ended up bubbling the final table of the limit tourny from my last post. not a big deal since i put a huge suckout on some guy w/ AA when i had A8soooooooooooted so i should've have been busted 15th anyways.
i played a little two nights ago. started w/ the 6pm $24 and busted near the end of the first hour w/ AKs vs 99. i cashed in some ftp iron man medals for a $75 tournament token so i also played the 7pm deep stack.
it went well, i played very tight and paid close attention to position. i bounced between 3k and 4k during the first hour. the 2nd hour i managed to double up and was chipping along well into the 3rd hour when i almost tripled up in one hand. this put me about top 5 in chips w/ 60 or so remaining. when the bubble burst at 45 i had just over 50k which was above average. the thing w/ these ftp tournies is the antes are so big that its hard to play tight late and you're forced to steal or pick up hands in order to survive. unfortunately i was unable to do either, i had a steal attempt re-popped and pretty much caught garbage cards. it was a tough spot because i had the the_dean221 (recent p5's triple crown winner) a few to my left and he was re-stealing a very high percentage of the time so in turn the guy on his right had no chance to steal so he started re-stealing. basically i had to fold and prey to pick up a hand while i watched my once 50k stack bleed out to a 24k stack. so @ 1.5k/3k w/ante i pushed my 8bb's all-in utg w/ 22. not a very desirable situation but by this time the massive chip leader (and eventual winner gimmeda1time) had been moved 2 to my left and there was no way i was running a hand past him. so i gambled it up and was called by AJo and lost my flip to go out 24th.
the $24 limit tournament was painful and i busted in that without doing much. i've said it before but the play in this tournament is the absolute worse i've ever seen. i actually think i may be playing to aggresive in this tournament and im probably better off waiting for good hands and pounding them for value. people in this tournament cold call 3-bets like its there job and i've seen so many atroucious beats that it makes my head spin.
the rest of the night i pretty much filled my screen w/ $11 turbo sngs and $20 45 and 90 player sngs. i made a little in the turbos but didn't get anything going in the 45's or 90.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i played again last night w/ the usual line-up of tournaments.
something crazy happened in the $24 6pm. i had a 6.5k stack at the first break! i never usually accumulate that many chips in the first hour but i kinda got hit w/ the deck and my hands werer holding and my draws were hitting. into the 2nd hour i had built up to close to 13k when i got moved tables. my new table was the avg setup for a tournament at this stage except for one player that was sitting on about 11k two to my left. i immediately looked him up on opr to see whether or not he was gonna be tough. he had only cashed in 2% of his touraments the biggest being a score of $10.
my first priority was to see how he would play me and my stack. i needed to know whether he got the stack from playing like a maniac or if he was going to tighten up and fear the fact that i could bust him. about 5 hands in i raise AKs up from utg+1 and he cold calls in mp and the rest of the table folds. the flop came a pretty dry Q hi w/ no draws so continuation bet about 1/2 the pot and he thinks for a minute and shoves. i instantly folded and got the feeling that he was gonna be a pain in the ass.
over the course of the next couple orbits i raised a few pots in position and he always played with me. he would either donk the flop and id be forced to fold or the pot would end up multi-way and i'd give up after missing.
i was back down to about 9k when the following hand took place. im pretty sure i played this hand poorly.
another 9k stack opens @ 80/160 to 480 from the hijak. he had been fairly active and i think he's got a somewhat wide range here. the short stack sb shoves for about 1400 and i have 88 in the bb. i don't think flat calling is an option because the hijak would be getting over 3-1 on a call and then i would be out of position w/ a tough hand to play post flop. i guess i could fold but it just felt a little weak since im pretty sure 88 is ahead of both their ranges.
so my decision was to raise but this is where i made my mistake. i min-raised the sb shove which ended up being 2600 or so. my thinking at the time was that it would let the hijak know i have a hand and he'd dump a lot of the mediocre hands he'd open with. if he had a big hand im pretty sure he'd shove over the top and i'd be able to get away cheaply.
unfortunately he just called which i found very odd and i started worrying about him trying to conceal a monster hand. the flop came down T96 rainbow giving me a gutter ball in addition to my 8's. w/ the pot sitting at about 6500 and us both having 6400 behind i totally pussed out and checked. i just didn't see him having any hands that im beating. surprisingly he checked behind and i was now pretty sure he had AK so i was going to shove the turn until an Ace hit. i check folded pretty easily and he showed AQo and the sb showed two rags.
