Damn the real job. I've been working fairly dilligently, as I'm outta here at noon Friday and am not coming back until Jan 2nd or 3rd (haven't decided yet), and I don't really want to come back to a bunch of junk, so I'm trying to knock it out and walk outta there with a clear conscience. So I haven't felt like blogging when I got home.
Anyway, its really cramping my blog reading and blogging style. So you get an excerpt from my email to Jorgen, slightly enhanced, reporting on my unbelievable cash game session from Saturday.
I'll be damned if this poker experience didn't actually live up to expectations and was actually everything it was cracked up to be. I was starting to get antsy when I was about 4-5 hours through the session and I was basically spinning my wheels, but boy did things change.
I ended up heading out a little earlier than I was planning because I was bored sitting at home with the little lady already having left to go out w/the girls. But in the end it didn't matter because I stayed later than I had planned (thank you, Red Bull at 1:30 AM). So, after some Empress Chicken and a Red Bull on the way to the casino at about 8:30 I got a seat at 1/2 NL at 9:07. The first 5 hours are literally not worth talking about. Three things happened. An hour or two in, I made a great call all the way through a board with decent draws with an overpair of 10s. I was up about $60. FOREVER. Then I bet an AQo $20 preflop, $20 on a JQ-high flop, and then $40 on the 9 turn, where I got raised all-in. I had invested $80 to this point, and he had me covered. It was this old greek codger with a bad attitude who was relatively new to the table, and I had missed the one hand he played when I was in the pisser so I had NO idea what to put him on. I had to lay it down figuring he had JJ or the straight. He told me he had KQ, and I have no reason not to believe him. So the money I lost and the equity I had in the hand burned me for about an hour, but he did have outs, so I very well could've gone broke, too. Then finally in about the 5th hour I pick up and bet AKo preflop in the BB against this guy who was drunk and could have been playing any two, on a junk flop, and on the turn. When the river still didn't hit I gave up and checked. We'd been betting $15 the whole way and on the river he puts on this show looking me up and down going "So you didn't hit your AK. What can you call? You've gotta be able to call $10, right? You have to call $10. ...Right?" So he bets $10. I hem and haw for a while and eventually call because he's drunk, because I wanna see what he has, because its $10 into a $100 pot, and because I very well could have him beat. He shows AQ, and commends me on my call. I commend him on his clever river ploy. He was a cool guy, and we were all having a great time. So anyway, we played 7-handed for quite a while, and at this point we were playing 5-handed and had been for...well...for longer than you'd really care to play 5-handed live poker. I was just biding my time until I could take money from the two drunk guys at the table, but I'd have really liked to have been playing at a full table. But I figured full table = more chips, but as long as we're playing 5-handed I might as well be playing against two drunk guys with 200-300 in their stacks. Anyway, finally the AQ drunk guy calls the floor over and says he doesn't wanna play 5-handed anymore, and he's only playing one more orbit. I pipe up and agree, and at about 2:30 our table breaks and fill the other two 1/2 NL tables. This whole time I hadn't got cards worth talking about (Ace-rag, 6-4, 10-6, unsuited connectors), or hadn't cashed big on the hands I did make, but I knew I could stay there as long as I needed to to hit my rush, so it was really easy to be patient, pick my spots, and just watch the play. I scooped pots here and there to plateau whether I was up or down or at my buy-in, but my biggest moves were up to $160, down as low as $60, and back up to about $110. So, after 5 1/2 hours, I was looking forward to a change of scenery and 9 other stacks to go after.
Well, it didn't take long. By 2:45 I was winning. I won a moderate sized pot, but I'll be damned if I can't remember anything about the hand. It might have been AA holding up. The very next hand I find 88 in LP, limp, and see a beautiful 8AJ action flop. There's an early bet, I raise, and then the other drunk guy from my former table moves all-in for his last $80. He was involved in the previous pot I was in and seemed to be making a stand. Other player folds, of course I call and he shows an ace with like a 6 kicker, and after the turn he's drawing dead. Mission accomplished on busting a drunk guy. The very next hand I find JQ suited. There's a pretty small PF raise from another guy at my former table and I go ahead and call with position (I fold if its not suited). The flop comes Q-high and I call another bet. The turn is a J and I call again. The river is a 5 and he moves all-in for like another $40 or something and I call. He's got Q5 and hit 2 pair on the river. My two pair is better. Three winning hands in a row, and about a $200-300 profit to show for it. A little further down the line I've got AQ and smooth call a raise with it in the small blind. The flop comes QQx. We check the flop. The turn is a K. The PF raiser bets, and I raise. UTG calls, PF raiser folds, UTG calls. The river is meaningless. I bet, UTG moves all-in for prolly like $80. I stew over it for a couple minutes because I'm afraid he's got KQ, but finally decide I can't lay it down. He's got Q 10 and I'm raking the pot. I won more hands I don't remember, but from 2:45-3:45 I took my stack from ~$110 to $550ish. Then between 3:45 and 5:10 I won another $200, with a couple more sets and other hands I just can't remember. I know there were a couple of AKs in there, somewhere (either before or in this period) there was an AA that held up, a set of 6s I flopped and had to actually double check to make sure I had because I couldn't believe it. On top of all that, I was trying to mix up my play sometimes (limped w/AK a time or two) to keep chips headed my way. But the table just would not believe me when I was in a hand for some reason. It was a perfect table for my playing style and they were paying me off better than I could've ever imagined. There was one guy who had about $800 in play when I sat at that table, and when I left that had been cut in about half, and most of 'em came my way. In the middle of it all I sat at $650 for a handfull of orbits and wanted to make 50 more dollars to get to $700 and get outta there, and then I'll be damned if I didn't nail trip queens again and made over $50 on that hand. I played for a few more orbits and scooped a pot or two, but when the replay of the ISU vs. Bradley game from Saturday afternoon on ESPNU got over, it was 5 AM, I was starting to crash from my 1:30 Red Bull boost, and I had $749 in chips, I decided the stars were pretty aligned for my leaving and the only way I'm going from here is down, so much to the dismay of the table, I racked em up and called it a night.
