I didn't play any poker today, mostly because my internet connection was fading in and out, so I didn't wanna chance getting in the middle of a huge hand and my connection going down. I've decided that every once in awhile I'll do a "Life Tilt" blog about things that are pissing me off whether poker related or not.
My current state of life tilt is focused on the movie Ghost Rider. I rented it tonight and couldn't believe how awful this movie was. This movie is about as worthless as foot fetish porn. Im pretty sure a 13 year old wrote this script. The movie already has Eva Mendes and it's pretty hard to fuck up a movie with her in it, but to make things worse the concept itself is off the charts awesome. The dude makes a pact with the devil and rides around all night on fire pimpin' a sick ass chopper fighting demons with a flaming chain from hell. How in the hell does someone fuck this up? There are more corny one liners than a Schwarzenegger movie. In once scene, Ghost Rider busts out of jail (he got caught by the cops in human form) and a cop chases him out of the station and hits him in the back with his club. Ghost Rider turns around and puts his finger up and goes, "uh uh uhhhh". Pathetic. They seriously couldn't think of anything better for him to say? Also, this movie features the guy from Road House who played Patrick Swayze's awesome bouncer buddy (evidently 60 year old dudes that weigh 140 lbs kick a lot of ass). It's amazing to me this guy isn't dead yet. He looked near death in the 80's but is somehow still playing the role of a badass at the age of 91. The one thing this movie had going for it was the phenomenal special effects. They really owned hard in that department. Other than that this shit is unwatchable and that pisses me off. Fuck this movie. Im so tilted.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
I Hate Live Poker
I think I'm starting to come to the realization that the live games around here are really a waste of time. I remember talking to Kevin (Lucko) when I first started going and he told me he would never go to games like that because they're probably rigged. All the guys there are really awesome and a lot of fun to play with, but is it possible they're ripping me off? I honestly couldn't say a definite no, which didn't bother me before, but is starting to bother me.
I ended down $1,000 tonight at the 5/10 game. It really does seem odd to me though how badly people play and how consistently they get bailed out. I came home after the live game and won $1,600 online in a few hours against much better players. There are a number of things this could be. Online you see more hands allowing variance to even out quicker, the players are better, which means they are less likely to chase trash and make really spewy plays, etc. But I've been playing these games for a number of months now and I'm a significant loser in them. I hardly ever walk away with a win. Contrast this to Las Vegas where I have never walked away a loser and in fact have crushed the cash games out there. It is all just getting a bit too fishy for me. Is it possible Im just running bad? Of course. And that is more than likely the case. But there is doubt in my mind and that makes me a bit uncomfortable. A few hands that I've lost really couldn't have been written better in novel form for my opponents.
Moving on though, I pretty much crushed FTP tonight. I played HU and 6 max 2/4 just 2 tabling and focusing. I know that a lot of players like to play 6-8 tables at once and that really used to be me, but I have found that focusing on one or two tables has significantly improved my play. I just see so many things that others that are playing a lot of tables may miss. I get away with a lot of bluff raises and very thin value bets simply because I'm paying attention to everything going on while my opponents may not. I'm currently running at 17BB/100 at 2/4 HU. Im not really sure if that's great or anything since I don't have any numbers to compare this to, but I suspect winning $136 every 100 hands HU at 2/4 is pretty damn good. I ended the night on a very sour note. I had about 3K on one table and was playing a guy with a full buyin. He was a good player and the game was incredibly aggressive. We got AI prf me with QQ and him with AA. I immediately left after this hand as it is very easy to tilt after a cooler like that. One thing I have improved 100 fold in my game is the mental aspect. I don't play drunk anymore and I really feel no tilt at all because I leave when I feel my play deteriorating. I don't play when Im tired or don't feel like it. Back in the day I used to log in and just auto-pilot to "get hands in". Im fully convinced I can make more money playing 100% my best on a few tables rather than 50% at 6 tables and my results are proving this. Well, it's 7AM and I just finished a long session, so Im gonna head to bed. Good luck at the tables.
I ended down $1,000 tonight at the 5/10 game. It really does seem odd to me though how badly people play and how consistently they get bailed out. I came home after the live game and won $1,600 online in a few hours against much better players. There are a number of things this could be. Online you see more hands allowing variance to even out quicker, the players are better, which means they are less likely to chase trash and make really spewy plays, etc. But I've been playing these games for a number of months now and I'm a significant loser in them. I hardly ever walk away with a win. Contrast this to Las Vegas where I have never walked away a loser and in fact have crushed the cash games out there. It is all just getting a bit too fishy for me. Is it possible Im just running bad? Of course. And that is more than likely the case. But there is doubt in my mind and that makes me a bit uncomfortable. A few hands that I've lost really couldn't have been written better in novel form for my opponents.
Moving on though, I pretty much crushed FTP tonight. I played HU and 6 max 2/4 just 2 tabling and focusing. I know that a lot of players like to play 6-8 tables at once and that really used to be me, but I have found that focusing on one or two tables has significantly improved my play. I just see so many things that others that are playing a lot of tables may miss. I get away with a lot of bluff raises and very thin value bets simply because I'm paying attention to everything going on while my opponents may not. I'm currently running at 17BB/100 at 2/4 HU. Im not really sure if that's great or anything since I don't have any numbers to compare this to, but I suspect winning $136 every 100 hands HU at 2/4 is pretty damn good. I ended the night on a very sour note. I had about 3K on one table and was playing a guy with a full buyin. He was a good player and the game was incredibly aggressive. We got AI prf me with QQ and him with AA. I immediately left after this hand as it is very easy to tilt after a cooler like that. One thing I have improved 100 fold in my game is the mental aspect. I don't play drunk anymore and I really feel no tilt at all because I leave when I feel my play deteriorating. I don't play when Im tired or don't feel like it. Back in the day I used to log in and just auto-pilot to "get hands in". Im fully convinced I can make more money playing 100% my best on a few tables rather than 50% at 6 tables and my results are proving this. Well, it's 7AM and I just finished a long session, so Im gonna head to bed. Good luck at the tables.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Story Time
I woke up abrubtly this morning. I have been doing that the past few mornings for some reason. After 7 hours or so of sleeping my body will just wake up and I can't go back to sleep. For my blog entry today, I decided that I wanted to share a story with you that hopefully you will find interesting.
Let me start off by saying that this story is incredibly personal to me and something that I'm not proud of in any way, shape or form. Not many people know about this actually, but I am making a choice to make this public in some respects because I am fully determined to never let it happen again.
As many of you know, I am not a compulsive gambler at all. I don't really like to play table games like craps, roulette or anything of the sort. I'll play the occasional couple hours of blackjack while in Vegas, but it's never anything more than $300-$400 or so and I never play online.