after that i still had an ok stack but for some reason being down to 6k after having 13k felt horrible. i chipped back up and to about 8.5k before losing a big race w/ AK vs 99 in which i failed to improve which put me back down to 5k. i was whittled down to 4k @ 200/400 w/ante when i made a bad shove w/ A4o from the CO into mr.2% who was now sitting on 42k and another big stack that had 40k. they both called and i deservedly finished 90th or something like that.
the limit tournament was another side show and i busted about middle of the pack. the 7pm was a bit of a rollercoaster and i was all over the place in the first hour finishing up w/ just under the starting stack. i then 4-bet all-in w/ ATo when the guy to my left re-popped my previous 2 raises. he had QQ and it was good game me.
on the bright side i did ok playing $11 and $22 turbo sngs and finally won a $20 45 person sng which is a nice little confidence builder.
won't play tonight but i think i'll play quite a bit over the weekend.
tg (sorry no proof reading)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
long time, no posts.
i really haven't felt like writing in here for the last week or so because i just don't think i have many constructive things to say.
i've been getting destroyed and i've given up on cash for right now. i know i don't play perfect and i feel that i have the ability to judge my play and be unbiased but right now i just cannot get anything going and it's extremely frustrating.
since my last blog i lost about 8 buy-ins at 100nl 6max and heads-up. i dropped down to 50nl for a couple days and the ridiculousness continued until i dropped about 6 buy-ins there.
i took a day off and decided that i needed to get back to mtt's and large field sngs to re-build my br. unfortunately i've been unable to get it going in this avenue as well and my bad run hasn't shown any signs of slowing down.
i had originally thought about posting a bunch of hands but its pointless. everyone runs bad and knows what it's like.
i must say this is the worst downswing and bad run i have ever been on. i lost over 2k in the month of June and thats quite a bit when considering i started it w/ a br of only about 4k.
i haven't played this week so far but i have made my return tonite. i spent the whole week watching mtt videos on cardrunners and pxf hoping to find some flaws in my thinking and i believe i did.
so far tonite has been a bit of a downer but im still left in two mtts.
i played the 6pm $24 on ftp and went deep before this hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1240411
i picked up KK the next hand and got no action and was out a couple orbits later.
the 7pm $69 went horribly as i ran KK into AA early. i held on to my 395 chips and doubled up w/ A8s vs some rag hand and the very next hand shoved AQo into KK.
i played a couple 45 person sngs and got a bit unlucky. i ran QQ into AA once and flopped a set against a straight the other time.
still left in the $5 rebuy nl 6max mtt and the $24 limit holdem. both have had some of the most atrocious play i've ever seen so you never know. i might get lucky!
tg
edit: squeeze gone wrong in the rebuy, just left in the limit.
i really haven't felt like writing in here for the last week or so because i just don't think i have many constructive things to say.
i've been getting destroyed and i've given up on cash for right now. i know i don't play perfect and i feel that i have the ability to judge my play and be unbiased but right now i just cannot get anything going and it's extremely frustrating.
since my last blog i lost about 8 buy-ins at 100nl 6max and heads-up. i dropped down to 50nl for a couple days and the ridiculousness continued until i dropped about 6 buy-ins there.
i took a day off and decided that i needed to get back to mtt's and large field sngs to re-build my br. unfortunately i've been unable to get it going in this avenue as well and my bad run hasn't shown any signs of slowing down.
i had originally thought about posting a bunch of hands but its pointless. everyone runs bad and knows what it's like.
i must say this is the worst downswing and bad run i have ever been on. i lost over 2k in the month of June and thats quite a bit when considering i started it w/ a br of only about 4k.
i haven't played this week so far but i have made my return tonite. i spent the whole week watching mtt videos on cardrunners and pxf hoping to find some flaws in my thinking and i believe i did.
so far tonite has been a bit of a downer but im still left in two mtts.
i played the 6pm $24 on ftp and went deep before this hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1240411
i picked up KK the next hand and got no action and was out a couple orbits later.
