Greetings, fellow degenerates. I am back yet again to test the blogging waters and tempt fate by reporting on just how the virtual felt is treating me.
But first, I have to welcome my very first official sponsor. The unbelievably kind folks at FlopTurnRiver.com have put their faith in my little blog to help grow their business, and I'm gonna do whatever I can to see to it that that happens. The site has a RIDICULOUS amount of poker content that is valuable whether you've been playing for 10 years or 10 minutes. They've got poker news, forums, strategy, blogs, reviews, bonus codes, a chat room, and info on tools, supplies, books, and a billion other things. Literally I have got to believe anything, or at the very least links to anything you could ever need as a poker player. Yeah, maybe I'm a sellout shill now, but for a blogger who needs a kick in the pants in multiple ways, its nice to get an email from a reputable site such as FlopTurnRiver who wants to make an investment in you as a blogger, and inherently as a player. Thanks to Tyson and the whole crew over there. I'll do my best.
Now, how about some poker?
I feel like I've gotten a fresh start at PokerStars, and I feel like I've gotten a fresh start with my blog, which means I'm going to step out on the edge, throw caution to the wind, and just...f*cking...blog.
Things continue to go well for me at Stars. I was a little scared for a while because yet again I had a whole day off to play poker on 1/21, and yet again, I played break even/losing poker. I think I go into poker overload when I have those kinds of opportunities, though. I get this mentality like "well you've got all day to win, lets mix things up and play some all or nothing poker", then all of the sudden its into the afternoon and you're chasing the losses you've accumulated. And I realize, when it comes to SNGs, there's absolutely no reason to play any differently at any time. All you can do is win or lose a little faster, but there's really no good argument for playing faster if you have a strategy that works. So I swear, next time I have this opportunity, I'm gonna stick to what works and hope for the best.
It was kinda funny, though. My plan for the day was to get up with my wife, who didn't have the day off, and make and eat a good breakfast, get a roast in the crock pot for supper, work out, and then poker it up. Well, the french toast wasn't really sitting right, so I decided I'd work out later. And then by the time the 5k started up @ noon and I had intentions of running deep, I was of the mindset "well, I can get away with not working out today". Turns out PokerStars is an advocate of my health, because at about 3:00 I got a 5 minute cold-decking that busted my 13 or so big blind stack out of the 5k in 2 hands holding KJ vs KQ and K9 vs KJ, and busted me on the bubble of the SNG I was playing w/AK vs A4. He hit trip 4s. So that was PokerStars way of telling me to get my ass on the ellyptical machine. And I did.
So after that day, I had to refocus, and have had some outstanding results. I played three SNGs last Thursday. The first was a 5.50 single table where I saw my QQ get beat by AJ early, and then as I was about to double into good shape approaching the bubble my AA fell to QQ when he rivered his set. Not a good start. But I saddled up to another 5.50 single table and won it, and as I played those two I played a 1.20 two table SNG and took 2nd there. So overall very positive results for that night and I was back in business.
Only other opportunity I've had to play since then was on Sunday morning, where I came from a 450 stack @ 50/100 blinds to win a 5.50 single table SNG. This was probably my proudest poker accomplisment in recent history, although it kinda took care of itself. I actually got to the short stack by making a pretty marginal play losing to AJ w/KJ on a J-high board. Villian raised on the short stack UTG, and I was in the SB. I didn't have him on a high pocket pair and wanted to give him enough credit to expect a raise from AK/AQ/KQs and mid-high pocket pairs. Obviously at this level AJ is a possibility, but I feel like it was more of a cold deck than anything. Anyway, that put me on the short stack and within a few minutes/orbits I'd be looking for a spot to jam. I eventually did jam with a 70/30 advantage, but lost to a guy who had gotten shorter than me, thus I found myself on the 450 stack. I promptly picked up KK and doubled, then I got my suckout revenge when A4 outran AJ, and all of the sudden I was relatively healthy. I bullied the bubble as best I could, and before long we found ourselves in the money @ about 5k to 5k to 3.5k. Not too long into the money battle, with blinds at 200/400/25, I called a 3x raise in the big blind from the short stack/SB w/KQc. Flop came all clubs and he jammed into my 2nd nuts w/TP, 2nd kicker. That won't cut it. So with more than 30 big blinds still in play I was ready for a relatively extensive heads up match. Except that <10 hands in I flopped 7s full holding 76o and he bet 1200, 1600, and all-in on each of the streets. So twice I flop the 2nd nuts, and twice they're betting into me. I haven't had luck like that in MONTHS. Its nice to be having fun playing poker again.
One final note, I've cashed in the last 5 MTTs I've played! I played the 5k guarantee on 1/13 and 1/21 and doubled my money in both (hey, a cash is a cash), and of course I wouldn't even have a bankroll on Stars if it weren't for cashing in those two Negreanu freerolls back in December. This, although the actual winnings is nothing to write home about, is a REMARKABLE accomplishment for me. My biggest hurdle is that I still struggle through the middle stages of MTTs. I've been fortunate to be able to amass some chips early in most cases which generally is enough to have me limping through the bubble, but then once the bubble bursts I'm pretty much always in push or fold mode. I need to work through figuring out spots in the middle stages of tourneys to pick up chips without having hands. I seem to run into a lot of big stacks that will risk a lot of chips to float and try to grow their stacks even more. I don't know if I need to find 2nd and 3rd bullets when I have a hand and miss or am in position or just be more focused on sniffing out spots to steal and maintain or grow my stack that way. Regardless, I've had a real MTT itch lately, so its been nice to get into MTTs and have some success. I'm thinking about playing my first $11k Guarantee tonight @ 6 Central, but that's technically still just outside my bankroll, so we'll see what I decide.
So, overall, Stars is treating me well. I am adequately bankrolled for $5.50 SNGs, and just shy of breaking back through to the $11 level. I feel like I'm playing really well. I'm distinctly noticing spots where in a past poker playing life I would've gone broke but now I'm getting away, or in the past I'd have left chips in the middle where now I get them in my stack, and in my opinion these are the two fundamental mountains to climb to move from weak/tight to tight/aggressive. Its about giving up a good hand when its not the best hand and not getting married to it, and firing at pots when you don't always have the best hand and picking up orphaned chips. So I'm feeling good. I'll continue to work hard on fine tuning these two skills, and I'm also going to look to play more deep stack MTTs and go after that big score that I'm missing, continue to work on cash (I'm a pretty decent winner over the past few weeks at .01/.02 NL :-) ), and figure out a way to get some money back on Full Tilt. Would anybody be willing to accept a PayPal transfer in exchange for a transfer on Full Tilt? I know I *can* get money on the site, but I'd prefer to not actually break the law if I don't have to.
I think that's plenty for today. Again, welcome and thank you to FlopTurnRiver.com, and hope the cards are treating everyone reading this well!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Here's the Scoop
Heyo. I apologize to my (three) loyal blog readers for lack of posts.
In this post I come clean. I have a dirty little secret. Ok, that sounds kinda perverted. I have a little bit of a shameful secret.
I am superstitious. Or however you spell it.
At any rate, my lack of posting isn't due to lack of hands, lack of time, or even necessarily lack of success. It has to do with the fact that it seems like every time I post about running good, some sort of funked up poker karma whoops my ass at the tables. If you'll notice, I tread very lightly when I talk about success because I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. I try and be humble as I can be, as if to hide from this blogwatching gremlin who works for the RNGs at the poker sites that will skew them out of my favor at the very hint of good fortune, confidence, or pride. And yet any time I speak even a little about success, things turn upside down for me. And I guess I am just superstitious (crazy) enough to think that somehow this has an impact on my results, and therefore I'm in this blogging vicious circle where I don't feel like posting when I'm running bad, and I don't wanna post when I'm running good for fear of ruining it. Its fun living in my head, folks.
So for the time being, I wanted to notify you all that I am officially on hiatus until this little poker hobby of mine decides to get off the rollercoaster and go one way or the other. I guess one thing's for sure, I won't be getting off the blogger Z-list for quite some time. Oh, well...
Here's the short answer. I'm all but broke at Full Tilt. I have no useable amount of cash (like .92 or something), and I have like 300-some Full Tilt points that I will probably try and parlay into something at some point, but I mean come on...how likely is it that I'll do anything with them? So, simply because I would like to play at Full Tilt and be earning rakeback if I can, I have a deal with my brother-in-law to transfer me the difference between what I have and a $2.25 SNG out of his measly bankroll, and in exchange, I'll send him enough on PokerStars, where *he* doesn't have any money, for a $1.20 SNG or two. But he plays about once a month, so who knows when this little deal will actually come to fruition. At any rate, I'm not horribly optimistic about success at Full Tilt anytime soon, because as you know I haven't been able to do one thing right at that site since May.
As far as PokerStars, I love playing at PokerStars on my Mac, and that is where I'm doing my playing these days. Turns out I love the site. I always liked Full Tilt because it was more visually appealing to me from the interface to the logo to the gear worn on TV, and all the big name pros they had in their stable. So from a marketing standpoint, they had me hook, line, and sinker. Damn you, marketing gurus!! Turns out PokerStars seems to be more focused on game quality and is much more of a poker player's poker site. Their SNG structure absolutely thumps that of Full Tilt (and of course you know I'd like to think SNGs are where I'm known to be cutting my teeth), and even the .01/.02 NL cash games seem to play astoundingly straight up, and doesn't consist of 7 all-ins every hand like you'd expect. Turns out the game choice, structure, and opponent quality at PokerStars suit me way better. Lets just not think about how if I were *really* a good player I'd be able to adjust my strategy to win at Full Tilt. We'll save that for when I have a bankroll with some wiggle room in it.
At any rate, about the only thing I think Full Tilt has on PokerStars is their top notch tourney satelliting setup. In the little research I'm done, Stars only seems to have satellites to the Sunday Million and their other big tournaments, whereas Full Tilt has a killer thing going with basing a lot of what they do around the ability to earn and use the $26 and $75 token to do almost anything you could ever want. Of course, the ideal setup would be to have money on both, but I'll worry about crossing that bridge when...well...when I have the materials to build it.
So, for now I am playing on my $3.50 in freeroll winnings at PokerStars and working on my own little Chris Ferguson challenge, and I'll just say this...I have more than $3.50, and less than Chris Ferguson. And I feel like I'm playing really, really well.
Now there goes the little gremlin off to report me to the PokerStars RNG. *sigh*
So thank you to those of you that have checked in on me to make sure I was still alive. I am. I'm still playing, I'm still working hard, and I'm still enjoying the turn of every card. Its just that whether I'm winning or losing, I'm currently not posting. I'll do my best to keep checking in, but until I feel like I can't pop open PokerStars and lose my bankroll in a day or less, expect my posting to be sparse. Because I'm just that looney.
Best of luck to all of you, and thanks again for your thoughts and patronage!
In this post I come clean. I have a dirty little secret. Ok, that sounds kinda perverted. I have a little bit of a shameful secret.
I am superstitious. Or however you spell it.
At any rate, my lack of posting isn't due to lack of hands, lack of time, or even necessarily lack of success. It has to do with the fact that it seems like every time I post about running good, some sort of funked up poker karma whoops my ass at the tables. If you'll notice, I tread very lightly when I talk about success because I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. I try and be humble as I can be, as if to hide from this blogwatching gremlin who works for the RNGs at the poker sites that will skew them out of my favor at the very hint of good fortune, confidence, or pride. And yet any time I speak even a little about success, things turn upside down for me. And I guess I am just superstitious (crazy) enough to think that somehow this has an impact on my results, and therefore I'm in this blogging vicious circle where I don't feel like posting when I'm running bad, and I don't wanna post when I'm running good for fear of ruining it. Its fun living in my head, folks.
So for the time being, I wanted to notify you all that I am officially on hiatus until this little poker hobby of mine decides to get off the rollercoaster and go one way or the other. I guess one thing's for sure, I won't be getting off the blogger Z-list for quite some time. Oh, well...
Here's the short answer. I'm all but broke at Full Tilt. I have no useable amount of cash (like .92 or something), and I have like 300-some Full Tilt points that I will probably try and parlay into something at some point, but I mean come on...how likely is it that I'll do anything with them? So, simply because I would like to play at Full Tilt and be earning rakeback if I can, I have a deal with my brother-in-law to transfer me the difference between what I have and a $2.25 SNG out of his measly bankroll, and in exchange, I'll send him enough on PokerStars, where *he* doesn't have any money, for a $1.20 SNG or two. But he plays about once a month, so who knows when this little deal will actually come to fruition. At any rate, I'm not horribly optimistic about success at Full Tilt anytime soon, because as you know I haven't been able to do one thing right at that site since May.
As far as PokerStars, I love playing at PokerStars on my Mac, and that is where I'm doing my playing these days. Turns out I love the site. I always liked Full Tilt because it was more visually appealing to me from the interface to the logo to the gear worn on TV, and all the big name pros they had in their stable. So from a marketing standpoint, they had me hook, line, and sinker. Damn you, marketing gurus!! Turns out PokerStars seems to be more focused on game quality and is much more of a poker player's poker site. Their SNG structure absolutely thumps that of Full Tilt (and of course you know I'd like to think SNGs are where I'm known to be cutting my teeth), and even the .01/.02 NL cash games seem to play astoundingly straight up, and doesn't consist of 7 all-ins every hand like you'd expect. Turns out the game choice, structure, and opponent quality at PokerStars suit me way better. Lets just not think about how if I were *really* a good player I'd be able to adjust my strategy to win at Full Tilt. We'll save that for when I have a bankroll with some wiggle room in it.
At any rate, about the only thing I think Full Tilt has on PokerStars is their top notch tourney satelliting setup. In the little research I'm done, Stars only seems to have satellites to the Sunday Million and their other big tournaments, whereas Full Tilt has a killer thing going with basing a lot of what they do around the ability to earn and use the $26 and $75 token to do almost anything you could ever want. Of course, the ideal setup would be to have money on both, but I'll worry about crossing that bridge when...well...when I have the materials to build it.
So, for now I am playing on my $3.50 in freeroll winnings at PokerStars and working on my own little Chris Ferguson challenge, and I'll just say this...I have more than $3.50, and less than Chris Ferguson. And I feel like I'm playing really, really well.
Now there goes the little gremlin off to report me to the PokerStars RNG. *sigh*
So thank you to those of you that have checked in on me to make sure I was still alive. I am. I'm still playing, I'm still working hard, and I'm still enjoying the turn of every card. Its just that whether I'm winning or losing, I'm currently not posting. I'll do my best to keep checking in, but until I feel like I can't pop open PokerStars and lose my bankroll in a day or less, expect my posting to be sparse. Because I'm just that looney.
Best of luck to all of you, and thanks again for your thoughts and patronage!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
PokerStars for Mac!
For anyone not aware, PokerStars now has a native client for the Mac.
The timing on this couldn't be more perfect for me, considering...
A) I'm a Mac diehard.
B) I just went broke on Full Tilt yesterday until my next rakeback payment, and wasn't looking forward to booting my MacBook Pro into XP to play PokerStars on my Mac.
So thanks, PokerStars, you've really been there for me lately.
Oh...I'm still running horrible.
Happy Holidays!
The timing on this couldn't be more perfect for me, considering...
A) I'm a Mac diehard.
B) I just went broke on Full Tilt yesterday until my next rakeback payment, and wasn't looking forward to booting my MacBook Pro into XP to play PokerStars on my Mac.
So thanks, PokerStars, you've really been there for me lately.
Oh...I'm still running horrible.
Happy Holidays!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Winning Week: The Third
Yep, you read that right. I posted my third straight winning week, and although it wasn't huge, when your bankroll is as small as mine, even a small win is a huge percentage bankroll improvement.
Not a whole lot to report details-wise. I think I mostly just played on Wednesday and Thursday, and by the time I was done w/my SNGs I found my bankroll having improved $5 to $29.
I also cashed in that Negreanu Bahamas PokerStars freeroll for the third straight week, coming in 942nd/10k for another $1. I actually had aspirations in this one of going deep and earning the bid to round 2 by making the top 200, spending most of the tourney in 200-400th range after some early good fortune. I was sitting just outside of the top 200 and was settling in to really make a push when I got my money in with a flopped bottom 2 pair against top pair, only to have the board pair on the river and send me packing a lot earlier than I expected. But I had cashed, and I was tired, so this was probably the best I've taken a bad beat in months. I find my PokerStars bankroll at $3.50 now and have 2 more weeks of this freeroll to continue to try and improve upon that and maybe even make round 2 one of these times.
As a sidenote, I'm not sure when freerolls got easy. I mean I used to dread the minefield that is a freeroll, but now its very systematic to me. I know the kind of player I'm up against, I know what kind of cards they're looking to play, and I can generally figure out where I'm at based on the basics like board texture and betting patterns. Really all there is to a freeroll is dictating the action and not doing a lot of calling, getting in cheap and looking to hit big, or getting a lot of chips in with a good holding and hoping you hold up. The major difference from a (decent) buyin tournament being that there isn't going to be a lot of play after the flop, so you pretty much need to decide if you're going the distance by the flop. I presume in my previous freeroll experience I was one of those players that I now have a good feel for, and I think generally I would find myself in too many pots with too many chips, and not dictating the action like I try and do now. So I guess it speaks to my study and practice, which its great to be able to reflect on the improvements I've made. If someone ever would've asked me if I thought I could get in the top 10% three massive freerolls in a row, I surely would've chuckled at the prospect. But it looks like I've done just that!
I know my usual weekly report has been Thursday to Thursday, but since its Monday, I have lots more poker to talk about since Thursday. Friday, with $29 in my account and officially above my 10x buyin range for SNGs (I know, I know, I should really wait until I actually get to $55 to move up), I hopped into a $5 SNG for the first time in a long time. But despite making it to $27 and $29 a handfull of times since my May/June bankroll collapse, I hadn't ever cashed at the next level. Yeah, we're talking 6 months here. But I'm happy to report that I took 2nd and suddenly my bankroll had cracked the $30 mark! I believe after another SNG loss and a 3rd place, I ended up Friday afternoon at $34. Holy sh*t!