We'll start about a year ago, when I was playing 5/10 and 10/20 NL (mostly 5/10) on Party Poker everynight for my living and had been for awhile. I had been doing very well in the games and was averaging a couple buyins per session. During this time I struggled with what I would call a moderate form of alcohol addiction. I was drinking probably 6 nights per week on average and I wasn't having just 1 or 2 drinks, I was downing 2 bottles of wine and a few beers, or an assortment of liquor and beer. It got to the point where I wouldn't play unless I was a bit drunk. At this point in time I actually thought the alcohol improved my game, so being convinced of the fact I would only play drunk. This continued for months on end and had my family very concerned about me. It got to the point where if I was awake, there was a good chance I was either drinking or planning on drinking in the near future.
Fast forward to December, about 8-10 months or so after my alcohol addiction had become something I came to accept and live with. I started playing more tournaments and went on an insane rush. In 3 weeks time, I finished 3rd in a UBOC event, won the 100r on stars nearly twice (finished 2nd once), won the 50r twice, won a $100 freezeout on stars, won a $100 freezeout on UB, won the 100r on UB, and had a myriad of final tables and great finishes in some very tough events. In less than a month's time I was up almost $80,000, by far my best poker month ever. It was at this time I decided it was time to move up in stakes and play 25/50 full time with my newfound riches. Unfortunately, I was still drinking 6-7 nights per week and this would not change. I did alright when I first started out. The games were definitely a bit different than I was used to, but I was determined to beat these games as badly as I was beating the 5/10 games I was accustomed to. I was up and down at first, but after a week or so was up a little bit and feeling good about the situation being careful to not play any of the bigger name players at those stakes just yet.
December 30th, 2006 turned out to be a day that I will never forget. It was the night of a big UFC event. I bought a huge bottle of Absolut for myself and had already decided that I was just going to take the night off and enjoy myself with my wife and watch the fights. I started drinking about an hour or two before the fights started and was already a bit drunk when they began. Just to pass time during the smaller events, I fired up Stars and was one tabling 5/10, more to just give me something to do. After 4 hours of drinking or so, I found myself multitabling the 25/50 cash games. I was drinking vodka and red bull and as the night wore on it turned into a lot less red bull and a lot more vodka. I don't remember exactly how the night went and honestly don't remember who was even fighting that night. But what I do remember is that I lost $30,000 that night, by far my biggest losing day in poker. I woke up the next day beside myself and couldn't believe what had happened. I checked the bottle of Absolut and it was almost gone. I had singlehandedly drank the whole bottle by myself in 8 hours time.
At this point I vowed to never drink while playing again, but it was too late. I had been building terrible habits for the past year and even though every part of me wanted to stop drinking, I simply couldn't play without it. Instead of being smart and dropping down limits to get my losses back, I kept playing any high stakes game I could find and continued chasing my losses. I also continued drinking when I played. I would love to tell you that I battled back and won back my money and then some crushing all opposition in my path, but unfortunately this is real life and the players I was up against were a different caliber than I was used to. It was going to be tough to beat these guys when I was sober and in my right mind, let alone sitting there hammered and spewing EV all over the place. By the end of January I was down nearly $80,000, which was basically all of my tournament wins from the month before. Those tourneys were not easy and I put in a lot of hard work to get those scores. Looking back at the past 2 months it was amazing my change in attitude. In December, I was probably the most confident poker player on the face of the planet. I was quite certain I could play anyone and win and I think during that month I wouldn't have been far off. Everything was clicking for me. I was playing excellent poker and had supreme confidence in my game. At the end of January I was a different person. I went from feeling on top of the world to sinking into a state of depression that would last for a long time.
For the next couple months, I tried to get back into tournaments and my usual stakes cash games, but I could never shake the memory of that one month period no matter how hard I tried. It was in the back of my mind at all times and it affected my play to the point where I was scared money at any table I was at. Couple this with the fact that Neteller, where I had many thousands of dollars, had just shut down to US customers and I didn't know if I would ever see that money again. Whenever I played, all I could think about was somehow getting myself out of this 100K+ hole I felt I was in. I was just playing to gamble and wasn't playing any sort of good poker at all. I even continued to drink to just numb the depression and pain I felt every time I was sober.
During my lowest point, my wife and I had pretty much given up on the marriage and I had been planning on moving out at some point in the near future. Looking back on those times, I was doing a lot of blame-shifting as to the real problems that I had and was blaming her for everything. Your mind works in weird ways when you have a huge problem and want to rationalize it to yourself. I kept telling myself everything was fine, but when I look back at myself during that time I cannot believe that I was blaming anyone else for my own problems. It was blatantly obvious that I was the one who was causing most of the stress in our marriage and I regret that very much. My addiction to alcohol almost led to me losing first and foremost my family and very distantly second, my job, friends and mental health.
It took a long time, but today I feel like I am a new person. I have kicked my addiction to alcohol with the help of my family and don't drink even close to what I used to. 98% of my play is done without the use of alcohol and my primary goal is to get that number to 100%. The only time I drink and play is when I play live 1/2 with my friends. Although I am not addicted to alcohol anymore, I am not foolish enough to think that it couldn't happen again and have taken steps to assure that it won't. In my fridge right now I have 3 beers total and I never keep liquor in the house. If I am planning on drinking on a certain night, I buy just what I think I'll need. Part of my problem before was that I would "stock up" on my alcohol, and once I started drinking I usually could go on as long as I wanted with an endless supply of booze on hand. If I had a friend over today, we would run out of booze in 15 minutes. That's the way I want it. I don't want to go back to that lifestyle. I don't want to wake up in the morning feeling that anything I do that day is meaningless and I certainly don't want to put my wife, my son and my soon to be 2nd son in a position where their father is a raging alcoholic.
Part of the reason I wrote this is because I really haven't talked much about it since it happened and honestly, it feels good to get this all written down. I also want to keep myself accountable so that this never happens again. I don't think I was ever to the point where I was what you would consider a severe form of alcoholism, but I was definitely leaning in that direction with no sign of slowing.
Today, I feel like I have a new direction, both in life and in poker and it's good to have momentum in the right direction for a change. I am grinding lower limits now and have very good results so far and am overall a better player than I ever was before. It's not going to be easy, but I am committed to improving not only my play at the tables, but also my overall lifestyle. I am confident that with hard work I can achieve whatever goals I have set for myself. Right now, my goals are to just play good poker, with little thought for the money, which was my sole focus for so long. I hope you enjoyed this post and found it interesting. For those of you suffering from any form of alcohol addiction, I really urge you to get ahold of it before it's too late. You may not blow through a lot of money like me, but it will deteriorate your overall lifestyle and your relationships to those close to you at the very least. Good luck at the tables.
Let me start off by saying that this story is incredibly personal to me and something that I'm not proud of in any way, shape or form. Not many people know about this actually, but I am making a choice to make this public in some respects because I am fully determined to never let it happen again.
