2008 year in review

so the graph pretty much tells the story. couldn't lose for the first half of the year, couldn't win for the second. i think i said it in a previous post but i think i must have ran very well in the first half of the year as well as made more money from playing a tighter game pre-flop which in turn puts you in better spots postflop.

i think the first half of the year i was playing a 18/15 style preflop and a real fit or fold post flop game which isn't the most profitable way to play poker but at low limits it can definitely work. the peak off the graph is when i was at 400nl and i did pretty well for my first 20k hands or so before things started to go sour. looking back now, i think the point of when i started losing was the same time i decided that i needed to open up my game. this included starting to open up more speculative hands, 3-bet more, introduce 4-bet bluffing etc.

since then i've been a steady loser not only at 400nl but 200nl as well. the thing with poker though is that it's easy to tell yourself you're just running bad but it does you no real good because before you know it, you're making bad plays and not taking responsibility for them.

take this example, i had a hand where a loose passive player limped the co and i chkd my option in the bb w/ J3o. flop is JJ8 rainbow, i lead out and he calls. turn is a small brick, i lead out again and he raises pretty much committing his stack. it's very easy to stick it in there and be shown a better Jx and chalk it up to a cooler but when you're analysing your play there is no way you can kid yourself into calling there.

so after i had opened my game up i went into a stage where i was playing scared poker. every flop i saw i convinced myself my opponent had a set, played timid and got slayed. i eventually got out of that mindset and have made great strides in my game since but i still think my game is far from great.

when i was 9 tabling the last couple days i realised that although it might be profitable, it causes me to develope bad habits and ultimately is causing a regression in my game. i love the fact that i can play 2k hand sessions but whats the point if im playing them all like garbage. i guess it's better to just play 600 hands to the best of my ability and if i can only get 12k hands in a month than so be it. this is something i've known all along but once in a while i need a reminder.

this is just one big ramble but when i look back on 08, im not going to think of it as a failure. i made money which is a lot better than a lot of people can say. my roll is slightly larger than last year but i've also cashed out upwards of 10k over the year. im dissapointed in the last 6 months though because i had so much hope back in july, i was crushing my way upward and had reached 400nl about 4 months earlier than i thought i would have. i remember signing up for a coach and stated that my goal was to be a winning regular at 400nl by the end of 08 so i guess i've missed that goal since im not playing 400nl currently but i do have a positive result lifetime at 400nl.

as for goals this year im unsure. i haven't really thought about any yet and i haven't played the last couple of days. i will probably think of some tonight and make another post about what i want out of 09 before i play my first session of the year.

tg

xmas wasn't so merry

on the poker front at least.

i got home from work and fired up 4 tables of 200nl before heading to the casino and quickly dropped $600 on pretty standard stuff i think, can't really remember. that put my ftp roll to 8k so i decided i was done with 200nl for a bit and would drop down to 100nl for the next little while.

headed to the casino which was dead and there were only 2 tables running full of regulars. luckily the regulars are just as incompetent as most of the tourists, they just know how to handle chips. i was kinda card dead most of the session, i had QQ early but got multiway action on a Ace hi flop and folded the turn. JJ same thing and then i picked up AA, two limpers utg and im 3rd to act. i make it 16 cuz either guy never folds once he's put money in, all fold to utg who calls and miracuosly utg+1 finds a fold. flop is K62 rainbow with a single spade, utg check/calls, turn is a brick spade putting a flusd draw out, utg check/calls all-in, a 3rd spade hits the river and he shows As5s for the nut flush. it was pretty hilarious and the guy tried to justify it and was just spewing at the mouth. the only thing that irked me about it is that he's a hot head at the table and if the rolls were reversed he would have been irate. didn't matter to me, so i rebought.

i crusie along and end up building a stack back up to like $260 (from the $100 cap buyin) when this hand comes up. im in the hijak and a really bad loose passive makes it $6 from mp, i cold call with 64o (kinda loose), the co who is somewhat sane and borderline decent makes it $20, btn cold calls which means he has two cards, fold back to mp and he calls and im getting a good enough price. (i think) flop comes down a beuty 235 rainbow giving me the nuts, we all check and the turn is another 2, mp checks, i lead out, co raises, btn goes all-in which is either a boat or 2, nothing less but more likely a 2. i ship in and co tank calls w/ AK muttering something about having outs to our overpairs. i show my straight, co mucks and leaves the table before the river is dealt drawing dead and btn shows J2o for trips. river is a 5 fillng him up, he shakes my hand and tries to leave the table thinking he lost before i tell him to sit down and that he won the pot. dealer tries to push the pot to my buddy in the sb that was never even in the hand.

after that, i rebought one final time and was in for $370, after my stack had dwindled down to like $80 i shoved over a raise and call w/ AQo and got called by JJ and lost the race. dejected and somber from losing in such a juicy game i did what any other respectable poker player would do and took the last $90 in my pocket to the roulette tables. 90 on red and a hundo black got me back to only being stuck $200 on the day.

my buddy and i then left the casino to go to our usual home game. except this time they wanted to play a cash game rather than our usual sng format which is something i've been trying to get them to do for a long time. so we get there and they are playing .50/$1.00 with a min buyin of $20 and a max of $40? so right away im arguing that there should be no max and after a while get my way and buyin for a $100 easily covering the table. then im told that we are going to be charged a rake for playing? keep in mind this is 6 friends playing, not some random people showing up. we play on a fucking plastic table top octagon that doesn't fit the table. i kinda went off about it and said if you want, we can play at my house where i have real table and good chairs and i won't charge a dime. then i offered to pay everyones rake up front cuz it was christmas and i thought the idea was ridiculous. anyways, the rake idea was abolished it was 6 handed game. i dicked around a little bit winning lots of small pots uncontested and losing most of the ones that were contested.

then this hand came up which almost ruined a good friendship and christmas in one fowled swoop. i raise utg w/ AcKc and the host calls on the button. hu the flop is 246cc or something similar, i bet he calls, turn is a brickish Ten or something, i bet he calls, river is a 5x and i shove for a little more than pot. now i was kinda drunk and dicking around so i won't defend the play at all but at the time i just figured he had like A6 or something and would never call a bet for the $71 i made it on the river. he thinks for about a minute and asks me to count it out and then says "call, i have the nuts" and rolls 8c7c. now to my friends defense, they don't understand how poorly it is to slow roll or laugh at people when they lose pots. they all thinks it's fun to rib and it usually is, but when i've dropped 2k in the last 2 days online and then donated $400 to the fish at the casino my tolerance for being slow rolled is a little low.

so that was christmas eve, christmas day i decided not to play and forgo the gold ironman status for the month since it's probably only another $10 to my bonus and im risking losing hundreds when playing tilted.

on boxing day (26th) i decided to play and started off 4-6 tabling 100nl in the morning and played around 800 hands. in my afternoon session i decided to try and 9 table to see where it got me. i actually really enjoyed it and was amazed about how many hands you can get in per hour. i had no real problems keeping up with the action on all the tables other than the odd time out pre-flop. the bad news is i ran like absolute trash but the good news was that i played pretty well and managed to come out of it up a $100 over 2k hands.

the next day i put in two sessions of about 1k hands each and did the run good and made around $750 on the day. i find i get worn out quicker playing 9 tables but a little break does me a lot of good and then i can get back at it. putting in 2k hands a day is pretty insane for me but im pretty optimistic i can make it work. i'll stick to 100nl for a little while longer because i don't think i'd be able to get away with it at 200nl. the competition at 100nl is just so much softer.

gonna play tonight aiming for another 2k hands.

tg.