Friday night was poker night at my buddy's place, and it was a blast as usual. In the first tourney I got out to a quick start, but was in a bit of a mood and played way too many hands, finding myself on the outside looking in when all was said and done. I also had to take a little bathroom break, and with our blind structure at this particular game, you can't afford to be missing hands. Turns out they kept track of my hands in my absence, and I would've doubled up with a flush against top 2 or something like that. Oh, well. When you gotta go, you gotta go. In the 2nd tourney I took 3rd/11 and won 3 buyins, so assuming I didn't rebuy in the third tourney I had officially broken even. Our third and final tourney of the night we do rebuys for the first 3 blind levels, and I found myself back in a feisty mood, as do most people in a rebuy. Anyway, I had chipped up pretty well early with a couple of big hands, but then lost probably 1/3 of my stack dicking around in a hand I didn't belong. So I was a little tilted because I would've been set to go with the stack I had, but I was still above the original starting stack. I found myself in the big blind with blinds at 100/200 and about 2500 chips. UTG+1, who is kind of a weak/tight, but smart, solid player makes it 600 to go. It folds around to me, and I look down and find 72o. Now I'm not big into the whole hammer thing, but I just got an inkling that getting this particular hand at this particular time was a bit of a sign. If I doubled up here, I could likely cruise to the money, and if I went broke, I could rebuy and grind it out. Long story short, I thought about it for a couple of minutes, really felt like I could get him to fold, or worst case scenario I had 2 live cards, and I pushed all-in. My opponent insta-called, which scared the crap outta me, but I showed him my holding, he showed me a King, I asked if he had another, he said no, and indeed I had 2 live cards. The door card was a 7, he didn't improve, and I had stacked him. You know, I pride myself on playing a strong TAG game, doing all the right things, and being rewarded for it. But I have to admit, it felt kinda good to let my hair down, make an idiotic play, and be rewarded for it in the end. I NEVER would do it if the stakes were higher or if it was legitimately for my tournament life, but in a $5 rebuy, why the hell not take a shot when you think you've got 2 live cards and the chance to show down 72o for stacks?? But if you're reading this, I'm really sorry Josh. It was nothing personal (except for the awesome read I got on you), and you have all right to come after me and get me back. ;-) Anyway, I went on to cash in the last money spot, turned a $10 profit on the night, and had a blast, so there ain't nothing wrong with that. Oh, and I hit quads (3 on the board), and a straight flush! So that was cool...
I played a handfull of SNGs yesterday, and sparing the drama, I shut down Full Tilt with a bankroll over $54. That's about a 133% bankroll improvement since my starting point on Wednesday. Hands are holding up, draws are getting there, plays are working, and I'll be damned if I'm not even running a little hot. Life is...much better. But I'm not gonna claim to be out of the woods yet.
In an interesting occurence yesterday, it was getting to be a little after 6:30 and I needed to leave by 7:40 or so go to play basketball, so I needed to play a SNG that I could finish in under and hour and wouldn't kill me if I had to bow out. Most would think turbo, but I'm still not that huge of a fan. So $2.25 6-max, here I come. Seven minutes and 10 hands after we started this SNG, I was in the money/heads up. It was remarkable. I had taken someone out with a set of 10s vs K10 on a 10-high flop, and the rest of the table had been cleaned up by my opponent. I don't know how all of them played out, but I saw him flop a set vs 2 pair, and get it all in w/AK vs KQ on a K-high flop. I'll have to look up the other one and post it. Anyway, we were heads up with 20/40 blinds, and proceeded to grind it out. Honestly I got bored pretty quickly and was just happy to cash, so after being worn down to $1800 or so, I was looking for a spot to get my money in decent. Then I made a flush and doubled. Then I picked up KK and limped on the button. Dude JAMS the big stack, and I insta-call. He shows KxQd and I am 5 cards from doubling to the chip lead. Flop comes Q-high, all diamonds. I dodge his 1.2 million outs on the turn, but the river wasn't as kind, bringing him a third Q. I suppose I deserved it for being indifferent about the outcome. If I was really into the poker I would've loved to have grinded it out from 20/40 on, but honestly I just wanted to see some more hands and see if I could grind out another little cash, and wasn't interested in playing in a $2.25 SNG with 225 big blinds in play. Regardless, to have the first 4 go out in 10 hands and 7 minutes was certainly unlike anything I'd seen before, nor will likely ever see again.
Ok, well that's more than enough for today. Hopefully I didn't bore you too badly. Everyone have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving if I don't make it back here.
Not a whole lot to report details-wise. I think I mostly just played on Wednesday and Thursday, and by the time I was done w/my SNGs I found my bankroll having improved $5 to $29.
I also cashed in that Negreanu Bahamas PokerStars freeroll for the third straight week, coming in 942nd/10k for another $1. I actually had aspirations in this one of going deep and earning the bid to round 2 by making the top 200, spending most of the tourney in 200-400th range after some early good fortune. I was sitting just outside of the top 200 and was settling in to really make a push when I got my money in with a flopped bottom 2 pair against top pair, only to have the board pair on the river and send me packing a lot earlier than I expected. But I had cashed, and I was tired, so this was probably the best I've taken a bad beat in months. I find my PokerStars bankroll at $3.50 now and have 2 more weeks of this freeroll to continue to try and improve upon that and maybe even make round 2 one of these times.
As a sidenote, I'm not sure when freerolls got easy. I mean I used to dread the minefield that is a freeroll, but now its very systematic to me. I know the kind of player I'm up against, I know what kind of cards they're looking to play, and I can generally figure out where I'm at based on the basics like board texture and betting patterns. Really all there is to a freeroll is dictating the action and not doing a lot of calling, getting in cheap and looking to hit big, or getting a lot of chips in with a good holding and hoping you hold up. The major difference from a (decent) buyin tournament being that there isn't going to be a lot of play after the flop, so you pretty much need to decide if you're going the distance by the flop. I presume in my previous freeroll experience I was one of those players that I now have a good feel for, and I think generally I would find myself in too many pots with too many chips, and not dictating the action like I try and do now. So I guess it speaks to my study and practice, which its great to be able to reflect on the improvements I've made. If someone ever would've asked me if I thought I could get in the top 10% three massive freerolls in a row, I surely would've chuckled at the prospect. But it looks like I've done just that!
I know my usual weekly report has been Thursday to Thursday, but since its Monday, I have lots more poker to talk about since Thursday. Friday, with $29 in my account and officially above my 10x buyin range for SNGs (I know, I know, I should really wait until I actually get to $55 to move up), I hopped into a $5 SNG for the first time in a long time. But despite making it to $27 and $29 a handfull of times since my May/June bankroll collapse, I hadn't ever cashed at the next level. Yeah, we're talking 6 months here. But I'm happy to report that I took 2nd and suddenly my bankroll had cracked the $30 mark! I believe after another SNG loss and a 3rd place, I ended up Friday afternoon at $34. Holy sh*t!
Friday night was poker night at my buddy's place, and it was a blast as usual. In the first tourney I got out to a quick start, but was in a bit of a mood and played way too many hands, finding myself on the outside looking in when all was said and done. I also had to take a little bathroom break, and with our blind structure at this particular game, you can't afford to be missing hands. Turns out they kept track of my hands in my absence, and I would've doubled up with a flush against top 2 or something like that. Oh, well. When you gotta go, you gotta go. In the 2nd tourney I took 3rd/11 and won 3 buyins, so assuming I didn't rebuy in the third tourney I had officially broken even. Our third and final tourney of the night we do rebuys for the first 3 blind levels, and I found myself back in a feisty mood, as do most people in a rebuy. Anyway, I had chipped up pretty well early with a couple of big hands, but then lost probably 1/3 of my stack dicking around in a hand I didn't belong. So I was a little tilted because I would've been set to go with the stack I had, but I was still above the original starting stack. I found myself in the big blind with blinds at 100/200 and about 2500 chips. UTG+1, who is kind of a weak/tight, but smart, solid player makes it 600 to go. It folds around to me, and I look down and find 72o. Now I'm not big into the whole hammer thing, but I just got an inkling that getting this particular hand at this particular time was a bit of a sign. If I doubled up here, I could likely cruise to the money, and if I went broke, I could rebuy and grind it out. Long story short, I thought about it for a couple of minutes, really felt like I could get him to fold, or worst case scenario I had 2 live cards, and I pushed all-in. My opponent insta-called, which scared the crap outta me, but I showed him my holding, he showed me a King, I asked if he had another, he said no, and indeed I had 2 live cards. The door card was a 7, he didn't improve, and I had stacked him. You know, I pride myself on playing a strong TAG game, doing all the right things, and being rewarded for it. But I have to admit, it felt kinda good to let my hair down, make an idiotic play, and be rewarded for it in the end. I NEVER would do it if the stakes were higher or if it was legitimately for my tournament life, but in a $5 rebuy, why the hell not take a shot when you think you've got 2 live cards and the chance to show down 72o for stacks?? But if you're reading this, I'm really sorry Josh. It was nothing personal (except for the awesome read I got on you), and you have all right to come after me and get me back. ;-) Anyway, I went on to cash in the last money spot, turned a $10 profit on the night, and had a blast, so there ain't nothing wrong with that. Oh, and I hit quads (3 on the board), and a straight flush! So that was cool...
I played a handfull of SNGs yesterday, and sparing the drama, I shut down Full Tilt with a bankroll over $54. That's about a 133% bankroll improvement since my starting point on Wednesday. Hands are holding up, draws are getting there, plays are working, and I'll be damned if I'm not even running a little hot. Life is...much better. But I'm not gonna claim to be out of the woods yet.
In an interesting occurence yesterday, it was getting to be a little after 6:30 and I needed to leave by 7:40 or so go to play basketball, so I needed to play a SNG that I could finish in under and hour and wouldn't kill me if I had to bow out. Most would think turbo, but I'm still not that huge of a fan. So $2.25 6-max, here I come. Seven minutes and 10 hands after we started this SNG, I was in the money/heads up. It was remarkable. I had taken someone out with a set of 10s vs K10 on a 10-high flop, and the rest of the table had been cleaned up by my opponent. I don't know how all of them played out, but I saw him flop a set vs 2 pair, and get it all in w/AK vs KQ on a K-high flop. I'll have to look up the other one and post it. Anyway, we were heads up with 20/40 blinds, and proceeded to grind it out. Honestly I got bored pretty quickly and was just happy to cash, so after being worn down to $1800 or so, I was looking for a spot to get my money in decent. Then I made a flush and doubled. Then I picked up KK and limped on the button. Dude JAMS the big stack, and I insta-call. He shows KxQd and I am 5 cards from doubling to the chip lead. Flop comes Q-high, all diamonds. I dodge his 1.2 million outs on the turn, but the river wasn't as kind, bringing him a third Q. I suppose I deserved it for being indifferent about the outcome. If I was really into the poker I would've loved to have grinded it out from 20/40 on, but honestly I just wanted to see some more hands and see if I could grind out another little cash, and wasn't interested in playing in a $2.25 SNG with 225 big blinds in play. Regardless, to have the first 4 go out in 10 hands and 7 minutes was certainly unlike anything I'd seen before, nor will likely ever see again.
Ok, well that's more than enough for today. Hopefully I didn't bore you too badly. Everyone have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving if I don't make it back here.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Slow & Steady
Well I'm back again for my weekly update. Still didn't get too many chances to play this week, but I had positive results when I did, so that's of course ridiculously encouraging.
I played a handfull of SNGs on Sunday and started out in true nose dive form, but by the end of my session had turned things around and finished ahead a buck or two from where I started. I then got to play a couple of SNGs on Tuesday and took 2nd in both. The interesting phenominon that I faced in these two sessions was my ability to get to heads up, outplay my opponent, but just get destroyed by the deck. Some of the stuff I saw was pretty gut wrenching, but I'm not about to complain. Second place = profit, and profit = good. By the end of Tuesday I saw my Full Tilt account claw its way above $20. With a little rakeback deposit today, I'm sitting on what feels like a fortune at over $24. Now I just need to keep things headed in that direction.
Then tonight I decided to take this week's shot at that PokerStars Play in the Bahamas with Daniel Negreanu freeroll like I talked about in my last post. Having finished 730th out of 10,000 last week, my expectations for dodging this freeroll mine field two weeks in a row were not high. But amazingly, like clockwork, after a little over an hour and a half of some decent poker, the bubble burst, and my PokerStars account was on its way toward being another dollar richer. Incidentally, I busted from the tourney just now as I was working on this post. I was on a short stack (6k w/blinds at 750/1500/150) and jammed w/44 UTG, got called in two spots, and lost. And while I thought I made a major mistake busting when on the next hand I could've found myself in the next payout level (wasn't being vigilant enough of tourney situation), turns out the gods smiled down on me and I was just one of at least 13 bubble hand busters, managed to sneak in under the bubble, and earned myself an additional $.50 in 598th/10,000 (603 was the cutoff). So geez...two profitable weeks in a row, *and* something goes my way despite a major mistake? Pretty humbling.
So...the ol' PokerStars account has gone from $0 to $2.50 thanks to a couple of deep freeroll runs, and whether I continue to have this success in the next 3 weeks or not, its been fun to go deep and plant the seed for my own personal Ferguson-esque accomplishment. Even if I had made the top 200 and advanced to the next level these past couple of weeks, I wouldn't have been able to play the 2nd level tourney on Saturday, but in the coming three weeks I should have the Saturdays available, so while I'll certainly be focusing on continuing to cash, I'll be putting a little extra effort toward gearing for that top 200 and trying to do something *really* remarkable. Regardless, despite having a little more wiggle room in the PS bankroll now, I'm gonna leave it alone until these freerolls are over at the end of November, then figure out my best chance to try and build on it.
Anyway, its past my bedtime, so I'm gonna get outta here. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope everything is going well for everyone on the felt!
I played a handfull of SNGs on Sunday and started out in true nose dive form, but by the end of my session had turned things around and finished ahead a buck or two from where I started. I then got to play a couple of SNGs on Tuesday and took 2nd in both. The interesting phenominon that I faced in these two sessions was my ability to get to heads up, outplay my opponent, but just get destroyed by the deck. Some of the stuff I saw was pretty gut wrenching, but I'm not about to complain. Second place = profit, and profit = good. By the end of Tuesday I saw my Full Tilt account claw its way above $20. With a little rakeback deposit today, I'm sitting on what feels like a fortune at over $24. Now I just need to keep things headed in that direction.
Then tonight I decided to take this week's shot at that PokerStars Play in the Bahamas with Daniel Negreanu freeroll like I talked about in my last post. Having finished 730th out of 10,000 last week, my expectations for dodging this freeroll mine field two weeks in a row were not high. But amazingly, like clockwork, after a little over an hour and a half of some decent poker, the bubble burst, and my PokerStars account was on its way toward being another dollar richer. Incidentally, I busted from the tourney just now as I was working on this post. I was on a short stack (6k w/blinds at 750/1500/150) and jammed w/44 UTG, got called in two spots, and lost. And while I thought I made a major mistake busting when on the next hand I could've found myself in the next payout level (wasn't being vigilant enough of tourney situation), turns out the gods smiled down on me and I was just one of at least 13 bubble hand busters, managed to sneak in under the bubble, and earned myself an additional $.50 in 598th/10,000 (603 was the cutoff). So geez...two profitable weeks in a row, *and* something goes my way despite a major mistake? Pretty humbling.
So...the ol' PokerStars account has gone from $0 to $2.50 thanks to a couple of deep freeroll runs, and whether I continue to have this success in the next 3 weeks or not, its been fun to go deep and plant the seed for my own personal Ferguson-esque accomplishment. Even if I had made the top 200 and advanced to the next level these past couple of weeks, I wouldn't have been able to play the 2nd level tourney on Saturday, but in the coming three weeks I should have the Saturdays available, so while I'll certainly be focusing on continuing to cash, I'll be putting a little extra effort toward gearing for that top 200 and trying to do something *really* remarkable. Regardless, despite having a little more wiggle room in the PS bankroll now, I'm gonna leave it alone until these freerolls are over at the end of November, then figure out my best chance to try and build on it.
Anyway, its past my bedtime, so I'm gonna get outta here. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope everything is going well for everyone on the felt!
Friday, November 02, 2007
The Coach's Game, A SNG Win, and a Bankroll on Stars?!
Hey all. I'm back again for what has become a weekly update. I swear at some point things will slow down, but as of right now I'm *maybe* getting any poker in 3 days a week. Ideally I'd get a few SNGs each night, but right now the ol' lady and I are living life to the fullest before the weather shuts us down.
Anyway...on to the poker. I mentioned in my last post that I got an invite to a 1/2 NL ($50 max buyin) homegame and I was planning on playing it. Well, me and two other buddies got there shortly after 2 and needed to leave by 5:30 to get back home to get ready for my Halloween party. I also mentioned last time that this game is SOFT. I lost a little money last time we played, but that may have actually been the first time I played cash, and I really didn't know how to take money out of a loose game. My buddy, though, won upwards of $300. So needless to say, we were expecting big things. And I'd have to say, the way things have been going for me, I was thrilled to walk out of there $35 richer.
Things started off about normal for me. Just craptastic cards. Nothing I could play. And I was *nervous*. Fact is, I didn't really have $100 to lose at the moment, so I didn't wanna blow my first $50 and sit nervously on money I couldn't afford to lose. I know this goes against several rules of playing good poker, but I wanted to play, damn it, so don't kill me over it. Anyway, I literally folded for the first hour. Nothing playable to the point where I could even complete the SB. Now, I know I should be in pots mixing it up with a loose game (and the game picked up right where it left off 2 years ago when we played), but I was playing scared. I needed something good to happen before I could really settle in. I even folded QJ a couple of times, which is a good fold in a tough game, but a marginal one in a loose game. One time I'd have made two pair and lost to higher two pair, and the other turned into a *huge* pot where I could've lost plenty of money drawing to at least the turn. So I was content with my folds and keeping my chips in my tray. Because even though they were playing loose, they were showing down big hands in the end. So after an hour we filled up to 9 and split into 2 tables. I had been blinded down to $38. If you do the math, that's literally 4 Big Blinds, and 4 small. I had played NOTHING. Weak/tight at its finest. Hell, the whole session can be summed up in 3 hands, so here goes nothing.