As many of you know, I am not a compulsive gambler at all. I don't really like to play table games like craps, roulette or anything of the sort. I'll play the occasional couple hours of blackjack while in Vegas, but it's never anything more than $300-$400 or so and I never play online.
We'll start about a year ago, when I was playing 5/10 and 10/20 NL (mostly 5/10) on Party Poker everynight for my living and had been for awhile. I had been doing very well in the games and was averaging a couple buyins per session. During this time I struggled with what I would call a moderate form of alcohol addiction. I was drinking probably 6 nights per week on average and I wasn't having just 1 or 2 drinks, I was downing 2 bottles of wine and a few beers, or an assortment of liquor and beer. It got to the point where I wouldn't play unless I was a bit drunk. At this point in time I actually thought the alcohol improved my game, so being convinced of the fact I would only play drunk. This continued for months on end and had my family very concerned about me. It got to the point where if I was awake, there was a good chance I was either drinking or planning on drinking in the near future.
Fast forward to December, about 8-10 months or so after my alcohol addiction had become something I came to accept and live with. I started playing more tournaments and went on an insane rush. In 3 weeks time, I finished 3rd in a UBOC event, won the 100r on stars nearly twice (finished 2nd once), won the 50r twice, won a $100 freezeout on stars, won a $100 freezeout on UB, won the 100r on UB, and had a myriad of final tables and great finishes in some very tough events. In less than a month's time I was up almost $80,000, by far my best poker month ever. It was at this time I decided it was time to move up in stakes and play 25/50 full time with my newfound riches. Unfortunately, I was still drinking 6-7 nights per week and this would not change. I did alright when I first started out. The games were definitely a bit different than I was used to, but I was determined to beat these games as badly as I was beating the 5/10 games I was accustomed to. I was up and down at first, but after a week or so was up a little bit and feeling good about the situation being careful to not play any of the bigger name players at those stakes just yet.
December 30th, 2006 turned out to be a day that I will never forget. It was the night of a big UFC event. I bought a huge bottle of Absolut for myself and had already decided that I was just going to take the night off and enjoy myself with my wife and watch the fights. I started drinking about an hour or two before the fights started and was already a bit drunk when they began. Just to pass time during the smaller events, I fired up Stars and was one tabling 5/10, more to just give me something to do. After 4 hours of drinking or so, I found myself multitabling the 25/50 cash games. I was drinking vodka and red bull and as the night wore on it turned into a lot less red bull and a lot more vodka. I don't remember exactly how the night went and honestly don't remember who was even fighting that night. But what I do remember is that I lost $30,000 that night, by far my biggest losing day in poker. I woke up the next day beside myself and couldn't believe what had happened. I checked the bottle of Absolut and it was almost gone. I had singlehandedly drank the whole bottle by myself in 8 hours time.
At this point I vowed to never drink while playing again, but it was too late. I had been building terrible habits for the past year and even though every part of me wanted to stop drinking, I simply couldn't play without it. Instead of being smart and dropping down limits to get my losses back, I kept playing any high stakes game I could find and continued chasing my losses. I also continued drinking when I played. I would love to tell you that I battled back and won back my money and then some crushing all opposition in my path, but unfortunately this is real life and the players I was up against were a different caliber than I was used to. It was going to be tough to beat these guys when I was sober and in my right mind, let alone sitting there hammered and spewing EV all over the place. By the end of January I was down nearly $80,000, which was basically all of my tournament wins from the month before. Those tourneys were not easy and I put in a lot of hard work to get those scores. Looking back at the past 2 months it was amazing my change in attitude. In December, I was probably the most confident poker player on the face of the planet. I was quite certain I could play anyone and win and I think during that month I wouldn't have been far off. Everything was clicking for me. I was playing excellent poker and had supreme confidence in my game. At the end of January I was a different person. I went from feeling on top of the world to sinking into a state of depression that would last for a long time.
For the next couple months, I tried to get back into tournaments and my usual stakes cash games, but I could never shake the memory of that one month period no matter how hard I tried. It was in the back of my mind at all times and it affected my play to the point where I was scared money at any table I was at. Couple this with the fact that Neteller, where I had many thousands of dollars, had just shut down to US customers and I didn't know if I would ever see that money again. Whenever I played, all I could think about was somehow getting myself out of this 100K+ hole I felt I was in. I was just playing to gamble and wasn't playing any sort of good poker at all. I even continued to drink to just numb the depression and pain I felt every time I was sober.
During my lowest point, my wife and I had pretty much given up on the marriage and I had been planning on moving out at some point in the near future. Looking back on those times, I was doing a lot of blame-shifting as to the real problems that I had and was blaming her for everything. Your mind works in weird ways when you have a huge problem and want to rationalize it to yourself. I kept telling myself everything was fine, but when I look back at myself during that time I cannot believe that I was blaming anyone else for my own problems. It was blatantly obvious that I was the one who was causing most of the stress in our marriage and I regret that very much. My addiction to alcohol almost led to me losing first and foremost my family and very distantly second, my job, friends and mental health.
It took a long time, but today I feel like I am a new person. I have kicked my addiction to alcohol with the help of my family and don't drink even close to what I used to. 98% of my play is done without the use of alcohol and my primary goal is to get that number to 100%. The only time I drink and play is when I play live 1/2 with my friends. Although I am not addicted to alcohol anymore, I am not foolish enough to think that it couldn't happen again and have taken steps to assure that it won't. In my fridge right now I have 3 beers total and I never keep liquor in the house. If I am planning on drinking on a certain night, I buy just what I think I'll need. Part of my problem before was that I would "stock up" on my alcohol, and once I started drinking I usually could go on as long as I wanted with an endless supply of booze on hand. If I had a friend over today, we would run out of booze in 15 minutes. That's the way I want it. I don't want to go back to that lifestyle. I don't want to wake up in the morning feeling that anything I do that day is meaningless and I certainly don't want to put my wife, my son and my soon to be 2nd son in a position where their father is a raging alcoholic.
Part of the reason I wrote this is because I really haven't talked much about it since it happened and honestly, it feels good to get this all written down. I also want to keep myself accountable so that this never happens again. I don't think I was ever to the point where I was what you would consider a severe form of alcoholism, but I was definitely leaning in that direction with no sign of slowing.
