bluff on my part against the same villain from the first hand. He called down with some crap but I had nothing. The last one is a great example of knowing your opponent and playing when on tilt. Based on my other hands with him, I should have known that I shouldn't bluff him because he calls down light. So $500 of the $1700 is my fault. It's tough to grind and grind away and then lose your weeks of winnings, but I suppose that is the nature of the game.

I'm going to add some hands as I go...hopefully it will help me play better after my idiotic play I just made :)

I'm the chip leader on button with QJ
CO who's been fairly active limping or raising 70% of hands raises to 1000 at 150/300
I cold call and see a T 4 5 flop. He bets 1200 leaving himself around 3000. I shove like a monkey for 1/4 of my stack. Really? Did I just do that? He calls with QQ. This is bad on so many levels there's no reason to discuss it.


Bubble is ready to burst and I get K Q in mp and raise to 2500 at 500/1000 ante 100 and get 2 callers
flop 4 7 K
I bet 6000 into 9000 pot and second caller with 14k behind shoves. My king is probably good as he's likely on a draw and I called 8000 more and I hold up to his A Q .
We're on the bubble and his shove could be anything. I got lucky to survive the flip. Stack now 45k

Moved to a new table. Avg stack for tourney 25k...everyone at table has at least 40k :(
Getting some terrible cards and big stack to my right is raising a ton.


800/1600 MP player has been shoving every other hand but decides to fold this time when I have AA in the SB. Next hand big stack to my right raises to 4500 and I reraise with AQ on the button to 13,000 and he folds. Very next hand mp limps and I rr with 77. He calls and flop is Q 10 J.
He checks and even though this flop is scary as hell he has to be scared of AK and likely has a med pair so I bet 2/3 flop and he folds after thinking for awhile. Stack 62k



1000/2000 a200 Folded for a bunch of orbits. MP 25K stack raises to 6000. He has been raising or shoving a bunch to get his stack here. I call in bb with K J flop 36J rainbow...I check he bets 8000...I put him in and he calls with 88. I think I fold preflop to many players...not sure if correct or not...stack 89k
Big stack who was in 2nd is knocked out after playing like a dumbass...raising 73s ep and betting huge on flop. Then he shoved on an A flop with tens. His two opponents in those hands are the chipleaders now. I barely won anything off him. I need to switch tables :)



1500/3000 a300 2nd in chips minr and I repop to 18000 with 33 and he calls
flop is 3 2 5 He checks and I bet 2/3 pot hoping he looks me up with draw or med pair....he folds. I don't think he's betting the turn if I check.
Two hands later 10k short stack pushes and I isolate with 1010. I hit set but he sucks out with 4 flush A J
stack 101k



2000/4000 a400 Folding a bunch. MP player raises 4x leaving himself around 40K
I've been playing tight and shove (rr puts him in anyways) with AJs in the bb. He thinks for a long time and calls with 99 and I miss with overs and flush draw on turn. I thought for sure he would fold a medium pair....he said he almost did...o well. I was 9th in chips with an M of 10 and winning that hand would put me in 3rd. Stack 40k pushbot time



2500/5000 a500 Shove fest going on. Don't think 24o is good :)
I shoved with T2o from button with M of 2.5 into stacks that were my size and got called by AQo by sb. Bye bye
22nd $500 profit $350
Probably would have won more playing cash games but felt like playing a tourney.

Feel free to comment on any of the hands.

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.