With $38 in my stack, I find AK in the big blind. It folds around to the button, he makes a raise to $6, SB folds, I pop it to $18, he looks at me and goes "I haven't seen you play a hand yet", and folds. SCOOP, and I'm back to $45. Not too long later I'm sitting in MP and a new guy next to me raises to $15. I look down...one ace...and another. I raise all-in to $45, it folds around to the original raiser, and he insta-calls. I show my aces and he shows a Q. Board comes Q-high, scaring the bejesus out of me, but then he peels up his other card, which is an Ace. Regardless, I've got 2 outs to dodge, and I have NOT been surviving 2-outers, so I was by no means feeling relieved. This time I hold up and the $90 pot is mine. Halfway through the session I'm up, and I finally settle down a little. I play a few pots here and there when I can get in cheap, and really just hover around the $90-100 mark. With $97 in my stack and 5:24 on the clock, the BB is coming my way, and I decide its my last hand. It folds around to the button (a different player than the button before), and he sticks in his last $11. So I'm not seeing a free flop. SB folds, and I look down at AK and call. He shows J10, flops a J, and the suckout strikes again. So with $86 and in the SB, I have another last hand, its garbage, I chuck it, and cash out for $85. But perhaps more meaningful than the money this time is some confidence. I sat down at that game scared out of my mind, but after doubling up I got to play a little poker, and while I didn't do anything remarkable, I actually got to have fun.
One of my buddies ended up down over $50 and the other ended up cashing out up around $170. They need to have this game more often.
Moving on, I got to play a little bit on Monday online. I played 2 SNGs, and I actually won one of them. I'll be damned if the deck wasn't hitting me in the face a little bit! It was pretty fun. I don't really recall the other one, but I think it was a fairly routine card-dead loss. Anyway, I've got $12.XX in my FT account at the moment, so I will live to see at least 5 more SNGs!
Then last night I decided to play in one of the "Join Daniel Negreanu in the Bahamas" freerolls at PokerStars. Of course its a satellite to a satellite to play in a SNG where the winner gets a trip to the PCA, but what's cool about the first and second levels is that they actually pay cash to the top 12.5 and 15%, too. For a guy with some free time and never having had a bankroll on PokerStars, its worth signing up for. I played one of these a couple weeks ago and got off to a good start, more than doubling early, only to get smacked by a 6-outer when all the money went in with me as a favorite on the flop. Cest la vie. Anyway, after starting with 10,000 players, we were down almost 6900 after the first hour, paying 1250. Insane. I built up some chips early, and then lost a few away, then doubled up when I had a 70% preflop all-in hold up. By the first break I was sitting just outside of the cashing window, but a double-up away from easy money. And when I quadrupled up when my KK held against 22, 66, and a couple of unders about halfway through the 2nd hour, I was as good as gold to cash. I *almost* gave it away when I thought about pushing my 66 in the BB against an MP raise, but I stopped myself and said "This is one of those times where you get your money in dominated and go broke and hate yourself afterwards" and just called the min-raise and check-folded the flop. PF min-raiser had QQ, which held, and I felt good about avoiding that disaster. A short time later we made it into the $1 cash level, and now we needed to play down to 603 to get me another buck. I couldn't find a spot to get my money in for the next 20 mins or so, and I finally pushed w/KJo UTG with barely 3xBB, was called in two spots, and lost to AJ when an A fell on the river (not that he needed it). I was out in 730th, outlasting 9270 players before the 2nd break. That's nucking futs. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I was sitting at a table with 4-5 dead stacks for the first hour and a half, so that went a long way toward making this 730th out of 10,000 finish seem "easy". We were playing 4-5 handed with blinds up for grabs 50% of the time, so it was pretty simple poker. Nonetheless, a deepish run is a deepish run!
So I have one whopping dollar on PokerStars, my first real money ever on the site, and it seems I'm well on my way to pulling a Chris Ferguson. ;-) I'm not gonna dip into my real cash until these freerolls are over at the end of November (I can take my one shot a week), and I'm going to see if I can build up a little more and expand my options. The cool thing is that at sites where I've had cash (PokerRoom, Poker.com, Mansion, Full Tilt), $1 isn't worth jack, but PokerStars has .02/.04 limit tables and .01/.02 NL tables, and $1.20 9 player SNGs. So if a few things go my way, building my PokerStars bankroll from $1 isn't the most daunting task by any means.
So by no means do I have enough results to say I'm out of the woods on what is approaching a 6th full month of running bad, but the last three times I've played poker I've had positive results, but almost more importantly, some opportunity to have a little fun. If nothing else, I can be thankful for that!
Oh, and one more thing, being 20ish days and 850 posts behind in my reading, I just saw today that Fuel55 was kind enough to toss me a link documenting my bustout from the WBCOOP or whatever that big blogger tourney on PokerStars was that I sucked ass in. He's one of my top 3 favorite bloggers, so I was quite humbled that he even knows who I am. If you don't read his blog religiously, start now. I'm looking at you, PokerWeblogs.com patrons. Fuel is a genius poker player at all levels of NL cash games, and he knows his way around a tourney, too. He's equally as good of a teacher, teaching unbelievably valuable, complex lessons in simple, conscise methods. And he fills in the gaps with his amusing "series" (ie "Presto is Gold", "Flopped Straights Always Lose"). We won't even fault him for being Canadian.
Happy Weekend, everybody. Have a good one.
Anyway...on to the poker. I mentioned in my last post that I got an invite to a 1/2 NL ($50 max buyin) homegame and I was planning on playing it. Well, me and two other buddies got there shortly after 2 and needed to leave by 5:30 to get back home to get ready for my Halloween party. I also mentioned last time that this game is SOFT. I lost a little money last time we played, but that may have actually been the first time I played cash, and I really didn't know how to take money out of a loose game. My buddy, though, won upwards of $300. So needless to say, we were expecting big things. And I'd have to say, the way things have been going for me, I was thrilled to walk out of there $35 richer.
Things started off about normal for me. Just craptastic cards. Nothing I could play. And I was *nervous*. Fact is, I didn't really have $100 to lose at the moment, so I didn't wanna blow my first $50 and sit nervously on money I couldn't afford to lose. I know this goes against several rules of playing good poker, but I wanted to play, damn it, so don't kill me over it. Anyway, I literally folded for the first hour. Nothing playable to the point where I could even complete the SB. Now, I know I should be in pots mixing it up with a loose game (and the game picked up right where it left off 2 years ago when we played), but I was playing scared. I needed something good to happen before I could really settle in. I even folded QJ a couple of times, which is a good fold in a tough game, but a marginal one in a loose game. One time I'd have made two pair and lost to higher two pair, and the other turned into a *huge* pot where I could've lost plenty of money drawing to at least the turn. So I was content with my folds and keeping my chips in my tray. Because even though they were playing loose, they were showing down big hands in the end. So after an hour we filled up to 9 and split into 2 tables. I had been blinded down to $38. If you do the math, that's literally 4 Big Blinds, and 4 small. I had played NOTHING. Weak/tight at its finest. Hell, the whole session can be summed up in 3 hands, so here goes nothing.
With $38 in my stack, I find AK in the big blind. It folds around to the button, he makes a raise to $6, SB folds, I pop it to $18, he looks at me and goes "I haven't seen you play a hand yet", and folds. SCOOP, and I'm back to $45. Not too long later I'm sitting in MP and a new guy next to me raises to $15. I look down...one ace...and another. I raise all-in to $45, it folds around to the original raiser, and he insta-calls. I show my aces and he shows a Q. Board comes Q-high, scaring the bejesus out of me, but then he peels up his other card, which is an Ace. Regardless, I've got 2 outs to dodge, and I have NOT been surviving 2-outers, so I was by no means feeling relieved. This time I hold up and the $90 pot is mine. Halfway through the session I'm up, and I finally settle down a little. I play a few pots here and there when I can get in cheap, and really just hover around the $90-100 mark. With $97 in my stack and 5:24 on the clock, the BB is coming my way, and I decide its my last hand. It folds around to the button (a different player than the button before), and he sticks in his last $11. So I'm not seeing a free flop. SB folds, and I look down at AK and call. He shows J10, flops a J, and the suckout strikes again. So with $86 and in the SB, I have another last hand, its garbage, I chuck it, and cash out for $85. But perhaps more meaningful than the money this time is some confidence. I sat down at that game scared out of my mind, but after doubling up I got to play a little poker, and while I didn't do anything remarkable, I actually got to have fun.
One of my buddies ended up down over $50 and the other ended up cashing out up around $170. They need to have this game more often.
Moving on, I got to play a little bit on Monday online. I played 2 SNGs, and I actually won one of them. I'll be damned if the deck wasn't hitting me in the face a little bit! It was pretty fun. I don't really recall the other one, but I think it was a fairly routine card-dead loss. Anyway, I've got $12.XX in my FT account at the moment, so I will live to see at least 5 more SNGs!
Then last night I decided to play in one of the "Join Daniel Negreanu in the Bahamas" freerolls at PokerStars. Of course its a satellite to a satellite to play in a SNG where the winner gets a trip to the PCA, but what's cool about the first and second levels is that they actually pay cash to the top 12.5 and 15%, too. For a guy with some free time and never having had a bankroll on PokerStars, its worth signing up for. I played one of these a couple weeks ago and got off to a good start, more than doubling early, only to get smacked by a 6-outer when all the money went in with me as a favorite on the flop. Cest la vie. Anyway, after starting with 10,000 players, we were down almost 6900 after the first hour, paying 1250. Insane. I built up some chips early, and then lost a few away, then doubled up when I had a 70% preflop all-in hold up. By the first break I was sitting just outside of the cashing window, but a double-up away from easy money. And when I quadrupled up when my KK held against 22, 66, and a couple of unders about halfway through the 2nd hour, I was as good as gold to cash. I *almost* gave it away when I thought about pushing my 66 in the BB against an MP raise, but I stopped myself and said "This is one of those times where you get your money in dominated and go broke and hate yourself afterwards" and just called the min-raise and check-folded the flop. PF min-raiser had QQ, which held, and I felt good about avoiding that disaster. A short time later we made it into the $1 cash level, and now we needed to play down to 603 to get me another buck. I couldn't find a spot to get my money in for the next 20 mins or so, and I finally pushed w/KJo UTG with barely 3xBB, was called in two spots, and lost to AJ when an A fell on the river (not that he needed it). I was out in 730th, outlasting 9270 players before the 2nd break. That's nucking futs. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I was sitting at a table with 4-5 dead stacks for the first hour and a half, so that went a long way toward making this 730th out of 10,000 finish seem "easy". We were playing 4-5 handed with blinds up for grabs 50% of the time, so it was pretty simple poker. Nonetheless, a deepish run is a deepish run!
So I have one whopping dollar on PokerStars, my first real money ever on the site, and it seems I'm well on my way to pulling a Chris Ferguson. ;-) I'm not gonna dip into my real cash until these freerolls are over at the end of November (I can take my one shot a week), and I'm going to see if I can build up a little more and expand my options. The cool thing is that at sites where I've had cash (PokerRoom, Poker.com, Mansion, Full Tilt), $1 isn't worth jack, but PokerStars has .02/.04 limit tables and .01/.02 NL tables, and $1.20 9 player SNGs. So if a few things go my way, building my PokerStars bankroll from $1 isn't the most daunting task by any means.
So by no means do I have enough results to say I'm out of the woods on what is approaching a 6th full month of running bad, but the last three times I've played poker I've had positive results, but almost more importantly, some opportunity to have a little fun. If nothing else, I can be thankful for that!
Oh, and one more thing, being 20ish days and 850 posts behind in my reading, I just saw today that Fuel55 was kind enough to toss me a link documenting my bustout from the WBCOOP or whatever that big blogger tourney on PokerStars was that I sucked ass in. He's one of my top 3 favorite bloggers, so I was quite humbled that he even knows who I am. If you don't read his blog religiously, start now. I'm looking at you, PokerWeblogs.com patrons. Fuel is a genius poker player at all levels of NL cash games, and he knows his way around a tourney, too. He's equally as good of a teacher, teaching unbelievably valuable, complex lessons in simple, conscise methods. And he fills in the gaps with his amusing "series" (ie "Presto is Gold", "Flopped Straights Always Lose"). We won't even fault him for being Canadian.
Happy Weekend, everybody. Have a good one.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Super Quick Update
Ok, since I promised I'd try and be a good blogger, here I am!
There isn't much to say other than I'm essentially running in place from a poker standpoint. I tried to go broke the last two nights, only to cash in my "last" SNG and end up right about where I started.
I'm still getting sucked out on as a big fav. Very very early in a SNG I played on Monday night (like <5 hands in) we had a three way all-in by the turn where I held the nuts (a straight), and the other two fairly obviously held TP (dead), and the flush draw (of course). I was pretty happy to get all the money in with these two as an 80% favorite, then the spade fell on the river. In another SNG I flopped top pair and bet the pot on the flop and turn against an obvious flush draw, only for my opponent's flush to fall again on the river. I feel like this is a circumstance of the level at which I'm playing. Some $5 and moreso in $10 and up players will correctly fold that flush draw to the turn bet, not getting their 4:1. But not at the $2 level. Flushes and open-enders are gold. I also experienced the inevitable PF 70/30 beat when I got all my money in as a shorty w/A4s, got called by A3s, only for him to flop one spade and runner another couple.
I also can't win a coin flip. My favorites are the ones that have to get ridiculously dramatic. One time I got all-in w/A10s as a shorty and got called by 9s. Flop came Xd 9 5d, so he flopped a set (ridiculous enough), but I was still in the hunt with my flush draw. One time, right?? Board pairs the 5 on the turn filling him up, and my flush comes home on the river, just for a stern kick to the junk. Can't we just have me pair up or not pair up? Why all the drama??
The thing I'm really starting to hate the most about all this is the level at which I'm playing. If me and the other 9 players at my tables sat down and took a "poker test" of some sort, I'd wipe the floor with these fuckers. But yet when we sit down at a table to play some cards, their horrific play is being rewarded left and right like *I'm* the bad player for making the right plays. Not even necessarily always against me, but when they mix it up its like in middle school when the guys at the end of the bench played basketball at halftime while the A teamers were in the locker room. Sure, it was basketball, but it was a bastardized version of basketball. And for the record, I was one of those guys, so there's nothing wrong with it. ;-) Bets mean nothing, so you just have to hope they call you down on their draws and don't hit. Kickers mean nothing, so that takes a majority of your bluffing opportunity away because they'll often call down or even raise with TP, any kicker, and sometimes even worse (Last night my flop bet got raised OOP by K10o on an AKx rainbow board. I folded my A9, and the dude w/K10 won the hand. Now you tell me...in a $2.25 SNG, is that 2nd level thinking, or me giving too much respect to a completely idiotic play?). Check-raising is GOLD, and they'll wait for as long as it takes, so you have to watch your ass when trying to pick up a seemingly orphaned pot on any street. And pot odds?...what are pot odds?? Essentially, if a $2 SNG donk is in a hand preflop and flops a pair or draw, they're going to the end with you. So you just have to hope you can get a read and extract value, but moreso you have to hope that the deck is kind, which for me, it is not, so I am toiling in complete and utter misery.
I never knew how well I had it when I was sitting in $10 SNGs and playing some real poker. There was 3 or 4 of us who knew what we were doing that were picking off the donks. Now I'm toiling in a virtual poker gene pool where I show up at a table with some skills and a little bag of tricks, and just get brow-beaten by the ESPN age of preflop and flop tournament players. Under normal circumstances I make adjustments and let the deck do the rest. But the deck isn't doing the rest, so I just have to play as well as I can and hope for the best.
So yeah...not a lot has changed. Hopefully I'll work in a couple of SNGs tonight, and then Saturday I've got a RIPE 1/2 homegame to play in that I'm almost dreading, because if I show up at this thing and get destroyed like I have been for 5 1/2 months now, I'll be dumping money in a place where I definitely should be walking away with 4-5 times my buyin...and that's just plain depressing.
Hope the rest of you are living large. I'll check ya later.
There isn't much to say other than I'm essentially running in place from a poker standpoint. I tried to go broke the last two nights, only to cash in my "last" SNG and end up right about where I started.
I'm still getting sucked out on as a big fav. Very very early in a SNG I played on Monday night (like <5 hands in) we had a three way all-in by the turn where I held the nuts (a straight), and the other two fairly obviously held TP (dead), and the flush draw (of course). I was pretty happy to get all the money in with these two as an 80% favorite, then the spade fell on the river. In another SNG I flopped top pair and bet the pot on the flop and turn against an obvious flush draw, only for my opponent's flush to fall again on the river. I feel like this is a circumstance of the level at which I'm playing. Some $5 and moreso in $10 and up players will correctly fold that flush draw to the turn bet, not getting their 4:1. But not at the $2 level. Flushes and open-enders are gold. I also experienced the inevitable PF 70/30 beat when I got all my money in as a shorty w/A4s, got called by A3s, only for him to flop one spade and runner another couple.
I also can't win a coin flip. My favorites are the ones that have to get ridiculously dramatic. One time I got all-in w/A10s as a shorty and got called by 9s. Flop came Xd 9 5d, so he flopped a set (ridiculous enough), but I was still in the hunt with my flush draw. One time, right?? Board pairs the 5 on the turn filling him up, and my flush comes home on the river, just for a stern kick to the junk. Can't we just have me pair up or not pair up? Why all the drama??
The thing I'm really starting to hate the most about all this is the level at which I'm playing. If me and the other 9 players at my tables sat down and took a "poker test" of some sort, I'd wipe the floor with these fuckers. But yet when we sit down at a table to play some cards, their horrific play is being rewarded left and right like *I'm* the bad player for making the right plays. Not even necessarily always against me, but when they mix it up its like in middle school when the guys at the end of the bench played basketball at halftime while the A teamers were in the locker room. Sure, it was basketball, but it was a bastardized version of basketball. And for the record, I was one of those guys, so there's nothing wrong with it. ;-) Bets mean nothing, so you just have to hope they call you down on their draws and don't hit. Kickers mean nothing, so that takes a majority of your bluffing opportunity away because they'll often call down or even raise with TP, any kicker, and sometimes even worse (Last night my flop bet got raised OOP by K10o on an AKx rainbow board. I folded my A9, and the dude w/K10 won the hand. Now you tell me...in a $2.25 SNG, is that 2nd level thinking, or me giving too much respect to a completely idiotic play?). Check-raising is GOLD, and they'll wait for as long as it takes, so you have to watch your ass when trying to pick up a seemingly orphaned pot on any street. And pot odds?...what are pot odds?? Essentially, if a $2 SNG donk is in a hand preflop and flops a pair or draw, they're going to the end with you. So you just have to hope you can get a read and extract value, but moreso you have to hope that the deck is kind, which for me, it is not, so I am toiling in complete and utter misery.
I never knew how well I had it when I was sitting in $10 SNGs and playing some real poker. There was 3 or 4 of us who knew what we were doing that were picking off the donks. Now I'm toiling in a virtual poker gene pool where I show up at a table with some skills and a little bag of tricks, and just get brow-beaten by the ESPN age of preflop and flop tournament players. Under normal circumstances I make adjustments and let the deck do the rest. But the deck isn't doing the rest, so I just have to play as well as I can and hope for the best.