Today, I feel like I have a new direction, both in life and in poker and it's good to have momentum in the right direction for a change. I am grinding lower limits now and have very good results so far and am overall a better player than I ever was before. It's not going to be easy, but I am committed to improving not only my play at the tables, but also my overall lifestyle. I am confident that with hard work I can achieve whatever goals I have set for myself. Right now, my goals are to just play good poker, with little thought for the money, which was my sole focus for so long. I hope you enjoyed this post and found it interesting. For those of you suffering from any form of alcohol addiction, I really urge you to get ahold of it before it's too late. You may not blow through a lot of money like me, but it will deteriorate your overall lifestyle and your relationships to those close to you at the very least. Good luck at the tables.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Tough Session
Played a 4 hour session today, some on FTP and some on Absolute. The FTP games in the afternoon are just terrible. Everyone at the table is running at 20/15. Basically just a bunch of nits. Unfortunately for me I didn't really realize this fully until I dropped 2 buyins. I decided to high tail it out of there and check out Absolute. This site has never failed me. No matter what time of day I've played there, it's always the same. Super weak tables full of limp/callers/folders who let you run them over, don't bet their big hands, and just overall play terrible poker.
I ended up breaking even at Absolute due to a few hands where I couldn't really get away. Oh well, it happens. I was extremely pleased with my play today and have really been focusing lately on keeping my emotions in check and just worrying about making the best possible play available to me at the time.
I wanted to share two hands that I thought were interesting, one of which I thought I played very well and one of which I think I should have gotten away.
The first one is on FTP and goes like this:
A decent player raises UTG to $14. I am right behind him and make it $45 with two red queens. We both have a full buyin with him covering slightly (2/4 NL so $400). It folds back to him and he pretty quickly makes it $140 or so. Well now...with my image at the table being pretty active, I decided that I could very well be ahead here, but if I shove him back then Im really kind of forcing him to have KK or AA to call. I decided to call and see a flop before getting my money in. The flop comes J rag rag all clubs. He insta shoves into me. Sigh...now I have half my stack in, an OP and am getting about 2:1 on my money to call. My first reaction to this was to fold, but I decided at the last minute that he could easily be doing this with a couple combos of AK where he has the K or A of clubs, which would mean that this was an easy call against that hand. Thinking back though, the prf 4 bet from a nit and then an insta shove really narrows down his range here. First off, Im pretty sure his prf 4 betting range from UTG is going to be TT+ and AK. When he auto shoves the flop, TT is basically out (altho there is a small chance of course), JJ is now ahead, KK and AA crush me and Im racing against the A or K of clubs and two overs. I also have no club in my hand for backup in case he does have something like two red kings and just wants the action over with. I think that taking this all into consideration, this was probably a fold even though I was getting decent odds and had pretty good equity. Oh well. It definitely wasn't a terrible play per se, but I think that I should be getting away in spots like that.
The second hand I wanted to share was on Absolute and I thought my play here was awesome.
STAGE #718221580: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $4 - 2007-07-26 16:59:57 (ET)
Table: FRIENDSHIP LN (Real Money) Seat #4 is the dealer
Seat 4 - I_PLAY_GOOD ($830.40 in chips)
Seat 5 - CUBBIEBLUE10 ($998 in chips)
Seat 1 - THEPLAYA13 ($626 in chips)
Seat 2 - EBISCO05 ($341.80 in chips)
Seat 3 - DOMA911 ($184.30 in chips)
CUBBIEBLUE10 - Posts small blind $2 THEPLAYA13 - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***Dealt to I_PLAY_GOOD [Kc 8c]
EBISCO05 - Calls $4
DOMA911 - Folds
I_PLAY_GOOD - Raises $16 to $16
CUBBIEBLUE10 - Folds
THEPLAYA13 - Folds
EBISCO05 - Calls $12
*** FLOP *** [8d 6d 6c]
EBISCO05 - Bets $32
I_PLAY_GOOD - Raises $95 to $95
EBISCO05 - Raises $158 to $190
I_PLAY_GOOD - Calls $95
*** TURN *** [8d 6d 6c] [5h]
EBISCO05 - All-In $135.80
I_PLAY_GOOD - Calls $135.80
*** RIVER *** [8d 6d 6c 5h] [6s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***EBISCO05 - Shows [5d 5s] (Full house, sixes full of fives) I_PLAY_GOOD - Shows [Kc 8c] (Full house, sixes full of eights)
I_PLAY_GOOD Collects $686.10 from main pot
Now, this hand may look a bit nuts at first, but let me explain my train of thought here. First off, I am a limper raising fool. I just love doing it. It's so +EV long run and creates this insane image where people never give you credit for anything. I had raised this guy at least 10 times already and he had been folding every single time. He had just doubled up (was short stacking) and the last 3 times or so, he had called my prf raise and led out on the flop, evidently sick of my raising. I had just folded to this the first two times, but now I hit what I thought to be the best hand. A lot of times I may elect to call here, because it is certainly not out of the realm of possibility for him to be sitting on a 6 here. But in this situation, I was really convinced that I had the best hand and that he may make a move on me if I raise him. I also didn't want something like an A, K, Q or J to fall to kill the action. When he comes back over the top of my raise, I was really putting him on a range of like top pair weaker kicker, 77 or 55 with the small possibility of a junk hand like 68, 65, or a FD. I was pretty sure from watching him play that he would never limp call 99+ so I pretty much dismissed those from my mind. On the flop, I decide to call here after thinking for my whole timebank. My thought here was that if I shove, I think I would fold out something like 55 or 77, but I didn't think I would fold out an 8 and I certainly didn't think I would fold out a 6 or a FD. Based on this, I decided that the highest +EV play was to call here and let him shove the turn into a huge pot, or if the turn bricked, let him check, I shove and then have him try to make a hero call for the rest of his smallish stack into a gigantic pot. (let me make it clear that I was not planning on folding no matter the turn, but I mentioned the turn bricking from his standpoint) I think that this play maximizes my win long term much moreso than shoving the flop. He actually sucked out on the turn and had pretty much exactly the sort of hand I thought he had, but fortunately I ran good on the river and hit a higher FH.
So that pretty much sums up my session for the most part. Started off my session getting coolered a bit with the QQ and then I turned a FH on Absolute which gave my opponent a higher FH. I actually had the discipline in that one to just call on the river because he played it so obviously. I'm telling you guys, if you aren't playing on Absolute you really are making a mistake IMO. It's like the new age Party Poker. Overall, I actually think Im playing the best poker of my life right now and am very excited about what's to come this year. I plan on huge things by the time December is here.
I ended up breaking even at Absolute due to a few hands where I couldn't really get away. Oh well, it happens. I was extremely pleased with my play today and have really been focusing lately on keeping my emotions in check and just worrying about making the best possible play available to me at the time.
I wanted to share two hands that I thought were interesting, one of which I thought I played very well and one of which I think I should have gotten away.