$650 profit, which more than doubled my entire bankroll. So that's an OK win. ;-) I've got $950 in my B&M roll, and about $300 in my online roll, so I'm starting to get deep. Of course, if I'm gonna take a shot at the Circuit Event and be able to come back and maintain my monitary level of play, I'd still like to keep building. But at this point I'm actually starting to feel like it would be really hard to go broke, which I've NEVER had the pleasure of feeling before. And of course, I'm laughing in the face of the poker gods by reporting this publically, so I'm sure I'll now go straight broke in very short order.
Live poker just comes so naturally to me. When I'm playing live I feel like I can't lose. As long as I maintain my patience and play my game, all I have to do is let everyone else make their mistakes. I can't believe how you can go 20-30 hands w/o playing and then when you come in raising you still get people calling you with bad hands. I can see it online because its harder to pay that much attention, but I would sit out 2 or 3 orbits on Saturday night right in front of 7-10 people and then when I come in raising and show down nothing but good hands, people would still play with me. Of course this wouldn't fly at higher levels, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Plus, I know I sound like a broken record talking about this, but the people reading just comes naturally to me. I'd never be able to write a book on poker tells, but I have a natural instinct that I can't explain of being able to tell when someone's weak and when someone's strong. I felt like a real poker player Saturday night. I sat at a poker table for 8 hours patient, disciplined, and vigilant, and came away with 6 1/2 more buy-ins than I started with. Sometimes I stop and wonder if I just hit a lucky rush and I can't take credit for the big win. Well, I did hit a lucky rush, but at the same time, in order to get to that rush, I had to fold for FIVE HOURS, and I think I can be proud of myself for having that discipline, because a lot of players wouldn't have that patience to even get to the point where they were seeing the cards. Hell, I saw several players come in, try and force wins out of bad cards, complain about their luck, and leave $200-300 on the table. I could've done that just as easily, but I came to grind it out, I grinded it out, and I was rewarded with a run of cards. It feels like that's what its all about, but any more experienced players out there can enlighten me on their feelings on this subject if they'd like.
Anyway, its all fun and games until I experience some live variance and have to invest 3 or 4 buy-ins before I finally decide its a losing session, but for now I'm just gonna live large and be proud of the win.
So, now that my big live objective is in the books with a mission accomplished, I now focus on 5-6 days off next week where my main objective will be poker. I'll probably play mostly online, but it would probably be in my best interest to get out and put in a couple of live sessions as well. I should probably play the Tuesday tourney at the casino and then hopefully there will be some fruitful cash games when that's over. My big goal is to hit the $1300-$1400 mark and actually move into the black on life (which will be a very proud accomplishment for me considering how much I hate myself for what I did in 2005 and early 2006), but of course I'd like to very much surpass that and concrete my ability to head to Council Bluffs and give the Circuit Event a run. Before all is said and done, that will probably also mean another big Friday or Saturday night session like this one sometime in January, so hopefully with about 30 days to go I can get plenty deep to take some shots at the WSOP and not feel too much of a sting to the bankroll, and get back to the grind after taking a shot.
But as I've been doing since I started to really focus on becoming a winning player, I'm going to continue taking it one step at a time, and the next steps are to hit that illustrious "winner for life" mark two years after I started playing for real money, and to be sure to stay disciplined in many hours of poker between Christmas and New Year's and keep things trending upward.
That's probably it for me between now and Christmas, so anyone who reads this be sure to have a happy holiday, and a nice break from work, safe travels, and good luck on the felt as hopefully the donkeys are out in full force blowing their Christmas bonuses.
Check ya.
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