So yeah...not a lot has changed. Hopefully I'll work in a couple of SNGs tonight, and then Saturday I've got a RIPE 1/2 homegame to play in that I'm almost dreading, because if I show up at this thing and get destroyed like I have been for 5 1/2 months now, I'll be dumping money in a place where I definitely should be walking away with 4-5 times my buyin...and that's just plain depressing.
Hope the rest of you are living large. I'll check ya later.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Quickie Update
First off, hello to all my new readers from Pokerweblogs.com. I didn't really buy into it when I first saw the comment I got yesterday...thought it was another blog listing website that wouldn't do much. Nonetheless, I signed up cuz exposure is exposure, and have come to discover these folks are *serious* about poker blogging. I've already gotten 14 hits (about 7x my normal daily rate ;-) ), rated (6.7 out of 10, baby!), and gotten a couple of comments on their site, and I've only been listed on there for about 4 hours. As you can see, I linked them up at right, so if you're looking for more exposure to people that are serious about poker blogging, I'd advise you sign up with them. BTW, their blogger of the month is Carmen, so they definitely know what they're doing over there, and I look forward to being affiliated with the site.
It also means I have to step up my game, because I'm actually being read and rated now, which is just plain weird for me. ;-)
Anyway, I wanted to update quickly that I'm not broke yet. I played a couple of SNGs last night. The first one was atrocious. I honestly don't remember much of it, but I don't think it was worth remembering either. I've been reading the Full Tilt Tournament Strategy Guide, so I was trying out some advice from Gavin Smith's chapter in spots, and it didn't pan out. I'm sure its sound advice, but for my "last" (with 2.24 left in the account my only option would've been a 1.25 90 player SNG or wait until my $1 in rakeback gets paid to me next month :-) ) SNG I went back to the ol' WindBreaker special style of play and took that bad boy down! I'm not gonna mince words and say that the deck wasn't hitting me in the face a little bit, but I made a couple of pretty strong plays to improve my chances (extracted maximum value by busting two players with a set, and making a clutch call to an all-in push w/5 left...behind, but w/2 live suited cards) and saw my way to being the last man standing. So I'm alive again with 11.24, which gives me a little breathing room with 4.999999999 SNGs until I'm on the verge of going broke again. Does someone want to transfer me a penny? Cuz that one penny I'm short is KILLING me. :-)
The other part of the reason that last night's first SNG didn't make much of an impact on me is because I was watching the first hour of the 2007 WSOP on ESPN (50k horse w/Reese, Elezra, Seed, Lindgren feature table) and was keeping an eye on the crowd at all times because I WAS THERE. I believe I made my ESPN debut (although I might have been on there back in the days when I was sitting on the floor at ISU basketball as a student) when they showed my giant frame in the "No Limit Lounge" in a handfull of backgrounds, not to mention prominently featuring my very own feet behind Negreanu in one long shot. For autographs, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope. ;-)
Ok, I've gotta get outta here and go get a workout in. Just wanted to let everyone know I survived almost going broke for about the 5th time since May, and I will live to see at least 4 more SNGs. Also, I'm thinking tonight and for the remaining weeks they're available I might have a go at the PokerStars freerolls for the freerolls for the exclusive 9 person table for a shot at the PCA. Looks like they hold 10,000 max (and of course fill up every time), but top 1500 get cash, and top 200 get entry to the next round, so I'm gonna see about working my way through a couple of those mine fields. Check 'em out if you're broke like me and interested.
With that, I'm out.
It also means I have to step up my game, because I'm actually being read and rated now, which is just plain weird for me. ;-)
Anyway, I wanted to update quickly that I'm not broke yet. I played a couple of SNGs last night. The first one was atrocious. I honestly don't remember much of it, but I don't think it was worth remembering either. I've been reading the Full Tilt Tournament Strategy Guide, so I was trying out some advice from Gavin Smith's chapter in spots, and it didn't pan out. I'm sure its sound advice, but for my "last" (with 2.24 left in the account my only option would've been a 1.25 90 player SNG or wait until my $1 in rakeback gets paid to me next month :-) ) SNG I went back to the ol' WindBreaker special style of play and took that bad boy down! I'm not gonna mince words and say that the deck wasn't hitting me in the face a little bit, but I made a couple of pretty strong plays to improve my chances (extracted maximum value by busting two players with a set, and making a clutch call to an all-in push w/5 left...behind, but w/2 live suited cards) and saw my way to being the last man standing. So I'm alive again with 11.24, which gives me a little breathing room with 4.999999999 SNGs until I'm on the verge of going broke again. Does someone want to transfer me a penny? Cuz that one penny I'm short is KILLING me. :-)
The other part of the reason that last night's first SNG didn't make much of an impact on me is because I was watching the first hour of the 2007 WSOP on ESPN (50k horse w/Reese, Elezra, Seed, Lindgren feature table) and was keeping an eye on the crowd at all times because I WAS THERE. I believe I made my ESPN debut (although I might have been on there back in the days when I was sitting on the floor at ISU basketball as a student) when they showed my giant frame in the "No Limit Lounge" in a handfull of backgrounds, not to mention prominently featuring my very own feet behind Negreanu in one long shot. For autographs, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope. ;-)
Ok, I've gotta get outta here and go get a workout in. Just wanted to let everyone know I survived almost going broke for about the 5th time since May, and I will live to see at least 4 more SNGs. Also, I'm thinking tonight and for the remaining weeks they're available I might have a go at the PokerStars freerolls for the freerolls for the exclusive 9 person table for a shot at the PCA. Looks like they hold 10,000 max (and of course fill up every time), but top 1500 get cash, and top 200 get entry to the next round, so I'm gonna see about working my way through a couple of those mine fields. Check 'em out if you're broke like me and interested.
With that, I'm out.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Rock Bottom...Please?
Poker has not irritated me more in the past 5+ months of this bad run as it did yesterday.
I played in PokerStars World Blogger Championship thingie first yesterday afternoon, and after what I felt like was a mostly solid first hour, I made probably the most donkalicious play I've ever made since I've *really* been taking pride in my game, and exited in 8XX/1200ish. In the first hour I was getting hit upside the head with the deck, and about the only thing I could do wrong was extract the most value out of my hands, which I feel like I *didn't* excel at when I had a couple of BIG hands. But I'm just so afraid of getting sucked out on I'm just trying to end pots with the lead as much as I can. There was one hand in particular where I flopped a set of aces and probably could've stacked a guy who claimed to have flopped bottom set, but I was so afraid of the flush draw on board I bet him out on the flop. And had I stopped and thought about it, I could be pretty sure he wasn't on a flush draw. So that was irritating.
Anyway, so after being as high as 17k, I end the hour with around 15k (10k starting stack), and as we head into the 2nd hour I win another pretty big hand and am moved to a new table with my 17k stack. First "real" hand I play at this table and I go broke. UTG limps, which I dully note to respect, but after it folds around to me, I made a 4x raise w/A10o just to see where we were really at. Blinds fold, UTG calls, and we're heads up. Flop comes AJx, 2-suited. UTG checks, and I bet at it about 3/4 pot. UTG pushes. After not enough thought, I call, and go broke against AJ. Just an absolutely terrible play. Limp-call UTG screams AK, AQ, AJ, pocket pair, suited connectors at the VERY least. Which means I'm either dominated, he flopped a set, or he has a flush or straight draw. Best I could hope to be is 70% if this guy is actually a complete donk and happens to have gotten in dominated against me, but otherwise I'm 60% at best against even any draw he likely has. But for some reason when he pushed after my 3/4 pot bet, I thought about every single wrong thought possible.
The quick conclusion I came to was essentially "this donk is on a flush draw and this is a huge spot for me to pick up a lot of chips and go deep". Lets break this down. "This donk"...this is a blogger tournament, and although not all bloggers are by any means good poker players (present company included), most are not going to make this all-in push on a flush draw like I see every day in the $2.25 SNGs I play. "is on a flush draw"...I'm lying a little bit here in that I put him on AJ or a flush draw when I made my call, and if I was beat, oh well its just a freeroll. Well I had *instant* regret upon busting because this wasn't "just a freeroll". This was a legit tournament w/a 10k starting stack (I've only played in one other tournament w/a 10k starting stack) with a pretty amazing $40,000 prize pool, that PokerStars just happened to be putting on for free for bloggers. "Just a freeroll" couldn't be further from the truth. "and this is a huge spot for me to pick up a lot of chips and go deep"...Again, a laughable statement. Fact of the matter is, I was sitting in about 185th out of over 850 left, had an above average stack, and still would have had an above average stack if I folded to his push. We all know there's "those spots" in a tournament where you have to make a ballsy call to really pick up chips and make a deep run. I thought this was that spot (and obviously I wanted this to be that spot), but it absolutely was not. The deck had been hitting me pretty hard, I had enough chips to splash around in pots and pick up the orphans, and then I manage to go broke OOP w/A10o. Just really fucking pathetic.
So that depresses me to no end. I go from playing for a $10k prize package to the PCA, back to my $22 bankroll on Full Tilt. But I figured I'd try and ease the pain a little with some SNGs.
3 hours, 7 SNGs, and 0 cashes later, I closed Full Tilt with a bankroll of $6.74. Yep, I'm back to my "last" 2 SNGs again. Same ol' story. Couldn't hit a flop, couldn't complete a draw, couldn't win a coin flip, and got sucked out on if I got my money in good. Just mind blowing.
So like I've talked about, I feel like I've weathered this storm pretty well so far, but yesterday was just plain depressing. I put myself in a good position in the PokerStars tourney, only to piss it right away with some of the worst thought processing one could ever imagine. Then I try a little SNG therapy only to get run over by the deck.
The really ironic part in all of it is how I play these SNGs as flawlessly as I can imagine day in and day out and get destroyed by horrible players and cold decks, but can at least come away with moral victories and hope that someday things will start to work out in my favor. Then I get this one time shot at this really nice tournament with strong opponents who actually know what they're doing and can play some actual poker with, shoot out of the gates with good cards and strong play, then manage to bust on quite possibly the most donkalicious thought process and play of my "career".
What's the least encouraging about whether I'm playing good in "unimportant" spots, or playing bad in huge spots is that the end result is always the same...failure.
Until next time...
I played in PokerStars World Blogger Championship thingie first yesterday afternoon, and after what I felt like was a mostly solid first hour, I made probably the most donkalicious play I've ever made since I've *really* been taking pride in my game, and exited in 8XX/1200ish. In the first hour I was getting hit upside the head with the deck, and about the only thing I could do wrong was extract the most value out of my hands, which I feel like I *didn't* excel at when I had a couple of BIG hands. But I'm just so afraid of getting sucked out on I'm just trying to end pots with the lead as much as I can. There was one hand in particular where I flopped a set of aces and probably could've stacked a guy who claimed to have flopped bottom set, but I was so afraid of the flush draw on board I bet him out on the flop. And had I stopped and thought about it, I could be pretty sure he wasn't on a flush draw. So that was irritating.
Anyway, so after being as high as 17k, I end the hour with around 15k (10k starting stack), and as we head into the 2nd hour I win another pretty big hand and am moved to a new table with my 17k stack. First "real" hand I play at this table and I go broke. UTG limps, which I dully note to respect, but after it folds around to me, I made a 4x raise w/A10o just to see where we were really at. Blinds fold, UTG calls, and we're heads up. Flop comes AJx, 2-suited. UTG checks, and I bet at it about 3/4 pot. UTG pushes. After not enough thought, I call, and go broke against AJ. Just an absolutely terrible play. Limp-call UTG screams AK, AQ, AJ, pocket pair, suited connectors at the VERY least. Which means I'm either dominated, he flopped a set, or he has a flush or straight draw. Best I could hope to be is 70% if this guy is actually a complete donk and happens to have gotten in dominated against me, but otherwise I'm 60% at best against even any draw he likely has. But for some reason when he pushed after my 3/4 pot bet, I thought about every single wrong thought possible.
The quick conclusion I came to was essentially "this donk is on a flush draw and this is a huge spot for me to pick up a lot of chips and go deep". Lets break this down. "This donk"...this is a blogger tournament, and although not all bloggers are by any means good poker players (present company included), most are not going to make this all-in push on a flush draw like I see every day in the $2.25 SNGs I play. "is on a flush draw"...I'm lying a little bit here in that I put him on AJ or a flush draw when I made my call, and if I was beat, oh well its just a freeroll. Well I had *instant* regret upon busting because this wasn't "just a freeroll". This was a legit tournament w/a 10k starting stack (I've only played in one other tournament w/a 10k starting stack) with a pretty amazing $40,000 prize pool, that PokerStars just happened to be putting on for free for bloggers. "Just a freeroll" couldn't be further from the truth. "and this is a huge spot for me to pick up a lot of chips and go deep"...Again, a laughable statement. Fact of the matter is, I was sitting in about 185th out of over 850 left, had an above average stack, and still would have had an above average stack if I folded to his push. We all know there's "those spots" in a tournament where you have to make a ballsy call to really pick up chips and make a deep run. I thought this was that spot (and obviously I wanted this to be that spot), but it absolutely was not. The deck had been hitting me pretty hard, I had enough chips to splash around in pots and pick up the orphans, and then I manage to go broke OOP w/A10o. Just really fucking pathetic.
So that depresses me to no end. I go from playing for a $10k prize package to the PCA, back to my $22 bankroll on Full Tilt. But I figured I'd try and ease the pain a little with some SNGs.
3 hours, 7 SNGs, and 0 cashes later, I closed Full Tilt with a bankroll of $6.74. Yep, I'm back to my "last" 2 SNGs again. Same ol' story. Couldn't hit a flop, couldn't complete a draw, couldn't win a coin flip, and got sucked out on if I got my money in good. Just mind blowing.
So like I've talked about, I feel like I've weathered this storm pretty well so far, but yesterday was just plain depressing. I put myself in a good position in the PokerStars tourney, only to piss it right away with some of the worst thought processing one could ever imagine. Then I try a little SNG therapy only to get run over by the deck.
The really ironic part in all of it is how I play these SNGs as flawlessly as I can imagine day in and day out and get destroyed by horrible players and cold decks, but can at least come away with moral victories and hope that someday things will start to work out in my favor. Then I get this one time shot at this really nice tournament with strong opponents who actually know what they're doing and can play some actual poker with, shoot out of the gates with good cards and strong play, then manage to bust on quite possibly the most donkalicious thought process and play of my "career".
What's the least encouraging about whether I'm playing good in "unimportant" spots, or playing bad in huge spots is that the end result is always the same...failure.
Until next time...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Bankroll on PokerStars...Please??
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!
This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.
Registration code: 1940552
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Puck Foker
This post was originally started on August 22nd, and I just never got around to finishing it. Well its now October 10th, and I'm finally gonna finish it, but just be aware that although things haven't improved vastly, this post is outdated. But there's still some good stuff for posterity. Then I'll try and post soon and get things updated. Although its pretty much more of the same...
So according to Blogger, I haven't posted in just a day short of a month. And, you guys remember what I said recently about not being able to blog when I'm running bad, right? Well do a little simple math there, and you'll be able to deduce the reasoning for my lack of posts.
I run SOOOOOOOOO bad.
I'm just gonna hit some hilights and then get outta here. Really, I just want some of this documented for posterity.
A few weeks ago I actually happened into an "extra" token, so for a few days I looked to get into the 7 PM central deepstack token tourney. 24k guarantee I think.
Anyway, one random Wednesday night I got into the tourney with over 1000 of my closest friends and things were going just swimmingly. After an early hit on some bad play on my part, I quickly found myself back ahead of the average, and just kept playing as aggressively as I could to stay there. I managed to stay ahead of the average with a nice stack all the way toward the end of the 2nd hour. I was bouncing around between 80th and 100th place and playing well. With a 10.5k stack and blinds at 100/200 or something, I have AJ in the BB. The button shorty (like 2400) makes like a 3x stealy raise, SB folds, and I decide AJ is probably ahead of his range and if he's gonna see his flop he's going to have to commit his chips. I jam, he calls, and rolls A5. Five on the river, and that's that. Fair enough. About an orbit later I pick up AA UTG+2. I make a standard 3x raise to 1200, and another 2400 shorty jams immediately behind me. It folds back around to me, and I make the easy call. He shows KQo and makes a straight by the turn. An ace on the river twists the knife. Ok, so now I'm sitting on a 5k stack and quite irritated. Five hands later I was out. I'm sitting on the button and it folds around to me. I make a relatively easy jam w/K6 vs. the blinds, the SB re-jams (this is the guy that sucked out on my AA w/KQ), and the BB folds. SB has KK, and I'm cold-decked again and out in something like 483rd.
So I really had a feeling that that was going to be the tourney that helped me turn the corner there for a while. I was making really strong plays to keep and grow my stack and stay in the ITM spots and while I showed down some winners, a lot of it was keeping ahead of the average by stabbing at pots to pick up blinds. Then I just got beat to shit by the deck and all of the sudden it was over in <15 hands and I wasn't exactly sure what hit me.
One of my favorite beats as of recent was in a $5 SNG when this crazy LAG raised UTG+1, and sitting on a short stack, I jammed without much thought w/AKs in the big blind. LAG didn't even think before calling and showing his AJs, the obvious nuts. The flop naturally comes J88, but there's two diamonds. Turn is another J giving him a full house, which, of course has me drawing dead, but in my mind I'm still calling for a diamond cuz its so fast I don't really realize it. Diamond on the river gives me the nut flush and I feel vindicated...until the chips slide his way and realize what just happened. So sick.
I also had a fun one at our monthly game where I found AKs in late position (cutoff or button), and raised it up to 3 or 4x, and got a caller from my buddy's boss, a complete donk, in the big blind. Flop comes 5,7,9, two spades. Ok, so I'm probably still ahead and I'm drawing huge. He checks, I make a reasonable, enticing bet. He raises all-in, and even though I know I'm beat...somehow...I make the call for all my chips. He rolls 86o and I'm drawing thinner than I expected, but I've got my trusty spades. Turn A, River A, and the deck gets the last laugh again.
I have felt a little better lately because I've played some with my brother-in-law and he's seen what's happening to me, and with my buddy and he's seen what's happening to me, and over at another buddy's place as he watched over my shoulder and watched this stuff happen to me. So I'm not crazy. I am just running so bad and there's nothing I can do about it but keep trying to play and not go broke.