The first one is on FTP and goes like this:
A decent player raises UTG to $14. I am right behind him and make it $45 with two red queens. We both have a full buyin with him covering slightly (2/4 NL so $400). It folds back to him and he pretty quickly makes it $140 or so. Well now...with my image at the table being pretty active, I decided that I could very well be ahead here, but if I shove him back then Im really kind of forcing him to have KK or AA to call. I decided to call and see a flop before getting my money in. The flop comes J rag rag all clubs. He insta shoves into me. Sigh...now I have half my stack in, an OP and am getting about 2:1 on my money to call. My first reaction to this was to fold, but I decided at the last minute that he could easily be doing this with a couple combos of AK where he has the K or A of clubs, which would mean that this was an easy call against that hand. Thinking back though, the prf 4 bet from a nit and then an insta shove really narrows down his range here. First off, Im pretty sure his prf 4 betting range from UTG is going to be TT+ and AK. When he auto shoves the flop, TT is basically out (altho there is a small chance of course), JJ is now ahead, KK and AA crush me and Im racing against the A or K of clubs and two overs. I also have no club in my hand for backup in case he does have something like two red kings and just wants the action over with. I think that taking this all into consideration, this was probably a fold even though I was getting decent odds and had pretty good equity. Oh well. It definitely wasn't a terrible play per se, but I think that I should be getting away in spots like that.
The second hand I wanted to share was on Absolute and I thought my play here was awesome.
STAGE #718221580: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $4 - 2007-07-26 16:59:57 (ET)
Table: FRIENDSHIP LN (Real Money) Seat #4 is the dealer
Seat 4 - I_PLAY_GOOD ($830.40 in chips)
Seat 5 - CUBBIEBLUE10 ($998 in chips)
Seat 1 - THEPLAYA13 ($626 in chips)
Seat 2 - EBISCO05 ($341.80 in chips)
Seat 3 - DOMA911 ($184.30 in chips)
CUBBIEBLUE10 - Posts small blind $2 THEPLAYA13 - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***Dealt to I_PLAY_GOOD [Kc 8c]
EBISCO05 - Calls $4
DOMA911 - Folds
I_PLAY_GOOD - Raises $16 to $16
CUBBIEBLUE10 - Folds
THEPLAYA13 - Folds
EBISCO05 - Calls $12
*** FLOP *** [8d 6d 6c]
EBISCO05 - Bets $32
I_PLAY_GOOD - Raises $95 to $95
EBISCO05 - Raises $158 to $190
I_PLAY_GOOD - Calls $95
*** TURN *** [8d 6d 6c] [5h]
EBISCO05 - All-In $135.80
I_PLAY_GOOD - Calls $135.80
*** RIVER *** [8d 6d 6c 5h] [6s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***EBISCO05 - Shows [5d 5s] (Full house, sixes full of fives) I_PLAY_GOOD - Shows [Kc 8c] (Full house, sixes full of eights)
I_PLAY_GOOD Collects $686.10 from main pot
Now, this hand may look a bit nuts at first, but let me explain my train of thought here. First off, I am a limper raising fool. I just love doing it. It's so +EV long run and creates this insane image where people never give you credit for anything. I had raised this guy at least 10 times already and he had been folding every single time. He had just doubled up (was short stacking) and the last 3 times or so, he had called my prf raise and led out on the flop, evidently sick of my raising. I had just folded to this the first two times, but now I hit what I thought to be the best hand. A lot of times I may elect to call here, because it is certainly not out of the realm of possibility for him to be sitting on a 6 here. But in this situation, I was really convinced that I had the best hand and that he may make a move on me if I raise him. I also didn't want something like an A, K, Q or J to fall to kill the action. When he comes back over the top of my raise, I was really putting him on a range of like top pair weaker kicker, 77 or 55 with the small possibility of a junk hand like 68, 65, or a FD. I was pretty sure from watching him play that he would never limp call 99+ so I pretty much dismissed those from my mind. On the flop, I decide to call here after thinking for my whole timebank. My thought here was that if I shove, I think I would fold out something like 55 or 77, but I didn't think I would fold out an 8 and I certainly didn't think I would fold out a 6 or a FD. Based on this, I decided that the highest +EV play was to call here and let him shove the turn into a huge pot, or if the turn bricked, let him check, I shove and then have him try to make a hero call for the rest of his smallish stack into a gigantic pot. (let me make it clear that I was not planning on folding no matter the turn, but I mentioned the turn bricking from his standpoint) I think that this play maximizes my win long term much moreso than shoving the flop. He actually sucked out on the turn and had pretty much exactly the sort of hand I thought he had, but fortunately I ran good on the river and hit a higher FH.
So that pretty much sums up my session for the most part. Started off my session getting coolered a bit with the QQ and then I turned a FH on Absolute which gave my opponent a higher FH. I actually had the discipline in that one to just call on the river because he played it so obviously. I'm telling you guys, if you aren't playing on Absolute you really are making a mistake IMO. It's like the new age Party Poker. Overall, I actually think Im playing the best poker of my life right now and am very excited about what's to come this year. I plan on huge things by the time December is here.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Marathon Man
Just finished a 16 hour straight session between live and online. I feel like shit. Tonight my buddy Mark spread a 5/10 game at "The Depot" as we call it. It's basically an old auto repair shop that he refurbished inside and has room for 4 full tables, a pool table, ping pong, plasmas all over the place including an enormous one in the middle of the room with an Xbox, and a full bar area. For a game in SC, this place is where it's at. Always nice to know the right people.
Anyway, I think if I could play one game the rest of my life, it would be Greenville, SC 5/10NL. The play is so mind numblingly atrocious I sometimes have to act like I'm coughing after hands to not giveaway the fact I'm about to break out into laughter. It's like LOL, except in real life. This game is actually kinda weird in that you have to literally play poorly to win in these games. For instance, there are 4 limpers in front of you. Normally online, I would be raising a wide range here, but when I see something like 67s, I auto muck. Why? Well because these guys are playing stuff like J7 consistently, and they will limp call any raise you make. 4 limpers you make it $60, ur getting 4 callers for a $240 pot. Now ur in a huge pot where no one is gonna fold anything with 67s. I know it sounds weird and I probably didn't explain it very well since Ive been up for more than 24 hours, but trust me, you have to play "bad" in a sense to beat these games. Unfortunately for me, I didn't play bad enough tonight and I lost about $400. Im happy with my play though, I thought I played extremely well. I lost one of the biggest pots I played the whole night against a drunk guy with AJ on an A 2 4 flop. He had A3 and we got it all in on the flop. Turn is an auto 5. NH.