So after all the online torture as of late, in a perhaps ill-advised move, I decided to mix it up a little bit and throw $100 down to play some 1/2 NL live at the local casino last Friday. And that...was an experience.
I got sat at a table that consisted of several familiar faces from when I've been out there before. So while I was hoping for some frat boys drinking it up and donking it off, I was set to deal with regulars, which is fine because although they may not give away their money in true donkey form, just because they're regulars doesn't mean they're good. I soon settled into the table and had pinpointed some targets, some seats to avoid tangoing with, and seeing who would show up next in the seats that would fill and empty. Eventually I was feeling pretty comfortable and happy to be tossing chips and squeezing two cards up off the felt as opposed to clicking buttons.
Prolly 45 mins or so in I pick up AA under the gun. Not being fully adjusted to my surroundings yet, I bump it to $8, and get, like, 6 callers. I forgot that any raise under $10 seems to actually *encourage* callers. So much for thinning the field. So I'm thinking to myself "flop an ace...flop an ace...flop an ace" or I may have to get away from it. Flop? QAx, two diamonds. I bet right out at it for $15, got one caller to my left, and it folded around to this old codger regular who I've seen play plenty of times and definitely has some solid game, but can be conquered. Codger raises to $35, and I put him on AQ, QQ, Ax or a flush draw, with flush draw being the likliest. I'm going all-in for my last $15 or something on top of the $35, but I play it up a little bit, hoping to get the other caller, a true donk with a stack that had steadily decreased since he sat down, to come along. When I finally push, the dude mucks, and codger obviously calls and rolls...52 of diamonds. Awesome. Thanks for that, puney little $8 raise. Diamond on the turn. Even more awesome. Q on the river. Awesomest of awesome. Suck/Resucks are probably one of my favorite things in poker. Whether I'm just watching or am actually involved, I just really get a kick out of them. I was halfway out of my chair after the diamond on the turn thinking "standard", so needless to say it was nice to see the board pair on the river and I drag a pot that will allow me to play a little.
So I almost busted about 45 mins into my session after flopping a set of aces in a $160 pot. After the beat that actually did send me packing, though, I'd have taken the 37%er any day of the week just for peace of mind's sake.
Its a little under 2 hours into my session and my $160 stack had been bled down to about $130 after blinds and losing $15 on a hand where I made middle pair on the flop and bet the whole way against an obvious flush draw, only for Flushy McFlusherson to hit an overpair on the river. Standard. Otherwise, I was just contributing blinds as I swear when I looked down 7 times out of 10 my first card was a 4. The other three times, the 2nd card was a 4. But I digress...
I look down and find KK either UTG or UTG+1. Hoping to thin the field at least a little more than last time, but being willing to let it go if I don't love the flop, I bump to $10. I get a caller over in the corner of the table, and this suckbox idiot in the SB bumps to $25. This guy couldn't keep himself out of a pot if he tried, and I have watched him dip into pots all night, and he was about as bad as it gets. He'd have a big hand in small pots and a small hand in big pots, but was still managing to keep his head above water by sucking out with shitty two pair and 4-straights like it was his job. He should've been busted about 4 times, and I was just *waiting* for a chance to take his chips. If we were heads up already I'd probably have flat-called the $25 and assuming a harmless enough board, chipped away at him street by street because I was almost positive he didn't have AA, but I couldn't have this other tagalong in the hand and for that reason and some insurance against the probability of his rockets, I bump it to $50. Tagalong folds and moron, looking all constipated, hems and haws for a while before he calls. Flop comes J-high, two hearts. He checks with zero strength whatsoever, and I jam my last $82, ready to take it down here or make him commit his stack to try and win (he actually only had $2 more than me, as we'll find out shortly). He goes into the tank for probably 3-4 minutes, and finally says, "I think I'm beat...I think I'm beat REALLY bad.", thinks for another 15-20 seconds or so and says "I call". Great decision, buddy. He flips two queens and I flip my kings. He has the Q of hearts, but I have the K of hearts, so runner runner flush is not an option. He's dead to 2 outs twice. A 10% shot. I'm in the 10 seat to the right of the dealer, so I can *sorta* see the cards before everyone else. The queenish looking paint card that comes off on the turn makes me feel a little sick, but the reaction from the table when the card hits the felt wasn't horrible, and c'mon...it can't be a Queen, right?? But the dealer pulls his hand away, and there lies a Queen. I take a quick look at suckbox and he's just looking at the queen with this stupid looking ecstatic but shameful look on his face, and I can just tell everyone else at the table is looking at me like I just saw my dog get hit by a car. I sweat the last card also hoping for the miracle of all suck/resucks, but I see the two hearts on the face of that card, and I swear I was out of the room before that deuce even hit the felt.
I probably could've rebought and made money at that table. Most of them were in pots where they had no business being, and a tight guy like me could just wait for my monster and get paid off. But, you know? After running bad for 3 2/3 months now, if I can't sweat 2 outs in the deck, I might've exposed myself as an even bigger putting another $100 on the table than the suckbox moron was for calling with those queens. So $100 was my stop-loss. Its one thing to lose to a <5 outer in a $2.25 or $5.50 SNG online, but I can't really afford to be losing a hundred bones getting my money in as a 90% favorite.
So, I had an absolute f-bombing blast playing some live poker while it lasted, but I walked out of there having taken not only my worst live beat, but very likely my most expensive bad beat ever, and there's nothing worse than walking out of a casino with a couple of milestones like that hanging over your head.
The next day I played 3 SNGs and bombed out of those with boat under boat, cold-deck, and cold-deck. I haven't had the desire to play since. Granted, its only been 3 days, but the whole thing is just really starting to wear on me. I've been reading again trying to get my mind straight, and like I said before, have an attitude of perseverance as opposed to "woe is me". I wanna beat this thing. But at this point even if I can pull out of the slump, I've still got a long ways to go to get myself back to even from my 2005 losses that I'm still trying to make up for, and I don't know if I have time to put together the sort of bankroll I'd like to have for February's Circuit Event in Council Bluffs. But at this point I've gotta take it one step at a time and just start trying to win as a favorite.
Good times.
So according to Blogger, I haven't posted in just a day short of a month. And, you guys remember what I said recently about not being able to blog when I'm running bad, right? Well do a little simple math there, and you'll be able to deduce the reasoning for my lack of posts.
I run SOOOOOOOOO bad.
I'm just gonna hit some hilights and then get outta here. Really, I just want some of this documented for posterity.
A few weeks ago I actually happened into an "extra" token, so for a few days I looked to get into the 7 PM central deepstack token tourney. 24k guarantee I think.
Anyway, one random Wednesday night I got into the tourney with over 1000 of my closest friends and things were going just swimmingly. After an early hit on some bad play on my part, I quickly found myself back ahead of the average, and just kept playing as aggressively as I could to stay there. I managed to stay ahead of the average with a nice stack all the way toward the end of the 2nd hour. I was bouncing around between 80th and 100th place and playing well. With a 10.5k stack and blinds at 100/200 or something, I have AJ in the BB. The button shorty (like 2400) makes like a 3x stealy raise, SB folds, and I decide AJ is probably ahead of his range and if he's gonna see his flop he's going to have to commit his chips. I jam, he calls, and rolls A5. Five on the river, and that's that. Fair enough. About an orbit later I pick up AA UTG+2. I make a standard 3x raise to 1200, and another 2400 shorty jams immediately behind me. It folds back around to me, and I make the easy call. He shows KQo and makes a straight by the turn. An ace on the river twists the knife. Ok, so now I'm sitting on a 5k stack and quite irritated. Five hands later I was out. I'm sitting on the button and it folds around to me. I make a relatively easy jam w/K6 vs. the blinds, the SB re-jams (this is the guy that sucked out on my AA w/KQ), and the BB folds. SB has KK, and I'm cold-decked again and out in something like 483rd.
So I really had a feeling that that was going to be the tourney that helped me turn the corner there for a while. I was making really strong plays to keep and grow my stack and stay in the ITM spots and while I showed down some winners, a lot of it was keeping ahead of the average by stabbing at pots to pick up blinds. Then I just got beat to shit by the deck and all of the sudden it was over in <15 hands and I wasn't exactly sure what hit me.
One of my favorite beats as of recent was in a $5 SNG when this crazy LAG raised UTG+1, and sitting on a short stack, I jammed without much thought w/AKs in the big blind. LAG didn't even think before calling and showing his AJs, the obvious nuts. The flop naturally comes J88, but there's two diamonds. Turn is another J giving him a full house, which, of course has me drawing dead, but in my mind I'm still calling for a diamond cuz its so fast I don't really realize it. Diamond on the river gives me the nut flush and I feel vindicated...until the chips slide his way and realize what just happened. So sick.
I also had a fun one at our monthly game where I found AKs in late position (cutoff or button), and raised it up to 3 or 4x, and got a caller from my buddy's boss, a complete donk, in the big blind. Flop comes 5,7,9, two spades. Ok, so I'm probably still ahead and I'm drawing huge. He checks, I make a reasonable, enticing bet. He raises all-in, and even though I know I'm beat...somehow...I make the call for all my chips. He rolls 86o and I'm drawing thinner than I expected, but I've got my trusty spades. Turn A, River A, and the deck gets the last laugh again.
I have felt a little better lately because I've played some with my brother-in-law and he's seen what's happening to me, and with my buddy and he's seen what's happening to me, and over at another buddy's place as he watched over my shoulder and watched this stuff happen to me. So I'm not crazy. I am just running so bad and there's nothing I can do about it but keep trying to play and not go broke.
So after all the online torture as of late, in a perhaps ill-advised move, I decided to mix it up a little bit and throw $100 down to play some 1/2 NL live at the local casino last Friday. And that...was an experience.
I got sat at a table that consisted of several familiar faces from when I've been out there before. So while I was hoping for some frat boys drinking it up and donking it off, I was set to deal with regulars, which is fine because although they may not give away their money in true donkey form, just because they're regulars doesn't mean they're good. I soon settled into the table and had pinpointed some targets, some seats to avoid tangoing with, and seeing who would show up next in the seats that would fill and empty. Eventually I was feeling pretty comfortable and happy to be tossing chips and squeezing two cards up off the felt as opposed to clicking buttons.
Prolly 45 mins or so in I pick up AA under the gun. Not being fully adjusted to my surroundings yet, I bump it to $8, and get, like, 6 callers. I forgot that any raise under $10 seems to actually *encourage* callers. So much for thinning the field. So I'm thinking to myself "flop an ace...flop an ace...flop an ace" or I may have to get away from it. Flop? QAx, two diamonds. I bet right out at it for $15, got one caller to my left, and it folded around to this old codger regular who I've seen play plenty of times and definitely has some solid game, but can be conquered. Codger raises to $35, and I put him on AQ, QQ, Ax or a flush draw, with flush draw being the likliest. I'm going all-in for my last $15 or something on top of the $35, but I play it up a little bit, hoping to get the other caller, a true donk with a stack that had steadily decreased since he sat down, to come along. When I finally push, the dude mucks, and codger obviously calls and rolls...52 of diamonds. Awesome. Thanks for that, puney little $8 raise. Diamond on the turn. Even more awesome. Q on the river. Awesomest of awesome. Suck/Resucks are probably one of my favorite things in poker. Whether I'm just watching or am actually involved, I just really get a kick out of them. I was halfway out of my chair after the diamond on the turn thinking "standard", so needless to say it was nice to see the board pair on the river and I drag a pot that will allow me to play a little.
So I almost busted about 45 mins into my session after flopping a set of aces in a $160 pot. After the beat that actually did send me packing, though, I'd have taken the 37%er any day of the week just for peace of mind's sake.
Its a little under 2 hours into my session and my $160 stack had been bled down to about $130 after blinds and losing $15 on a hand where I made middle pair on the flop and bet the whole way against an obvious flush draw, only for Flushy McFlusherson to hit an overpair on the river. Standard. Otherwise, I was just contributing blinds as I swear when I looked down 7 times out of 10 my first card was a 4. The other three times, the 2nd card was a 4. But I digress...
I look down and find KK either UTG or UTG+1. Hoping to thin the field at least a little more than last time, but being willing to let it go if I don't love the flop, I bump to $10. I get a caller over in the corner of the table, and this suckbox idiot in the SB bumps to $25. This guy couldn't keep himself out of a pot if he tried, and I have watched him dip into pots all night, and he was about as bad as it gets. He'd have a big hand in small pots and a small hand in big pots, but was still managing to keep his head above water by sucking out with shitty two pair and 4-straights like it was his job. He should've been busted about 4 times, and I was just *waiting* for a chance to take his chips. If we were heads up already I'd probably have flat-called the $25 and assuming a harmless enough board, chipped away at him street by street because I was almost positive he didn't have AA, but I couldn't have this other tagalong in the hand and for that reason and some insurance against the probability of his rockets, I bump it to $50. Tagalong folds and moron, looking all constipated, hems and haws for a while before he calls. Flop comes J-high, two hearts. He checks with zero strength whatsoever, and I jam my last $82, ready to take it down here or make him commit his stack to try and win (he actually only had $2 more than me, as we'll find out shortly). He goes into the tank for probably 3-4 minutes, and finally says, "I think I'm beat...I think I'm beat REALLY bad.", thinks for another 15-20 seconds or so and says "I call". Great decision, buddy. He flips two queens and I flip my kings. He has the Q of hearts, but I have the K of hearts, so runner runner flush is not an option. He's dead to 2 outs twice. A 10% shot. I'm in the 10 seat to the right of the dealer, so I can *sorta* see the cards before everyone else. The queenish looking paint card that comes off on the turn makes me feel a little sick, but the reaction from the table when the card hits the felt wasn't horrible, and c'mon...it can't be a Queen, right?? But the dealer pulls his hand away, and there lies a Queen. I take a quick look at suckbox and he's just looking at the queen with this stupid looking ecstatic but shameful look on his face, and I can just tell everyone else at the table is looking at me like I just saw my dog get hit by a car. I sweat the last card also hoping for the miracle of all suck/resucks, but I see the two hearts on the face of that card, and I swear I was out of the room before that deuce even hit the felt.
I probably could've rebought and made money at that table. Most of them were in pots where they had no business being, and a tight guy like me could just wait for my monster and get paid off. But, you know? After running bad for 3 2/3 months now, if I can't sweat 2 outs in the deck, I might've exposed myself as an even bigger putting another $100 on the table than the suckbox moron was for calling with those queens. So $100 was my stop-loss. Its one thing to lose to a <5 outer in a $2.25 or $5.50 SNG online, but I can't really afford to be losing a hundred bones getting my money in as a 90% favorite.
So, I had an absolute f-bombing blast playing some live poker while it lasted, but I walked out of there having taken not only my worst live beat, but very likely my most expensive bad beat ever, and there's nothing worse than walking out of a casino with a couple of milestones like that hanging over your head.
The next day I played 3 SNGs and bombed out of those with boat under boat, cold-deck, and cold-deck. I haven't had the desire to play since. Granted, its only been 3 days, but the whole thing is just really starting to wear on me. I've been reading again trying to get my mind straight, and like I said before, have an attitude of perseverance as opposed to "woe is me". I wanna beat this thing. But at this point even if I can pull out of the slump, I've still got a long ways to go to get myself back to even from my 2005 losses that I'm still trying to make up for, and I don't know if I have time to put together the sort of bankroll I'd like to have for February's Circuit Event in Council Bluffs. But at this point I've gotta take it one step at a time and just start trying to win as a favorite.
Good times.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Latest Update
For my latest update, please click here, and skip to the bottom where I spoke in general terms about how my game is going. Only take out the parts about any glimmer of hope.
This weekend saw me go from $73 to as low as $.80. I spent about $30 trying to win tokens so I could play in a $26 tourney Saturday night, and after bombing on my 1st two $8.70 or whatever turbos and getting severely tilted, not only did I score a toke on my next SNG, but I also picked one up in a Token Frenzy, so after a rough start, that was a real bright spot for $52 on my $30 investment.
The rest was piss poor. I got into like a $24k Guarantee on Saturday night and when it started and I realized it wasn't a deep stack I was upset (push monkeys love to spew chips in deep stack tourneys and I've always had pretty good luck in steadily building a stack), but was still prepared to go deep. And by go deep, I obviously mean bust on the 3rd hand when I flopped 2 pair w/A3 (in the BB), got all my chips in the middle by the turn against what I absolutely knew was a big ace, but what I was not expecting was the flush draw. With one card to come, of course, he got home.
That may be one of those situations where maybe I shouldn't be 100% eager to get all my chips in with 2 pair that early in a tournament, and possibly could've avoided busting. But I was absolutely certain he had a strong ace, I just did not anticipate a flush draw. So who knows, maybe thats a spot where I can get away from it in an effort to minimize my exposure to variance. But at the same time, I got in as at least a 70% favorite, and if I'm chucking a hand as a 70% favorite, something's gotta be wrong with me, right?? Any input would be welcome.
Aside from that, after what was a non-cashing streak of at least 10 SNGs, yesterday afternoon I bought into a $2.25 SNG that left me a worthless $.80 behind, so needless to say, I was nervous. I managed to win that SNG, fortunately, and then took 2nd in two more after that. After a couple more suckouts and cold decks, currently my bankroll stands somewhere north of $9, which leaves me with four more shots. I also have that other $26 token, which I kinda wish right now was actually $26, because although a deep stack token tourney will be fun, lets face it, I've never had a performance in one that makes me a sure fire bet to cash. And the way I'm running just makes it worse.
Some noteworthy beats yesterday were AA vs JJ all-in preflop and QQ vs 1010 all-in preflop. Other than that I saw several 70/30 suckouts, an inability to win 60/40s and 50/50s, big hands not being able to get paid off, and cold-decks that just make you wanna cry.
And its all that much worse in $2.25 SNGs where any two cards bigger than 9 are worthy of calling off a stack with.
In the interest of not sounding like the ultimate whiner (although that ship has probably sailed at this point), I also find myself playing really weakly from time-to-time (but also made a handfull of really strong plays), and sometimes I wonder if I'm getting big money into 60/40s and 50/50s at inappropriate times. All I know is it feels like I'm getting my money in flipping coins in big spots (and losing), but that makes me wonder if they're almost *too* big. It feels right when I jam w/99 on a shorty who obviously wants to take a pot down uncontested preflop, but then when my pair doesn't hold up and I'm 1/3 of a stack lighter I wonder if it was the right play.
So the battle continues...