Came home from live and settled down into a couple tables on Absolute. For those of you not playing on Absolute, I highly recommend it. The play is among the worst I've seen online. At most of the bigger sites, a lot of players have adapted an optimal style of playing where if they enter a pot they raise, they 3 bet a lot in and out of the blinds and basically make life miserable for any player trying to take over the table. Not so at Absolute. There's evidently a limp/fold epidemic on that site, not to mention the atrocious postflop play. Tonight, I had KdKh on a J 5 6 3 diamond flop. This guy had been playing incredibly poorly, so I had pretty much decided on the flop that no matter the action I was going nowhere. I just felt his range was going to be too wide against me for me to make any sort of good fold here. I bet almost the pot on the flop and he calls. The turn is the 8 of hearts. He checks and I bet half his stack. He c/r all in. Now of course I have to call, but Im figuring to be up against at least some sort of combo draw with the ace if not a flopped flush. The guy felts A7 of spades. NH. You just can't really find players that bad on the major sites anymore for the most part. It may have something to do with my playing so early in the morning (started my session around 6:30AM), but I haven't seen a play like that (OK, I have, but very few and far between) since the old Party days. These guys were doing this as a habit. One guy was shoving $600 in prf after another raised $12. He did this like 15 times. It was amazing. I started the session up about $600 in the first hour, swung down to where I was down $800 overall and then ended the session up $1K for the night. So with my live losses I'm hovering right around $600 profit for the day.
You know, everytime I go to play live I kinda regret it just because Im about 1,000 times the player online than I am live, but I really can't help myself. It's not everyday you get to play people willing to stack off $2K pots with trash. I actually am pretty convinced I am running like total shit in the games. I've given it a lot of thought and think I have adjusted my game properly, it's just a matter of not getting coolered (My two biggest pots lost have been middle set to top set and A9 on a 9 9 J flop to J9) and not getting sucked out on. My buddy that deals and I have a running joke now it's gotten so bad. The joke isn't really funny, so Im not gonna try to tell it, but basically it's just a joke about how badly I run in the games...SO.....that being said this was a terrible blog entry and I apologize. Next one will be better I promise. I have a lot of shit going down in the next couple weeks. I need to get both my houses rented out as Ive been stuck with both mortgage payments for a month. Both houses need to have some work done on the walls, etc. Im super lazy so I've been putting it off, but it's like flushing money down the toilet, so I have to get off my ass and do it.
Anyway, I think if I could play one game the rest of my life, it would be Greenville, SC 5/10NL. The play is so mind numblingly atrocious I sometimes have to act like I'm coughing after hands to not giveaway the fact I'm about to break out into laughter. It's like LOL, except in real life. This game is actually kinda weird in that you have to literally play poorly to win in these games. For instance, there are 4 limpers in front of you. Normally online, I would be raising a wide range here, but when I see something like 67s, I auto muck. Why? Well because these guys are playing stuff like J7 consistently, and they will limp call any raise you make. 4 limpers you make it $60, ur getting 4 callers for a $240 pot. Now ur in a huge pot where no one is gonna fold anything with 67s. I know it sounds weird and I probably didn't explain it very well since Ive been up for more than 24 hours, but trust me, you have to play "bad" in a sense to beat these games. Unfortunately for me, I didn't play bad enough tonight and I lost about $400. Im happy with my play though, I thought I played extremely well. I lost one of the biggest pots I played the whole night against a drunk guy with AJ on an A 2 4 flop. He had A3 and we got it all in on the flop. Turn is an auto 5. NH.
Came home from live and settled down into a couple tables on Absolute. For those of you not playing on Absolute, I highly recommend it. The play is among the worst I've seen online. At most of the bigger sites, a lot of players have adapted an optimal style of playing where if they enter a pot they raise, they 3 bet a lot in and out of the blinds and basically make life miserable for any player trying to take over the table. Not so at Absolute. There's evidently a limp/fold epidemic on that site, not to mention the atrocious postflop play. Tonight, I had KdKh on a J 5 6 3 diamond flop. This guy had been playing incredibly poorly, so I had pretty much decided on the flop that no matter the action I was going nowhere. I just felt his range was going to be too wide against me for me to make any sort of good fold here. I bet almost the pot on the flop and he calls. The turn is the 8 of hearts. He checks and I bet half his stack. He c/r all in. Now of course I have to call, but Im figuring to be up against at least some sort of combo draw with the ace if not a flopped flush. The guy felts A7 of spades. NH. You just can't really find players that bad on the major sites anymore for the most part. It may have something to do with my playing so early in the morning (started my session around 6:30AM), but I haven't seen a play like that (OK, I have, but very few and far between) since the old Party days. These guys were doing this as a habit. One guy was shoving $600 in prf after another raised $12. He did this like 15 times. It was amazing. I started the session up about $600 in the first hour, swung down to where I was down $800 overall and then ended the session up $1K for the night. So with my live losses I'm hovering right around $600 profit for the day.
You know, everytime I go to play live I kinda regret it just because Im about 1,000 times the player online than I am live, but I really can't help myself. It's not everyday you get to play people willing to stack off $2K pots with trash. I actually am pretty convinced I am running like total shit in the games. I've given it a lot of thought and think I have adjusted my game properly, it's just a matter of not getting coolered (My two biggest pots lost have been middle set to top set and A9 on a 9 9 J flop to J9) and not getting sucked out on. My buddy that deals and I have a running joke now it's gotten so bad. The joke isn't really funny, so Im not gonna try to tell it, but basically it's just a joke about how badly I run in the games...SO.....that being said this was a terrible blog entry and I apologize. Next one will be better I promise. I have a lot of shit going down in the next couple weeks. I need to get both my houses rented out as Ive been stuck with both mortgage payments for a month. Both houses need to have some work done on the walls, etc. Im super lazy so I've been putting it off, but it's like flushing money down the toilet, so I have to get off my ass and do it.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
A Very Nice Night
It's 7AM and I just got finished with a live/HU session. The live game I play in is the most +EV game you can imagine. If you want to see a table full of 9 people who are doing exactly the opposite of the right play every single hand, you will come sit at the home games I go to. Unfortunately for me, I run like total ass in them, so there's that complication...I played a guy HU tonight in a PLO/8B and NLH mixed game. I ended up taking him for ~$300 and then losing that on the NL tables after we quit. I ended the session down $75 live. A guy raises, calls my RR (which was half his stack) with T8 and flops trip 8's. Very well played buddy. People come to gamble, nothing much you can do.
I came home a bit dejected and decided that I was going to play some HU 2/4 on FTP. I watched a Stinger HU vid on cardrunners last night and it was incredible. I learned so much just by sitting there and hearing his thoughts throughout the session. If any of you have seen the commercials for the movie Hot Rod where the dude is kicking another guy's ass and is like, "I'VE BEEN DRINKIN' GREEN TEA ALL DAY" that's how I felt after watching Stinger's HU vid.
I sat down and had a semi-retarded opp who hit n run me after he got up a buyin. Oh well, keep pluggin'. I got a guy to sit down who seemed like a pretty decent opponent, but man did he make some really, really dumb tilt plays. I was playing my normal semi-insanely crazy aggro style and he seemed to get to the point where he was just playing his cards. I was betting him out of almost every pot, and when he did have a hand he just c/r and I folded easily. Here is the biggest hand we played the whole night:
Just to give you a background of the game, we had both been opening each other very light (basically every hand on the button was raised). There wasn't a ton of 3 betting, but I had started 3 betting him a lot because of his prf aggression. I finally pick up a hand that is actually worth 3 betting here with AA...and here we go:
FullTiltPoker Game #3012776961: Table Gass (heads up) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 6:49:31 ET - 2007/07/21Seat 1:
RightThurrr ($1,129.50)Seat 2: lvnoffsklskybux ($819.50)
RightThurrr posts the small blind of $2 lvnoffsklskybux posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #1*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to lvnoffsklskybux [Ad Ah]
RightThurrr raises to $12 lvnoffsklskybux raises to $42 RightThurrr calls $30
*** FLOP *** [Qh Ks 6s]
lvnoffsklskybux bets $70 RightThurrr calls $70
*** TURN *** [Qh Ks 6s] [2h]
lvnoffsklskybux bets $180 RightThurrr calls $180
*** RIVER *** [Qh Ks 6s 2h] [7h]
lvnoffsklskybux bets $527.50, and is all in
RightThurrr calls $527.50
*** SHOW DOWN ***l vnoffsklskybux shows [Ad Ah] a pair of Aces
RightThurrr mucks lvnoffsklskybux wins the pot ($1,638.50) with a pair of Aces*** SUMMARY ***Total pot $1,639 Rake $0.50Board: [Qh Ks 6s 2h 7h]Seat 1: RightThurrr (small blind) mucked [Ts Qs] - a pair of QueensSeat 2: lvnoffsklskybux (big blind) showed [Ad Ah] and won ($1,638.50) with a pair of Aces
During the session he was complaining about how good I was running. I really wasn't running that good honestly, but (almost) everytime we showed down I had a great hand. That's exactly what you want HU. You want to take down a lot of pots without show, but when you do show you want to win with quality hands. At the low limits, this forces your opponents into a mindset where they think they cannot win without a great hand themselves and thus they just play their cards. This makes them incredibly easy to play against.
In this hand, I decided to go ahead and value shove the river. This card was very good for my hand and earlier during the session he had shown a propensity to just call down with top pair. I decided that if he had top pair (which is what I thought he had) then he would call a value shove as much as he would call a value bet, thus the shove. Of course, I only had a PSB behind anyway and I think that I setup this hand perfectly to shove on the river by keeping my turn bet an amount that I thought would be called, but also keeping the stack sizes perfect for me to go ahead and shove the river and make it look a bit bluffy rather than look like the value push that it was. He made a tilty (terrible) call on the river and I scooped. He left immediately after. All in all I ended the night +$1,600 after being down ~$500 before this opponent sat. Nothing like the feeling of totally dominating an opponent HU.
Food for thought:
When playing hands postflop, it is important to "set yourself up" for later streets. In other words, let's say that you have a hand which you do not plan on folding to any action. What you want to do is make sure that you bet your hand in such a way that you leave yourself room to play. Let's say there is $200 in the pot and you have $400 behind on the turn. You decide to bet the pot, ($200). You have left yourself no room to play on the river at all. If you have a hand you do not plan to fold to any action, I would recommend betting ~$125-$145 on the turn, this way you can make your hand look a bit more bluffy on the river and hopefully get a call (if you have a big hand). If you actually are bluffing, you want to bet your hand in a way that will leave you a decent amount of fold equity on the river. This same bet of ~$125 or so will leave you room on the river to go ahead and shove without keeping your opponent pot committed to call any bet as he would be if you bet $200 on the turn and then shoved $200 on the river. Of course, you need to be mixing up your bluffs and value shoves in this situation in such a way that your opponent will basically be stabbing in the dark as to whether he should call or fold. I probably explained this terribly, but I try.
Im gonna finish watching cartoons with my son and then get some sleep. We're watching Jimmy Neutron right now. My son also loves Spongebob Squarepants and lovingly refers to him as "Bob Bob". :) Best of luck at the tables.
I came home a bit dejected and decided that I was going to play some HU 2/4 on FTP. I watched a Stinger HU vid on cardrunners last night and it was incredible. I learned so much just by sitting there and hearing his thoughts throughout the session. If any of you have seen the commercials for the movie Hot Rod where the dude is kicking another guy's ass and is like, "I'VE BEEN DRINKIN' GREEN TEA ALL DAY" that's how I felt after watching Stinger's HU vid.
I sat down and had a semi-retarded opp who hit n run me after he got up a buyin. Oh well, keep pluggin'. I got a guy to sit down who seemed like a pretty decent opponent, but man did he make some really, really dumb tilt plays. I was playing my normal semi-insanely crazy aggro style and he seemed to get to the point where he was just playing his cards. I was betting him out of almost every pot, and when he did have a hand he just c/r and I folded easily. Here is the biggest hand we played the whole night:
Just to give you a background of the game, we had both been opening each other very light (basically every hand on the button was raised). There wasn't a ton of 3 betting, but I had started 3 betting him a lot because of his prf aggression. I finally pick up a hand that is actually worth 3 betting here with AA...and here we go:
FullTiltPoker Game #3012776961: Table Gass (heads up) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 6:49:31 ET - 2007/07/21Seat 1:
RightThurrr ($1,129.50)Seat 2: lvnoffsklskybux ($819.50)
RightThurrr posts the small blind of $2 lvnoffsklskybux posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #1*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to lvnoffsklskybux [Ad Ah]
RightThurrr raises to $12 lvnoffsklskybux raises to $42 RightThurrr calls $30
*** FLOP *** [Qh Ks 6s]
lvnoffsklskybux bets $70 RightThurrr calls $70
*** TURN *** [Qh Ks 6s] [2h]
lvnoffsklskybux bets $180 RightThurrr calls $180
*** RIVER *** [Qh Ks 6s 2h] [7h]
lvnoffsklskybux bets $527.50, and is all in
RightThurrr calls $527.50
*** SHOW DOWN ***l vnoffsklskybux shows [Ad Ah] a pair of Aces
RightThurrr mucks lvnoffsklskybux wins the pot ($1,638.50) with a pair of Aces*** SUMMARY ***Total pot $1,639 Rake $0.50Board: [Qh Ks 6s 2h 7h]Seat 1: RightThurrr (small blind) mucked [Ts Qs] - a pair of QueensSeat 2: lvnoffsklskybux (big blind) showed [Ad Ah] and won ($1,638.50) with a pair of Aces
During the session he was complaining about how good I was running. I really wasn't running that good honestly, but (almost) everytime we showed down I had a great hand. That's exactly what you want HU. You want to take down a lot of pots without show, but when you do show you want to win with quality hands. At the low limits, this forces your opponents into a mindset where they think they cannot win without a great hand themselves and thus they just play their cards. This makes them incredibly easy to play against.