This weekend saw me go from $73 to as low as $.80. I spent about $30 trying to win tokens so I could play in a $26 tourney Saturday night, and after bombing on my 1st two $8.70 or whatever turbos and getting severely tilted, not only did I score a toke on my next SNG, but I also picked one up in a Token Frenzy, so after a rough start, that was a real bright spot for $52 on my $30 investment.
The rest was piss poor. I got into like a $24k Guarantee on Saturday night and when it started and I realized it wasn't a deep stack I was upset (push monkeys love to spew chips in deep stack tourneys and I've always had pretty good luck in steadily building a stack), but was still prepared to go deep. And by go deep, I obviously mean bust on the 3rd hand when I flopped 2 pair w/A3 (in the BB), got all my chips in the middle by the turn against what I absolutely knew was a big ace, but what I was not expecting was the flush draw. With one card to come, of course, he got home.
That may be one of those situations where maybe I shouldn't be 100% eager to get all my chips in with 2 pair that early in a tournament, and possibly could've avoided busting. But I was absolutely certain he had a strong ace, I just did not anticipate a flush draw. So who knows, maybe thats a spot where I can get away from it in an effort to minimize my exposure to variance. But at the same time, I got in as at least a 70% favorite, and if I'm chucking a hand as a 70% favorite, something's gotta be wrong with me, right?? Any input would be welcome.
Aside from that, after what was a non-cashing streak of at least 10 SNGs, yesterday afternoon I bought into a $2.25 SNG that left me a worthless $.80 behind, so needless to say, I was nervous. I managed to win that SNG, fortunately, and then took 2nd in two more after that. After a couple more suckouts and cold decks, currently my bankroll stands somewhere north of $9, which leaves me with four more shots. I also have that other $26 token, which I kinda wish right now was actually $26, because although a deep stack token tourney will be fun, lets face it, I've never had a performance in one that makes me a sure fire bet to cash. And the way I'm running just makes it worse.
Some noteworthy beats yesterday were AA vs JJ all-in preflop and QQ vs 1010 all-in preflop. Other than that I saw several 70/30 suckouts, an inability to win 60/40s and 50/50s, big hands not being able to get paid off, and cold-decks that just make you wanna cry.
And its all that much worse in $2.25 SNGs where any two cards bigger than 9 are worthy of calling off a stack with.
In the interest of not sounding like the ultimate whiner (although that ship has probably sailed at this point), I also find myself playing really weakly from time-to-time (but also made a handfull of really strong plays), and sometimes I wonder if I'm getting big money into 60/40s and 50/50s at inappropriate times. All I know is it feels like I'm getting my money in flipping coins in big spots (and losing), but that makes me wonder if they're almost *too* big. It feels right when I jam w/99 on a shorty who obviously wants to take a pot down uncontested preflop, but then when my pair doesn't hold up and I'm 1/3 of a stack lighter I wonder if it was the right play.
So the battle continues...
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Only Thing I Can Say at a Poker Table
In reference to the title, the only thing it seems I can say at a poker table these days is "UNREAL". Generally the syllables are split with one world famous "f word", but the idea is the same.
Here are four occurances where all I could think was "unreal" in one single 90 player SNG.
After nearly doubling up early when my QQ held against AK when we got all-in after a 545 flop, I played some big stack poker, made a few hands, and had worked my stack up to 7-8k. Then these hands happen.
1. Small Potatoes. I might have played this hand a little passively on the flop, but with his raise I like the potential of getting paid off at the end of this hand if the river is anything else. Of course the river *isn't* anything else, and I can't see any way my kings full are any good there.
2. Come on Now. This hand was pretty early on, but I thought I played it about as well as I could. What a ridiculous suckout. After the flop he needs one of the two kings left or a runner runner pair to win, or a runner runner straight to split. Of course that's *way* too many outs for me to dodge. The donkey proceeds to go damn near broke on the next hand and then donk off the rest of his chips the hand after. Way to use that double-up.
After these hands I was still sitting in good shape, but I got involved in a 3-way pot where I was committed to the end w/2nd pair 10s, top kicker with 2 Jacks on the board. One player had a J and I was back down to 4k.
I didn't have to wait too long before I doubled through a total LAG when I actually won ANOTHER coin flip w/my JJ vs. his AK. I don't think I'd have doubled me up there for over 1/3 of my stack, but I'm certainly happy he did.
3. And Then There Was This. I actually thought I was getting my money in relatively far behind here but had some very live draws to big hands and felt like it was a good spot to go big or go home. I was open-ended with the 2nd nut flush draw and possibly a live king, and this guy was flinging chips like he was protecting a 9 or an overpair. I was getting a little less than 2:1 and had to be a coin flip if not a favorite, so I called his all-in, and it turns out he was bluffing out his ass and I had him crushed and for once there were some outs I *didn't* want to hit because we shared them. Of course that's when the open-ender comes right on home for both and we split the pot... This is a spot where you could make an argument that I should've never been in the hand w/K10o to a preflop raise, but it was a pretty paltry price to pay in the big blind with a big stack and in the end I found myself in good shape and got hideously unlucky...again.
Then not too long after this I managed to find myself on an even bigger stack when I flopped the nut flush and stacked someone who liked his QQ.
I sat on this 14-15k stack as it bounced between 4th place and 9th place as we played down from 27 to 21. I think I was in about 7th when this hand went down.
4. The Ultimate Dagger. Preflop, this hand couldn't have gone more perfectly. I smooth called the initial short stack raise in hopes of other calls or a re-raise to isolate, and I got everything I could've ever hoped for. Of course, given our holdings its only natural. Of course the shorty is gonna get all his chips in w/QQ, and of course the donkey w/KK can't see my obvious aces and let it go. I really think right there I could have laid my KK down to the third re-raise. We were on the bubble and he had *plenty* of chips to get to the money. But instead he puts his tourney life on the line with 2 outs, hits his way to the chip lead, and I'm sent packing one off the bubble in 20th less than an orbit after this hand. Incidentally, I got it in against Mr. KK w/my 3s vs his AK and he turned an Ace. Of course he did. Even if the QQ guy flops a set there I still net 10k on the hand. But no, its gotta be the kings.
So. FCKING. Sick. I really felt good about finally winning one of these 10 table SNGs. I actually won in a couple of big spots, only to lose when I *really* shouldn't have to worry about losing.
And just to note, this isn't the first time this has happened to me. Way back when I got involved in a cash game hand w/AA vs. KK vs. QQ vs. JJ and the jacks come out ahead w/a set on the flop. I know that the more pocket pairs you have in a hand, the more likely it is that someone flops a set, but come on...where's the donks w/AK or AQ here every now and then??
Despite all this, I can't really complain. I probably had my best monthly homegame ever on Friday, taking 2nd, 1st, and 1st and profiting $60 on these $5 tourneys. I have to admit I had a couple of crucial 70/30 or worse suckouts in crucial spots, but you know what? I'm OK with that. And despite the utter fcking heartbreak in this 90 player SNG I did win a regular old 9 player SNG so tonights session will show a profit. Otherwise, the only online playing I've been doing is at PokerCS.com trying to put together a bankroll from their play money step SNGs where if you win a 6, 6, and 10 player SNG, you get $1. It was some nice, no pressure poker over the past 3-4 days. I've collected some step 2 tickets and will continue down that path over the next few days.
I did play in a $500 freeroll over there that I got a ticket to for my shilling in my last post, and it went about as I could expect from the last 2 months results. AK no good against QJ w/TPTK vs 2 pair, AK no good against A8 w/a 4-flush to the 8, and JJ no good against 99 flopping a set. A good opportunity to make some money with only 45 players and a nice 2500 chip starting stack, but I went out in 42nd I believe. C'est la vie.
So signs of turning this around are persisting, and while I actually won a couple of coin flips tonight in big spots, little could I expect to lose w/AA all-in preflop in the biggest possible spot. Guess I've still got a little ways to go...
Here are four occurances where all I could think was "unreal" in one single 90 player SNG.
After nearly doubling up early when my QQ held against AK when we got all-in after a 545 flop, I played some big stack poker, made a few hands, and had worked my stack up to 7-8k. Then these hands happen.
1. Small Potatoes. I might have played this hand a little passively on the flop, but with his raise I like the potential of getting paid off at the end of this hand if the river is anything else. Of course the river *isn't* anything else, and I can't see any way my kings full are any good there.
2. Come on Now. This hand was pretty early on, but I thought I played it about as well as I could. What a ridiculous suckout. After the flop he needs one of the two kings left or a runner runner pair to win, or a runner runner straight to split. Of course that's *way* too many outs for me to dodge. The donkey proceeds to go damn near broke on the next hand and then donk off the rest of his chips the hand after. Way to use that double-up.
After these hands I was still sitting in good shape, but I got involved in a 3-way pot where I was committed to the end w/2nd pair 10s, top kicker with 2 Jacks on the board. One player had a J and I was back down to 4k.
I didn't have to wait too long before I doubled through a total LAG when I actually won ANOTHER coin flip w/my JJ vs. his AK. I don't think I'd have doubled me up there for over 1/3 of my stack, but I'm certainly happy he did.
3. And Then There Was This. I actually thought I was getting my money in relatively far behind here but had some very live draws to big hands and felt like it was a good spot to go big or go home. I was open-ended with the 2nd nut flush draw and possibly a live king, and this guy was flinging chips like he was protecting a 9 or an overpair. I was getting a little less than 2:1 and had to be a coin flip if not a favorite, so I called his all-in, and it turns out he was bluffing out his ass and I had him crushed and for once there were some outs I *didn't* want to hit because we shared them. Of course that's when the open-ender comes right on home for both and we split the pot... This is a spot where you could make an argument that I should've never been in the hand w/K10o to a preflop raise, but it was a pretty paltry price to pay in the big blind with a big stack and in the end I found myself in good shape and got hideously unlucky...again.
Then not too long after this I managed to find myself on an even bigger stack when I flopped the nut flush and stacked someone who liked his QQ.
I sat on this 14-15k stack as it bounced between 4th place and 9th place as we played down from 27 to 21. I think I was in about 7th when this hand went down.
4. The Ultimate Dagger. Preflop, this hand couldn't have gone more perfectly. I smooth called the initial short stack raise in hopes of other calls or a re-raise to isolate, and I got everything I could've ever hoped for. Of course, given our holdings its only natural. Of course the shorty is gonna get all his chips in w/QQ, and of course the donkey w/KK can't see my obvious aces and let it go. I really think right there I could have laid my KK down to the third re-raise. We were on the bubble and he had *plenty* of chips to get to the money. But instead he puts his tourney life on the line with 2 outs, hits his way to the chip lead, and I'm sent packing one off the bubble in 20th less than an orbit after this hand. Incidentally, I got it in against Mr. KK w/my 3s vs his AK and he turned an Ace. Of course he did. Even if the QQ guy flops a set there I still net 10k on the hand. But no, its gotta be the kings.
So. FCKING. Sick. I really felt good about finally winning one of these 10 table SNGs. I actually won in a couple of big spots, only to lose when I *really* shouldn't have to worry about losing.
And just to note, this isn't the first time this has happened to me. Way back when I got involved in a cash game hand w/AA vs. KK vs. QQ vs. JJ and the jacks come out ahead w/a set on the flop. I know that the more pocket pairs you have in a hand, the more likely it is that someone flops a set, but come on...where's the donks w/AK or AQ here every now and then??
Despite all this, I can't really complain. I probably had my best monthly homegame ever on Friday, taking 2nd, 1st, and 1st and profiting $60 on these $5 tourneys. I have to admit I had a couple of crucial 70/30 or worse suckouts in crucial spots, but you know what? I'm OK with that. And despite the utter fcking heartbreak in this 90 player SNG I did win a regular old 9 player SNG so tonights session will show a profit. Otherwise, the only online playing I've been doing is at PokerCS.com trying to put together a bankroll from their play money step SNGs where if you win a 6, 6, and 10 player SNG, you get $1. It was some nice, no pressure poker over the past 3-4 days. I've collected some step 2 tickets and will continue down that path over the next few days.
I did play in a $500 freeroll over there that I got a ticket to for my shilling in my last post, and it went about as I could expect from the last 2 months results. AK no good against QJ w/TPTK vs 2 pair, AK no good against A8 w/a 4-flush to the 8, and JJ no good against 99 flopping a set. A good opportunity to make some money with only 45 players and a nice 2500 chip starting stack, but I went out in 42nd I believe. C'est la vie.
So signs of turning this around are persisting, and while I actually won a couple of coin flips tonight in big spots, little could I expect to lose w/AA all-in preflop in the biggest possible spot. Guess I've still got a little ways to go...
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Coming out of my Hole to Shill and B*tch
I just got a welcome email from PokerCS.com (aka CarbonPoker), probably still my favorite poker room on the web even though I'm broke there, talking about their Summer Champs series. They politely asked me to post on my blog about the series to spread the word, and since I love the site so much I'm happy to oblige.
If you've never played at this site, I suggest you do. Their software is fast and absolutely loaded with cool features like fold & show, rabbit hunting, all-in percentages, player accolades (to show off your poker prowess), great graphical player notes features, hide your cards (if you like an added challenge), chat bubbles from each player, smilies the ability to have multiple windows or your games tiled in a single window, and I know there's more that I just can't remember. Their software is absolutely top notch.
So anyway, to oblige the good people at PokerCS.com, I just wanted to get that in there.
Now...what can I say about the last month and change since I've posted? More of the same...
Playing the local casino's live tourney on 6/10 actually went pretty well. I never had an above average stack, but managed to make it down to the final 2 tables just picking up big hands to double up with when I needed to. I was seeing visions of an under the radar miraculous win/cash when I went against my gut and pushed my 4xBB in EP with K10 (which had been the bain of my existance over this run I've been experiencing), only to run into the BBs AK. I'd already used my 70/30 suckout earlier in the tourney w/A5 vs AJ, so this hand sealed the deal and I bust in 14th out of 116 or so, w/the top 10 paying. It was a HUGE disappointment, but I think I've gotta make that push there every time and hope for the best. I won $50 at the 3/6 table after busting out of the tourney, so the final tally for the day was a mere -$10.
That day would be the exception, however, and NOT the norm. Some bloggers can bring themselves to post when they're running bad, but I am not one of them. The bad beats just kept coming, including at the homegame I last talked about where I had to rebuy after the very first hand after flopping the nuts (I held KJ on a flop of 9 Q 10) against my buddy's set of Qs and him filling up on the river. I took another >70% beat a few levels later but was left with chips, and then finally got something going when disaster struck again. We were on the bubble with 5 left, and I was 3rd in chips, but only with about 4-5xBB due to the structure, I open pushed UTG w/QQ and the SB who had me covered by <10% hemmed and hawed and eventually called w/A10s. The BB thought about it briefly before folding an Ace face up. So I've only got 2 aces to dodge at least. Not only did he flop his flush draw, but the turn was an Ace, and I was sent packing. So sick.
But when I say packing, I mean I was literally packing my bags, to head to Las Vegas on 6/22. I couldn't mention it in the blog because I'm not sure if my brother in law reads this consistently or not, but it was a secret to him. He thought we were going to Florida, and *he* was getting surprised with a trip to Vegas on 6/23, and then we were going to surprise him by being out there when he arrived on 6/25. All that went off without a hitch, and it was a blast. I spent only about 6 hours at 3/6 tables at Caesars while in town, but that was about enough. The first night my buddy and I were seated at the fishiest 3/6 table I've ever had the pleasure of being seated at. And I shot straight out of the gate running my stack up +$80 within the first hour. When I exchanged some texts with my wife seeing what her and our friends were up to, and she asked me how I was doing, instead of writing back "killing this table of donkeys", I modestly replied "playing successful poker". But that still must have angered the gods and I went on a 2 hour drought not winning a hand and having my AA, KK, QQ, and a host of other solid hands not hold up. The AA was the most noteable as this total donk local went with me the whole way w/KK, and caught a K on the river to scoop the huge pot. Just sick. I mean, I guess in limit poker when you have an overpair to the board you've gotta plan on dedicating $45 to the hand, but like an a-hole donk at the end of the hand he goes "I know you have aces de whole time." Well if that's really true, then save yourself some money! But no...he spikes the 2-outer instead. I saw my stack down to as low as $20 from my $100 starting stack, so over the course of the next 2 hours I just struggled to get back to even. Eventually the donkey table broke and I was moved to another table that was a little more solid, so I just tried to bide my time and look for good hands. It was basically torture. This drunk moron to my left didn't fold for about an hour and couldn't lose and eventually cashed out for over $400. He got me once with 2 pair w/his Q2 against my TPTK w/AK, but I kept that pot small and didn't lose much. I kept folding to stay out of his way, and I think I eventually did take a decent pot or two off him just before he left. Finally it got to be about 3 AM on Monday morning, my new table was 6-handed and a new card rack had sat down to my left. After playing as many hands as I could short-handed, I finally won a couple of pots, my stack was at $97, and I got outta there. What a nightmare.
I played one more time before leaving town. 6/26 was my brother-in-law's actual 30th bithday, so we got together with our friend who lives out there again and hit the Caesar's poker room one more time. In the end I might have actually waited longer for my seat than I actually sat in it. It was really just a blip on the radar for me. There was nothing to the session. Plain and simple, I wasn't winning. I saw a lot of average hands...middle pairs, KQ, suited connectors. The kind of hands you just like to try and limp with or raise in position. But it seems like every time I got one of those hands there would be a raise and/or a re-raise in front of me, so maybe I should've been chucking them, but instead I was playing them for too much money. And whiffing flops like it was my job. I got involved in one hand where I flopped an open-ender with a K-high flush draw, and couldn't get it home. Lost a lot of chips on that hand. But mostly I just bled paying $6 to see flops with hands that needed help and never got it. My bustout hand came at the hands of my brother-in-law who was a total card rack the whole session. With only like $15 in front of me I limped w/J10s on the button. BIL completed in the small and my other buddy checked the big. I can't recall if anyone else was in the hand or not. Anyway, the flop came 8 J Q, BIL bet, and it folded around to me. I threw in a raise hoping to just scoop at this point, but BIL called. So I've confirmed he's got the queen, and I'm pretty much done with this hand. The turn was a pleasantly unexpected 9. BIL bet, I threw in the last of my chips, and made the mistake of feeling very comfortable w/my straight against his Q9. The thought of living to see another day quickly vanished when another 9 hit the river and the pot was shipped one seat to my left. When my brother-in-law busted me by spiking his 4-outer on the river a calm came over me and I knew that was my sign to go sleep for 3 hours before we got up to leave town. The last of my chips went to a worthy enough cause, and any more money on the table would be a waste. If anyone else had busted me I probably would've reloaded and played until it was time to go to the airport, but getting busted by BIL with a pretty major suckout kinda put me at peace, so that was...interesting. As a side note, BIL continued to be a card rack after I left for a while longer, and walked away with about $140 profit. I was really really happy for him. It was his birthday, and he was playing live poker in a casino for the first time ever...in Vegas. Its a dream scenario to walk away a big winner, and I'm glad the dream unfolded for him.