In this hand, I decided to go ahead and value shove the river. This card was very good for my hand and earlier during the session he had shown a propensity to just call down with top pair. I decided that if he had top pair (which is what I thought he had) then he would call a value shove as much as he would call a value bet, thus the shove. Of course, I only had a PSB behind anyway and I think that I setup this hand perfectly to shove on the river by keeping my turn bet an amount that I thought would be called, but also keeping the stack sizes perfect for me to go ahead and shove the river and make it look a bit bluffy rather than look like the value push that it was. He made a tilty (terrible) call on the river and I scooped. He left immediately after. All in all I ended the night +$1,600 after being down ~$500 before this opponent sat. Nothing like the feeling of totally dominating an opponent HU.
Food for thought:
When playing hands postflop, it is important to "set yourself up" for later streets. In other words, let's say that you have a hand which you do not plan on folding to any action. What you want to do is make sure that you bet your hand in such a way that you leave yourself room to play. Let's say there is $200 in the pot and you have $400 behind on the turn. You decide to bet the pot, ($200). You have left yourself no room to play on the river at all. If you have a hand you do not plan to fold to any action, I would recommend betting ~$125-$145 on the turn, this way you can make your hand look a bit more bluffy on the river and hopefully get a call (if you have a big hand). If you actually are bluffing, you want to bet your hand in a way that will leave you a decent amount of fold equity on the river. This same bet of ~$125 or so will leave you room on the river to go ahead and shove without keeping your opponent pot committed to call any bet as he would be if you bet $200 on the turn and then shoved $200 on the river. Of course, you need to be mixing up your bluffs and value shoves in this situation in such a way that your opponent will basically be stabbing in the dark as to whether he should call or fold. I probably explained this terribly, but I try.
Im gonna finish watching cartoons with my son and then get some sleep. We're watching Jimmy Neutron right now. My son also loves Spongebob Squarepants and lovingly refers to him as "Bob Bob". :) Best of luck at the tables.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Getting Back in the Swing
Well, since everyone (Croda and NFulton) stole the look of my last blog, I decided that I would get a new look for the new blog. I think that overall blogs are really gay, but I also think they help you keep track of mistakes and overall just force you to write out your thoughts, which can be a good thing when it comes to keeping sane playing poker.
My first entry is going to be pretty simple and just cover a few basics. For one, I've decided to get back into cash games. The term "loldonkaments" applies here. Ive been playing mostly tourneys for a few months now and I really am just sick of them. I'll still play tournaments, but it won't be on a full schedule anytime soon. They're incredibly time consuming and frustrating. In the past month or two I've played the 100r on stars maybe 20 times. I've bubbled the final table at least 4 times and bubbled the cash at least 3-4 times. I had one final table on a Sunday which I hit 10K for 5th, but was bitterly disappointed with that.
Now on to what I plan on doing:
I started a new account on FTP "lvnoffsklskybux" which so far is aptly named. Last night I was involved in one big pot all night which was for a buyin at 2/4 on FTP. An aggro button raiser isolated a donkey limper for the 15th time and I have KK in the SB. I had been wanting to repop this guy for a long time, but I really didn't want to get involved with things like 94o. I had already decided the first time I got anything that resembled a hand I was coming over the top. Well, so I get KK and he raises to $18. I make it $55 or so and he insta-shoves when it's back on him. I call and the flop is A 9 A. WP sir. Sklansky bucks: $400 (not the exact number since AQ is supposed to win sometimes, but for the sake of my sanity Im calling it $400). Real money: $0. I think I ended down $150 or so on the night after losing that pot, but that's fine. I dominated the table after that and worked my way back up from $400 to over $800 without a single showdown. I quit shortly after because I was getting tired. SO....that was my night.
I also wanted to take the time to name a few blogs that I do and don't like, basically just to fill space:
Blogs I don't like:
Gene's blog - Ive actually never read this blog, but seriously, the sole mission of the blog is to convince people that he runs worse than anyone else. The whole concept annoys me.
Croda's blog - This is just a spinoff of the +1er and obviously has Zack on life tilt for the time being.
Dwal's jogblog: ...
Blogs I do like:
Lucko - Very interesting blog and surprisingly, even though Kevin's vocabulary consists of "fag" and "lol" he has decent writing skills.
NFulton's blog: Even though he stole my template, this is a good blog.
+1er: I like this blog a lot since it makes fun of people.
My goal for this blog is to write out my thoughts on poker and become a better player while also taking over the blogging world. I'm thinking of getting some sort of sidebet going on the number of readers I will have in 3 months. Probably more to come on that in the sidebet section of +1.
My first entry is going to be pretty simple and just cover a few basics. For one, I've decided to get back into cash games. The term "loldonkaments" applies here. Ive been playing mostly tourneys for a few months now and I really am just sick of them. I'll still play tournaments, but it won't be on a full schedule anytime soon. They're incredibly time consuming and frustrating. In the past month or two I've played the 100r on stars maybe 20 times. I've bubbled the final table at least 4 times and bubbled the cash at least 3-4 times. I had one final table on a Sunday which I hit 10K for 5th, but was bitterly disappointed with that.
Now on to what I plan on doing:
I started a new account on FTP "lvnoffsklskybux" which so far is aptly named. Last night I was involved in one big pot all night which was for a buyin at 2/4 on FTP. An aggro button raiser isolated a donkey limper for the 15th time and I have KK in the SB. I had been wanting to repop this guy for a long time, but I really didn't want to get involved with things like 94o. I had already decided the first time I got anything that resembled a hand I was coming over the top. Well, so I get KK and he raises to $18. I make it $55 or so and he insta-shoves when it's back on him. I call and the flop is A 9 A. WP sir. Sklansky bucks: $400 (not the exact number since AQ is supposed to win sometimes, but for the sake of my sanity Im calling it $400). Real money: $0. I think I ended down $150 or so on the night after losing that pot, but that's fine. I dominated the table after that and worked my way back up from $400 to over $800 without a single showdown. I quit shortly after because I was getting tired. SO....that was my night.
I also wanted to take the time to name a few blogs that I do and don't like, basically just to fill space:
Blogs I don't like:
Gene's blog - Ive actually never read this blog, but seriously, the sole mission of the blog is to convince people that he runs worse than anyone else. The whole concept annoys me.
Croda's blog - This is just a spinoff of the +1er and obviously has Zack on life tilt for the time being.
Dwal's jogblog: ...
Blogs I do like:
Lucko - Very interesting blog and surprisingly, even though Kevin's vocabulary consists of "fag" and "lol" he has decent writing skills.
NFulton's blog: Even though he stole my template, this is a good blog.
+1er: I like this blog a lot since it makes fun of people.
My goal for this blog is to write out my thoughts on poker and become a better player while also taking over the blogging world. I'm thinking of getting some sort of sidebet going on the number of readers I will have in 3 months. Probably more to come on that in the sidebet section of +1.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