Vegas saw the drying up of my measly cash roll and then some, so I'm officially cash broke and have to start the cash roll over. I'm still running pretty piss poor in general (7/5 marked 2 months of this garbage...easily the longest streak of negative variance since I started playing in 2004), and could wear the keyboard out with bad beat stories just from the past 4 sessions online. Friday offered a glimmer of hope with the bankroll approaching $70, but then Sunday I was ready to chuck my computer against the wall as I saw my roll depleated to as low as $12. Signs of stabilization are showing as intermixed with some of the sick, sick beats are me crushing every 3rd or 4th SNG, and my FT balance currently stands at $61. *knocks furiously on wood* So I'm seeing signs of things turning around, but just when I start to feel like I'm standing on solid ground, the floor drops out from under me again. While I feel like in general I'm playing strong, but careful, I have realized myself playing weak/scared a couple times and have done my best to keep the aggression high even though it seems like whenever I get my money in way good preflop or on the flop, it all falls apart when the rest of the cards come. I simply cannot outlast remaining cards to come.
But I'm having fun. Its very challenging to fight negative variance, but since your running so badly it helps you focus on getting your money in as good as possible, and I'm getting a LOT of practice doing that. So assuming I can start getting my big hands to hold up, hitting a consistent number of draws, and winning my fair share of coin flips, that will start paying off and then bigger chip stacks will allow me to take more chances. For now I've switched back to the 9-max SNGs, sticking in some 18s, 45s, and 90s here and there because I get more hands for my money and it gives me a little more wiggle room to get to the cash. While the percentage of players that cash is the same, I feel like the 9 and up SNGs have more pure dead money in them than a 6-max, where generally players are playing the 6-max for a reason. But maybe I'm just making that up...
If and when I ever can get any sort of consistency back in my game, I really would like to start honing in my online MTT game. I've been dabbling in some of the $26 token deep stack tourneys and the 90-max deep stack SNGs and have really been having fun and some success trying to go deep. Inevitably I always end up running KK into QQ flopping a set, KK running into 33 flopping a set, JJ running into 88 making a straight, or 10s vs 9s that make a straight (all of these are real hands from my last 4 sessions) and busting, but I feel like after 3 years of toiling my big score is out there somewhere. So we'll see. First I have to put together a bankroll that gives me a little wiggle room...
So that's about that. There's some real sick beats and serious cold decks to talk about, but they all kind of run together at this point. I'm trying to focus on looking ahead, and taking solice in the facts that I'm getting my money in WAY good more often than not, and that bankroll management has prevented me from going broke.
Sorry for the huge post, but if you made it this far you're a champ. Maybe the next post will be sooner and bring some better news.
Oh and PS, while I was in Vegas I visited Day 2 and Day 4 of the 50k HORSE event. I'm a total celebrity dork, so seeing all the pros I've watched for hours on end on TV (not to mention Dr. Pauly) was an unbelievable experience. I have some pretty good pictures from Day 2 where you can just go around the tables and play "Name the Pros", so if anyone is interested in seeing them, shoot me an email. I was around for the 2004 Final Table when they played the last full WSOP at Binion's and saw the ushering out of that legacy, but this was my first visit to The Rio for the WSOP. Man, what a spectacle.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
More of the Same...
Well, I took 6 days off from playing. Partly because I could take the variance anymore, partly to stave off the tilt, and partly because, quite frankly, I was scared. Every time I got into a showdown situation I envisioned the worst, and it just plain wasn't fun.
So I got the itch to play again tonight, and I started out real strong, making just some really great plays on both tables and building stacks that I could be aggressive with. A lot of it I did without a hand and with coordinated betting strategy, but I also showed down big when I needed to. Anyway, we get down to the bubble in both SNGs. In the first one sitting on the 2nd place stack I flopped open-ended with a gapper hand in the BB and made my straight on the river. Alas, my opponent on the button had turned a full house holding A7o and showed no strength at any point in the hand until he shoved over the top of me on the river. My first instinct was to fold due to the way I'd been running but I thought to myself "is a straight *really* no good here?", and decided I had to make the call 3-handed and couldn't let my variance dictate my play. Just sick. Can anyone get away from that hand there on a paired board w/an A on it? I feel like I should've been able to, but I just couldn't find a fold with a very well disguised straight 3-handed. On the 2nd table I was the short stack and flopped top pair 7s in the BB, and the SB min-bet the flop and the turn, and I shoved over the top on the turn. He called with 9s...unraised PF. My read was total weakness with the big stack trying to push the shorty off his BB hand w/overs or something. With top pair still on the turn, I felt like I had to get my money in and make him pay to draw to a hand that beats me. I don't know how I get away from that under any circumstances.
So...this f'n blows. I'm pretty much completely hopeless. I feel like I'm doing a whole lot right not only play wise, but also in order to subdue the tilt, but I'm just getting NO help from the cards.
I probably won't blog until sometime next week unless I happen to stumble upon some free time, in what has been and will continue to be the busiest week in recent memory. I'm playing live tomorrow night at a home game that is supposed to be pretty soft, and I'm playing live again on Sunday at the local casino's tourney. I'm *really* looking forward to both opportunities to play live, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I don't know how I feel about putting "real" money up to play poker right now the way I'm running. Its one thing to get brow-beaten in $2 and $5 SNGs, but it'll be a little harder to take in a $20 rebuy game and a $60 tourney. I'm just gonna play my best and hope the cards don't continue to spit in my face. I'm grasping at the concept that Saturday is my birthday and *maybe* I'll be within the window of some "birthday luck" starting tomorrow. So we'll see how that works out.
BTW, I owe TripJax a plug because he actually tagged me for that 7 things meme, which I didn't see until after I had actually posted it. That makes 5 whole bloggers who know I exist. I'm getting pretty big time, but I promise I'll try and remain humble.
Check ya later.
So I got the itch to play again tonight, and I started out real strong, making just some really great plays on both tables and building stacks that I could be aggressive with. A lot of it I did without a hand and with coordinated betting strategy, but I also showed down big when I needed to. Anyway, we get down to the bubble in both SNGs. In the first one sitting on the 2nd place stack I flopped open-ended with a gapper hand in the BB and made my straight on the river. Alas, my opponent on the button had turned a full house holding A7o and showed no strength at any point in the hand until he shoved over the top of me on the river. My first instinct was to fold due to the way I'd been running but I thought to myself "is a straight *really* no good here?", and decided I had to make the call 3-handed and couldn't let my variance dictate my play. Just sick. Can anyone get away from that hand there on a paired board w/an A on it? I feel like I should've been able to, but I just couldn't find a fold with a very well disguised straight 3-handed. On the 2nd table I was the short stack and flopped top pair 7s in the BB, and the SB min-bet the flop and the turn, and I shoved over the top on the turn. He called with 9s...unraised PF. My read was total weakness with the big stack trying to push the shorty off his BB hand w/overs or something. With top pair still on the turn, I felt like I had to get my money in and make him pay to draw to a hand that beats me. I don't know how I get away from that under any circumstances.
So...this f'n blows. I'm pretty much completely hopeless. I feel like I'm doing a whole lot right not only play wise, but also in order to subdue the tilt, but I'm just getting NO help from the cards.
I probably won't blog until sometime next week unless I happen to stumble upon some free time, in what has been and will continue to be the busiest week in recent memory. I'm playing live tomorrow night at a home game that is supposed to be pretty soft, and I'm playing live again on Sunday at the local casino's tourney. I'm *really* looking forward to both opportunities to play live, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I don't know how I feel about putting "real" money up to play poker right now the way I'm running. Its one thing to get brow-beaten in $2 and $5 SNGs, but it'll be a little harder to take in a $20 rebuy game and a $60 tourney. I'm just gonna play my best and hope the cards don't continue to spit in my face. I'm grasping at the concept that Saturday is my birthday and *maybe* I'll be within the window of some "birthday luck" starting tomorrow. So we'll see how that works out.
BTW, I owe TripJax a plug because he actually tagged me for that 7 things meme, which I didn't see until after I had actually posted it. That makes 5 whole bloggers who know I exist. I'm getting pretty big time, but I promise I'll try and remain humble.
Check ya later.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Wearing Me Down
Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Not only have I been trying to catch up on my reading (and have pretty much done so), but I have been running so pee poor its gut wrenching. We all know how it goes when someone's running badly. I don't wanna talk about it, and you don't wanna hear it. But lemme tell you...the hand histories...oh, the hand histories that I could post...! Incidentally, for an insight into some of the beats I've been taking, you could go read some of smokkee's most recent posts. Our fates seem to be nearly identical lately, although the beats he's taking are certainly at a much more significant level than my micro limit piddling.
Its been almost a month at this point. Ever since I got back from my long weekend in TX on May 6th I have just been getting my ass kicked at the tables. Plenty of one-outers and two-outers, a lot of 5 & 6-outers, and enough 70/30 and 80/20 losses to make a mathemetician rethink the philosopies of probability. Forget 60/40s and coin flips. My typical 60/40 ends in my opponent flopping two pair, whether they're 60 or 40, and then filling up on the river. And in the 50/50s they either flop a set against my overs and drawing dead on the flop, or flop an ace against my pocket pair. I can also just go ahead and forget about flopping sets or filling up flushes. The cold-decks have been relentless. I've had one KK vs. AA encounter, not to mention several short-handed occurances where someone behind me has no business waking up with a better hand. But man, they sure have been. And of course there's the donkeys. Calling my big raises with rags and outflopping me. Outflopping me is the easy part, though. I am *maybe* hitting 10% of the flops I'm seeing (and by "hitting", I mean "usually 2nd pair or worse")...nowhere near the 35% Dan Harrington tells me I should be hitting. In the end, it all is coming together to really test my resiliance, and its getting very tiring.
I really feel like I'm playing well. There have been a couple times where I have caught myself reaching and trying to create something that wasn't there, but I've been quick to whip myself right back into shape when I see it occuring. I'm making strong plays when I should be and just not getting there. And I'm making great folds when I need to. If there's one thing that gets better about your game when you're running badly, its getting a real sense of when you're beat. It often comes when you know you shouldn't be beat, but you are. And you learn to get away from it and hope to find another spot. So maybe I can bring that back with me if and when things turn around. Anyway, in the end, no matter how well I'm playing, I just can't seem to show down a winner when it really counts.
If there's one positive thing out of all of it, its that I haven't gone broke. I guarantee you two years ago at this time I'd have been broke and reloaded 3-5 times by now. I'd have moved up in stakes to chase my losses and "get it back quicker". I'd have moved away from my winning style and been chasing any glimmer of a potential big hand, and I'd have been tilting out of my mind. At this point I'm actually prematurely moving *down* in limits to weather the storm. I feel like I'm sticking to my game and making plays I need to make to be successful. And aside from one Saturday afternoon where I wanted to chuck my laptop across the basement, I have managed to keep my tilt level at a minimum, and am trying to take solice in the fact that I'm making the right plays and/or getting my money in good and just getting wrecked as a 50-80% favorite.
All that said, the cards can go ahead and turn anytime, because its really wearing me down.
Anyway, just wanted to check in and let my 6 faithful readers know that I'm not dead, but my game certainly seems to be. Sorry for all the whining. Hopefully the next post will allow me the opportunity for a little different tone.
Until then, I'll check ya later.
Its been almost a month at this point. Ever since I got back from my long weekend in TX on May 6th I have just been getting my ass kicked at the tables. Plenty of one-outers and two-outers, a lot of 5 & 6-outers, and enough 70/30 and 80/20 losses to make a mathemetician rethink the philosopies of probability. Forget 60/40s and coin flips. My typical 60/40 ends in my opponent flopping two pair, whether they're 60 or 40, and then filling up on the river. And in the 50/50s they either flop a set against my overs and drawing dead on the flop, or flop an ace against my pocket pair. I can also just go ahead and forget about flopping sets or filling up flushes. The cold-decks have been relentless. I've had one KK vs. AA encounter, not to mention several short-handed occurances where someone behind me has no business waking up with a better hand. But man, they sure have been. And of course there's the donkeys. Calling my big raises with rags and outflopping me. Outflopping me is the easy part, though. I am *maybe* hitting 10% of the flops I'm seeing (and by "hitting", I mean "usually 2nd pair or worse")...nowhere near the 35% Dan Harrington tells me I should be hitting. In the end, it all is coming together to really test my resiliance, and its getting very tiring.
I really feel like I'm playing well. There have been a couple times where I have caught myself reaching and trying to create something that wasn't there, but I've been quick to whip myself right back into shape when I see it occuring. I'm making strong plays when I should be and just not getting there. And I'm making great folds when I need to. If there's one thing that gets better about your game when you're running badly, its getting a real sense of when you're beat. It often comes when you know you shouldn't be beat, but you are. And you learn to get away from it and hope to find another spot. So maybe I can bring that back with me if and when things turn around. Anyway, in the end, no matter how well I'm playing, I just can't seem to show down a winner when it really counts.
If there's one positive thing out of all of it, its that I haven't gone broke. I guarantee you two years ago at this time I'd have been broke and reloaded 3-5 times by now. I'd have moved up in stakes to chase my losses and "get it back quicker". I'd have moved away from my winning style and been chasing any glimmer of a potential big hand, and I'd have been tilting out of my mind. At this point I'm actually prematurely moving *down* in limits to weather the storm. I feel like I'm sticking to my game and making plays I need to make to be successful. And aside from one Saturday afternoon where I wanted to chuck my laptop across the basement, I have managed to keep my tilt level at a minimum, and am trying to take solice in the fact that I'm making the right plays and/or getting my money in good and just getting wrecked as a 50-80% favorite.
All that said, the cards can go ahead and turn anytime, because its really wearing me down.
Anyway, just wanted to check in and let my 6 faithful readers know that I'm not dead, but my game certainly seems to be. Sorry for all the whining. Hopefully the next post will allow me the opportunity for a little different tone.
Until then, I'll check ya later.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Ok, so maybe not...
I guess I didn't realize the 400k started at 5:00 CST. I figured it was more like 8:00. So being gone from 12:30-4 probably was pretty poor planning if I really wanted to try and get in.
I'm still running horribly. Such sick stuff I've been seeing. So....so sick.
I'm still running horribly. Such sick stuff I've been seeing. So....so sick.
All or Nothing
Despite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that I am running *absolutely* piss poor (seriously...you wouldn't believe it), I woke up this morning and decided to try and play my first 400k.
My satelliting restrictions are pretty strict, so itsrather likely almost certain I won't get there. But regardless, I'm gonna try, so look for me when the time comes.
My satelliting restrictions are pretty strict, so its
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Checkin' In & my 7 Facts
Man, I can't believe I haven't posted at all this month. I can't say a whole lot terribly interesting has happened, although there have been some post-worthy hands here and there. That said, they won't be posted because they've come and gone.
I managed to work my way up to $330 or so before we went to TX the first weekend in May. (BTW, any of you TX bloggers familiar with Wimberley? That's where my cousin's wedding was.) I also placed an order for my latest and greatest poker tool before we left for Texas, and had received it by May 8th. That's right, I'm no longer chained to my desk while playing, but I have some mixed emotions about it. When I'd play at the desk, tucked away in the corner, it would require me to turn all the way around to look at a TV, which I didn't often do. So at worst, I was generally just listening to a TV, if not paying no attention to it at all. Now that I can play and watch TV at the same time, I don't feel like I'm getting as immersed in a table as I used to and I think I'm suffering because of that. I've had a LOT of bubble finishes over the past couple weeks, and I think the difference between that bubble finish and a cash is probably a crucial read here or there. So I'm trying to work the kinks out of mobile poker playing. But regardless, my MacBook RULES. Full Tilt has fully functional software on the Mac OS, but if I feel the need to play at another site, I just boot natively into XP.
You all should go get a Mac like me and this guy.
As far as the poker goes, my BR currently stands at $172, down from that recent high point of $330. I just brought it up last night from the low point of $154 to where it currently stands. Its fair, I guess, as I had been running pretty hot there for a while, and definitely have had a downswing over the past couple weeks. Not only am I running cold and getting cold decked like crazy, but like I said, the adjustment to playing poker on the laptop in front of the TV is also causing a downswing in results. But I'm confident I'll find a happy medium in short order. I've been losing a lot of 70/30s and 80/20s lately, not to mention coin flips, and when I suckout its usually generally not in a very big spot, ie all-in on a short stack or calling a raise with odds. Pretty typical negative variance that my game is prone to. I get my money in as a big favorite in big spots, and get my money in as a dog either with odds or in a push or fold situation where doubling up is just the first step to recovery. I'm finally seeing some signs of this most recent streak turning around, however, as I've had some luck go my way the past couple of nights. I did lose a buyin at .10/.25 Monday in an KK vs. AA cold deck, but I also won and placed in two SNGs, then last night managed to squeeze a couple buyins out of .05/.10, although I made a huge laydown that cost me another couple buyins on top. You guys have gotta hear this, then I'll move on to the real reason I'm here.
I pick up 66 in LP and limp, along with 3 others. Flop comes Q67 rainbow, and we either check the flop or all call a small bet from EP. The turn is a 4, and things just get out of hand. SB bets out, BB raises, and MP re-raises all-in. I mull over it for a while, and eventually come to the decision that I'm scared to death that the BB has 35 or 58 and has stumbled onto the mother of all BB specials. I'm also beat by 77, which is a possibility, and QQ, which seems much less likely. There were no PF raises, so it'd be hard to see AQ or KQ, so the whole thing just smelled fishy to me, and with the way I'd been running, I decided to make the laydown. When the SB called the all-in, along w/the BB I felt pretty good about my great play here...until the cards were rolled. Q9 in the SB, Q6 in the big, and Q9 in MP. I would've had them drawing dead to the last two 9s. I guess when I was mulling my play over I forgot to take into account the single most important factor...that this was .05/.10 NL Hold Em. Fack.
Anyway, the real reason I'm here today is because I was tagged in four spots for this "7 Things" meme that went around. I said I'd be here to do it when I got caught up on my reading, but I'm still only to 5/17 and probably with 200 or more posts to go, so who knows if I'll ever get caught up. Either I subscribe to too many blogs or you people post too much. Anyway, I was humbled by the pure fact that four people even knew who I was, so before they give up on me I want to get this thing in. So away we go. I give you, 7 Things You Didn't Know About Me:
1. I used to be legitimately smart. My birthday is in early June, which is an awkward time to decide when to put your kid in school. Well, my parents held me back a year, but early in my kindergarten year I was reading like a badass and it was obvious kindergarten was child's play for me, so they transitioned me to 1st grade by the middle of the year.
2. The mountain climber on The Price is Right used to make me cry. Its true, when I was a wee one spending my days at home with mom and watching TPIR, I would run screaming from the TV whenever the mountain climber game came on. The music scared me and I didn't want the poor little fella to fall off the cliff.
3. My wife and I went to HS and were aware of each other, but didn't meet until college. I went to a relatively small high school (around 100 per class) where I knew the names of pretty much everyone three years in front of me and three years behind me. I even played b-ball before gym class with my future wife's older brother when I was a freshman and he was a senior. My wife was only a year behind me and was a flutist in the band and we even had some common friends, but our paths just never crossed in HS. Then finally her freshman and my sophomore year at Iowa State our circles of friends overlapped, and the rest is history. It may not sound like that big of a deal, but I had some sort of interaction with *almost* everyone 3 years above and 3 years below me, especially the ones in band, but Linz and I never spoke a word to each other.
4. I'm 6'6". This one's kinda lame because if I actually would man up and go to a blogger event you guys would see this, but for now you pretty much don't know anything about me, so I'm gonna have some softballs here. I'm 6'6" and have very little natural athletic ability. My dad played college BB at a small college in Iowa, and my little brother (6'5", 315 in his prime) got a scholarship to play college FB at ISU. I always rode the pine in basketball with some decent ability but a lack of basketball instinct. As for football, I was a pretty badass tight end in middle school, but they wanted to move me to lineman in HS, so I didn't play. And I'm an average to slightly less than average golfer. I tried little league for a couple of years, too, but it wasn't until like middle school age, and I think I just started too late and...wasn't all that good. I'm not uncoordinated or clumsy or anything like that, but I ended up pretty much just average at any sport I took up.
5. I'm in IT management. I have a computer science degree and was a programmer (Lotus Notes database developer) as an intern and for the first 4 years, and took a promotion to "Lead" at the beginning of this year. Early in 2005 I decided that I didn't wanna bang code all my life, so I got on a development track toward management, and hope to keep moving on up from here.
6. I've only ever driven pickup trucks. The same one, really. My first vehicle was a 1988 Chevy S-10 Sport 4x4, then I upgraded to a 1994 S-10 4x4, and in 2004 I bought my first new vehicle, a Chevy Colorado Z71 4x4. They were all extended cabs, should I have the absolute necessity to carry and extra person or two around. I'm not sure when I became a truck guy, but it has suited me very well. Being as tall as I am, getting in and out of cars, especially behind the wheel, is a nightmare. Midsize trucks are cheaper than SUVs, are fun enough to drive, get decent enough gas mileage, and have that cargo space, so I guess I've just stuck to what works. And I'm not a "gets me from point A to point B guy", either. I take a lot of pride in the vehicle I drive and look at it as an extension/representation of my personality, so all three of them have had some character. I've gotten to the point where I'd like to have a passenger vehicle/have to start thinking about family, so I'm hoping to look at H3s next spring. It will be WIERD not having a pickup.
7. I built and sold poker tables for 2 years. While playing what amounted to play money poker at a local establishment on a regular basis a couple times a week in 2004, a buddy and I saw a custom built table, and being a man's man, my buddy tried to duplicate the effort. Well, he did, and before he knew it, he was taking requests to have some built and making a deal to have them sold at the establishment, and thinking about other potential. So he brought on me and another guy to build, had one of his buddies put together a website, we got my buddy in PR involved, and before we knew it we had a feature story in the Des Moines Register, color photos and all, an article in a national Better Homes & Gardens publication, as well as some other media appearances, and orders were flying in. We were even scheduled to shoot features for the three local TV stations that all fell through. At any rate, we built steadily throughout the year, and during the 2005 Christmas season we built 6 a week for 3-4 weeks. We sent tables as far as Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Canada. In spring 2006 my buddy took a new job that changed his schedule pretty drastically, then shortly after built a new house that saw him with basement projects and stuff, and the business kind of faded away. We'll still build for friends and family and ourselves, but I think other than that we're pretty much done for. But it was a blast while it lasted. Check out our website.
Since I was a slacker and didn't get to this, I'll throw in a couple of bonus facts. One for each week I put off doing this.
Bonus Fact 1. I know Corey Taylor of Slipknot/Stone Sour fame. I live in Des Moines, where both bands are from, and back in 2002/2003 when Corey brought together his old band, Stone Sour, as a "side project" from Slipknot, I hooked up with a guy from Amsterdam and we put together StoneSourNews.com and StoneSourBoard.com and got ourselves out there as the first source for Stone Sour information. He had the capabilities to build the site, and I had the local connections. Before long we had friends and family of the previous incarnation of the band as well as the new incarnation, as well as the band members themselves participating on the messageboard. Then all of the sudden I'm invited over to Corey's house to hang out, and continued to remain in that circle throughout the first album cycle, including VIP and photo passes to shows, etc. The site and board got huge, with over 10,000 members, and the whole thing was a wild ride. I talked to him sparadically throughout Slipknot's album cycle and missed an opportunity to get together with him when Stone Sour started up again to hear the album, and its actually been almost exactly a year since we were last in contact, but I heard from a mutual friend that he mentioned getting in touch with me sometime soon. He is an amazing human being. Just incredibly kind, intelligent, and resilient. Its an honor to call him a friend.
Bonus Fact 2. I proposed to my wife in Vegas, at the Bellagio. Yeah, how many thousands of people has this probably happened to, but for a couple of simpletons from Iowa, it was a pretty big deal. In 2004, my company sent me to Vegas for a conference. We made arrangements for my girlfriend at the time to come along, and to stay through the next weekend after the conference. I had gotten the idea to propose a couple months previous, picked out a ring, and had my co-worker bring it out to Vegas for me so that nothing suspicious would happen. I had plans to do it at The Bellagio (it was pretty much all we knew of Vegas, being our first time in town and loving the movie Ocean's Eleven), but didn't really know how it was all going to come together, and like an idiot, didn't call until the morning of to get dinner reservations. We ended up at Jasmine, the chinese restaurant, which was the only place we could get into. Strike one, I thought, cuz Linz doesn't like chinese. We showed up for our reservation and they made us wait momentarily while they got us a table by the windows (they knew of my intentions, but Linz just thought they were being nice). We had a nice dinner that she actually ended up loving (and has since discovered that chinese food is, in fact, awesome), including the cheapest bottle of wine on the list ($30 at Bellagio, $12 at the grocery store), and just as I'm waiting for the fountains to start in order to propose, the waiter comes with a dessert that we hadn't ordered. He leaves it with us and says "compliments of the house" and at this point Linz knows something is up but can't quite figure out what, so I bust ass down to my knee and propose. She accepts through tears, and the table of asian guys next to us goes wild. I kid you not, one of him introduces himself to me as "Charlie", and insists we have a glass of his wine. Mission accomplished, and Linz and I have vowed to return to Vegas at least once a year from here on out.
Well I've managed to work my post to one of epic proportions yet again, so I will bid you adieu. Thanks to the four of you who tagged me for this, but I will not be tagging because I think pretty much everyone I read has done it. Such is the way it goes when you're a week behind in your reading.
I still hope to catch up on my reading, and then I can get back to blogging with a little more regularity as well.
Check ya later.
I managed to work my way up to $330 or so before we went to TX the first weekend in May. (BTW, any of you TX bloggers familiar with Wimberley? That's where my cousin's wedding was.) I also placed an order for my latest and greatest poker tool before we left for Texas, and had received it by May 8th. That's right, I'm no longer chained to my desk while playing, but I have some mixed emotions about it. When I'd play at the desk, tucked away in the corner, it would require me to turn all the way around to look at a TV, which I didn't often do. So at worst, I was generally just listening to a TV, if not paying no attention to it at all. Now that I can play and watch TV at the same time, I don't feel like I'm getting as immersed in a table as I used to and I think I'm suffering because of that. I've had a LOT of bubble finishes over the past couple weeks, and I think the difference between that bubble finish and a cash is probably a crucial read here or there. So I'm trying to work the kinks out of mobile poker playing. But regardless, my MacBook RULES. Full Tilt has fully functional software on the Mac OS, but if I feel the need to play at another site, I just boot natively into XP.
You all should go get a Mac like me and this guy.
As far as the poker goes, my BR currently stands at $172, down from that recent high point of $330. I just brought it up last night from the low point of $154 to where it currently stands. Its fair, I guess, as I had been running pretty hot there for a while, and definitely have had a downswing over the past couple weeks. Not only am I running cold and getting cold decked like crazy, but like I said, the adjustment to playing poker on the laptop in front of the TV is also causing a downswing in results. But I'm confident I'll find a happy medium in short order. I've been losing a lot of 70/30s and 80/20s lately, not to mention coin flips, and when I suckout its usually generally not in a very big spot, ie all-in on a short stack or calling a raise with odds. Pretty typical negative variance that my game is prone to. I get my money in as a big favorite in big spots, and get my money in as a dog either with odds or in a push or fold situation where doubling up is just the first step to recovery. I'm finally seeing some signs of this most recent streak turning around, however, as I've had some luck go my way the past couple of nights. I did lose a buyin at .10/.25 Monday in an KK vs. AA cold deck, but I also won and placed in two SNGs, then last night managed to squeeze a couple buyins out of .05/.10, although I made a huge laydown that cost me another couple buyins on top. You guys have gotta hear this, then I'll move on to the real reason I'm here.
I pick up 66 in LP and limp, along with 3 others. Flop comes Q67 rainbow, and we either check the flop or all call a small bet from EP. The turn is a 4, and things just get out of hand. SB bets out, BB raises, and MP re-raises all-in. I mull over it for a while, and eventually come to the decision that I'm scared to death that the BB has 35 or 58 and has stumbled onto the mother of all BB specials. I'm also beat by 77, which is a possibility, and QQ, which seems much less likely. There were no PF raises, so it'd be hard to see AQ or KQ, so the whole thing just smelled fishy to me, and with the way I'd been running, I decided to make the laydown. When the SB called the all-in, along w/the BB I felt pretty good about my great play here...until the cards were rolled. Q9 in the SB, Q6 in the big, and Q9 in MP. I would've had them drawing dead to the last two 9s. I guess when I was mulling my play over I forgot to take into account the single most important factor...that this was .05/.10 NL Hold Em. Fack.
Anyway, the real reason I'm here today is because I was tagged in four spots for this "7 Things" meme that went around. I said I'd be here to do it when I got caught up on my reading, but I'm still only to 5/17 and probably with 200 or more posts to go, so who knows if I'll ever get caught up. Either I subscribe to too many blogs or you people post too much. Anyway, I was humbled by the pure fact that four people even knew who I was, so before they give up on me I want to get this thing in. So away we go. I give you, 7 Things You Didn't Know About Me:
1. I used to be legitimately smart. My birthday is in early June, which is an awkward time to decide when to put your kid in school. Well, my parents held me back a year, but early in my kindergarten year I was reading like a badass and it was obvious kindergarten was child's play for me, so they transitioned me to 1st grade by the middle of the year.
2. The mountain climber on The Price is Right used to make me cry. Its true, when I was a wee one spending my days at home with mom and watching TPIR, I would run screaming from the TV whenever the mountain climber game came on. The music scared me and I didn't want the poor little fella to fall off the cliff.
3. My wife and I went to HS and were aware of each other, but didn't meet until college. I went to a relatively small high school (around 100 per class) where I knew the names of pretty much everyone three years in front of me and three years behind me. I even played b-ball before gym class with my future wife's older brother when I was a freshman and he was a senior. My wife was only a year behind me and was a flutist in the band and we even had some common friends, but our paths just never crossed in HS. Then finally her freshman and my sophomore year at Iowa State our circles of friends overlapped, and the rest is history. It may not sound like that big of a deal, but I had some sort of interaction with *almost* everyone 3 years above and 3 years below me, especially the ones in band, but Linz and I never spoke a word to each other.
4. I'm 6'6". This one's kinda lame because if I actually would man up and go to a blogger event you guys would see this, but for now you pretty much don't know anything about me, so I'm gonna have some softballs here. I'm 6'6" and have very little natural athletic ability. My dad played college BB at a small college in Iowa, and my little brother (6'5", 315 in his prime) got a scholarship to play college FB at ISU. I always rode the pine in basketball with some decent ability but a lack of basketball instinct. As for football, I was a pretty badass tight end in middle school, but they wanted to move me to lineman in HS, so I didn't play. And I'm an average to slightly less than average golfer. I tried little league for a couple of years, too, but it wasn't until like middle school age, and I think I just started too late and...wasn't all that good. I'm not uncoordinated or clumsy or anything like that, but I ended up pretty much just average at any sport I took up.
5. I'm in IT management. I have a computer science degree and was a programmer (Lotus Notes database developer) as an intern and for the first 4 years, and took a promotion to "Lead" at the beginning of this year. Early in 2005 I decided that I didn't wanna bang code all my life, so I got on a development track toward management, and hope to keep moving on up from here.
6. I've only ever driven pickup trucks. The same one, really. My first vehicle was a 1988 Chevy S-10 Sport 4x4, then I upgraded to a 1994 S-10 4x4, and in 2004 I bought my first new vehicle, a Chevy Colorado Z71 4x4. They were all extended cabs, should I have the absolute necessity to carry and extra person or two around. I'm not sure when I became a truck guy, but it has suited me very well. Being as tall as I am, getting in and out of cars, especially behind the wheel, is a nightmare. Midsize trucks are cheaper than SUVs, are fun enough to drive, get decent enough gas mileage, and have that cargo space, so I guess I've just stuck to what works. And I'm not a "gets me from point A to point B guy", either. I take a lot of pride in the vehicle I drive and look at it as an extension/representation of my personality, so all three of them have had some character. I've gotten to the point where I'd like to have a passenger vehicle/have to start thinking about family, so I'm hoping to look at H3s next spring. It will be WIERD not having a pickup.
7. I built and sold poker tables for 2 years. While playing what amounted to play money poker at a local establishment on a regular basis a couple times a week in 2004, a buddy and I saw a custom built table, and being a man's man, my buddy tried to duplicate the effort. Well, he did, and before he knew it, he was taking requests to have some built and making a deal to have them sold at the establishment, and thinking about other potential. So he brought on me and another guy to build, had one of his buddies put together a website, we got my buddy in PR involved, and before we knew it we had a feature story in the Des Moines Register, color photos and all, an article in a national Better Homes & Gardens publication, as well as some other media appearances, and orders were flying in. We were even scheduled to shoot features for the three local TV stations that all fell through. At any rate, we built steadily throughout the year, and during the 2005 Christmas season we built 6 a week for 3-4 weeks. We sent tables as far as Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Canada. In spring 2006 my buddy took a new job that changed his schedule pretty drastically, then shortly after built a new house that saw him with basement projects and stuff, and the business kind of faded away. We'll still build for friends and family and ourselves, but I think other than that we're pretty much done for. But it was a blast while it lasted. Check out our website.
Since I was a slacker and didn't get to this, I'll throw in a couple of bonus facts. One for each week I put off doing this.
Bonus Fact 1. I know Corey Taylor of Slipknot/Stone Sour fame. I live in Des Moines, where both bands are from, and back in 2002/2003 when Corey brought together his old band, Stone Sour, as a "side project" from Slipknot, I hooked up with a guy from Amsterdam and we put together StoneSourNews.com and StoneSourBoard.com and got ourselves out there as the first source for Stone Sour information. He had the capabilities to build the site, and I had the local connections. Before long we had friends and family of the previous incarnation of the band as well as the new incarnation, as well as the band members themselves participating on the messageboard. Then all of the sudden I'm invited over to Corey's house to hang out, and continued to remain in that circle throughout the first album cycle, including VIP and photo passes to shows, etc. The site and board got huge, with over 10,000 members, and the whole thing was a wild ride. I talked to him sparadically throughout Slipknot's album cycle and missed an opportunity to get together with him when Stone Sour started up again to hear the album, and its actually been almost exactly a year since we were last in contact, but I heard from a mutual friend that he mentioned getting in touch with me sometime soon. He is an amazing human being. Just incredibly kind, intelligent, and resilient. Its an honor to call him a friend.
Bonus Fact 2. I proposed to my wife in Vegas, at the Bellagio. Yeah, how many thousands of people has this probably happened to, but for a couple of simpletons from Iowa, it was a pretty big deal. In 2004, my company sent me to Vegas for a conference. We made arrangements for my girlfriend at the time to come along, and to stay through the next weekend after the conference. I had gotten the idea to propose a couple months previous, picked out a ring, and had my co-worker bring it out to Vegas for me so that nothing suspicious would happen. I had plans to do it at The Bellagio (it was pretty much all we knew of Vegas, being our first time in town and loving the movie Ocean's Eleven), but didn't really know how it was all going to come together, and like an idiot, didn't call until the morning of to get dinner reservations. We ended up at Jasmine, the chinese restaurant, which was the only place we could get into. Strike one, I thought, cuz Linz doesn't like chinese. We showed up for our reservation and they made us wait momentarily while they got us a table by the windows (they knew of my intentions, but Linz just thought they were being nice). We had a nice dinner that she actually ended up loving (and has since discovered that chinese food is, in fact, awesome), including the cheapest bottle of wine on the list ($30 at Bellagio, $12 at the grocery store), and just as I'm waiting for the fountains to start in order to propose, the waiter comes with a dessert that we hadn't ordered. He leaves it with us and says "compliments of the house" and at this point Linz knows something is up but can't quite figure out what, so I bust ass down to my knee and propose. She accepts through tears, and the table of asian guys next to us goes wild. I kid you not, one of him introduces himself to me as "Charlie", and insists we have a glass of his wine. Mission accomplished, and Linz and I have vowed to return to Vegas at least once a year from here on out.
Well I've managed to work my post to one of epic proportions yet again, so I will bid you adieu. Thanks to the four of you who tagged me for this, but I will not be tagging because I think pretty much everyone I read has done it. Such is the way it goes when you're a week behind in your reading.
I still hope to catch up on my reading, and then I can get back to blogging with a little more regularity as well.
Check ya later.
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