the 7pm $69 went horribly as i ran KK into AA early. i held on to my 395 chips and doubled up w/ A8s vs some rag hand and the very next hand shoved AQo into KK.
i played a couple 45 person sngs and got a bit unlucky. i ran QQ into AA once and flopped a set against a straight the other time.
still left in the $5 rebuy nl 6max mtt and the $24 limit holdem. both have had some of the most atrocious play i've ever seen so you never know. i might get lucky!
tg
edit: squeeze gone wrong in the rebuy, just left in the limit.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
more hands and a pokertracker review
so i managed to squeak in another session Monday nite.
i played 900+ hands and ended the session down $20 which is pretty much break even. most of the hands were at 100nl but i did get in some play at the 160 deep tables. the play was a little better but still pretty poor.
i actually thought i had made money on the session until i checked out pokertracker after the session. i forgot that i stacked off two hands that killed the profit. here are the hands from memory:
hand 1) a mediocre player min-raises from the CO, button who is a little laggish cold calls, sb folds and i call in the bb w/ KTo. (we all have full buy-ins)
(pot $6.50) flop comes K9x rainbow, i lead for $5, CO calls and button calls. (CO probably plays AK and 98 this exact same way)
(pot $21.50) turn is a Ten putting 2 spades on board, i lead for $18, CO folds, button raises to like $50ish, i think and shove and he calls.
he had QJo and hit his gutter ball on the turn. the river was a deuce and i missed my 4 outer. at the time i didn't think he would call a flop bet w/ a gut shot but i've been seeing people stick around w/ naked gutshots fairly often of late. i guess i'll have to start giving people more credit when gutshots hit in multi-way pots like this. i think his flop call is fine here since the CO could of min-raised a monster and im showing strength leading into 2 people on the flop. with full stacks in play i think he can expect to get paid off often enough to make it profitable.
my mistake was thinking he would not of stuck around w/ QJ. i figure he's 3-betting 99 and KK but could have KQ, T9 or a hand like JsTs. the only real hand i thought i had to be scared of at the time was a set of X's (i think X was a 5 or 6)
if i leave QJ out of his range im a 75% favourite against his range. if i include both QJo and QJs in his range im a 42% dog. it's a pretty big difference but even if i'm a 42% dog im getting the odds to play if for stacks but just because im getting the odds it doesn't mean i have to call. in retrospect i think it's probably a fold because i just don't see him showing up with worst hands as often as he'll have a set or a straight.
my thinking that he could be raising KQ is probably a little off as well and when i remove it from his range and keep QJ in there im a 30% dog which makes it a clear fold.
hand 2) folds to me in the CO and i open w/ AhJd (std pot size raise of $3.50), Button cold calls, both blinds fold. the button had a very high cold calling frequency so i think he's doing this with a lot of hands.
(pot $8.50) flop is JhTx8h, i lead for $7 and the button min-raises to $14. his range is so wide here and the flop is so draw heavy i 3-bet to like $50, he puts the rest in and i call.
he cold called w/ Qd9d and flopped the nuts. he fills up on the turn and i miss my runner runner.
i ran his range through pokerstove and it came out pretty much 50/50 so i don't think getting the money in is a mistake especially after he min-raises the flop. im pretty much forced to 3-bet as he could be min-raising a ton of hands i have crushed and there are a ton of potential scare cards that can come on the turn. once i 3-bet im pretty much committed. tough hand.
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last nite i didn't really have much time to play so i fired up a couple tables of 50 plo and did some pokertracker review for the month.
i did a filter on my biggest losing hands of the month and the top 3 in order are: ( i don't remember if they were suited or not)
1) A9
2) JT
3 KJ
going through those hands and other big pots i lost i realized that im doing way too much smooth calling on flops where i have a mediocre top pair. im going to start mixing in some raises to better define my hand and find out where i'm at. i reviewed a lot of hands where im smooth calling the flop in position and getting blown out on the turn. maybe if my hand reading was a bit better i would be better able to adjust but for now i think im better off raising in pots where my opponent could be betting a lot of different hands and taking it from there.
also, im losing most of my money on A9 and JT when im raising a limper up and getting called. i think the reason might be that some of the limpers im raising are limping w/ better hands than A9 and JT and therefore my raises aren't really for value. this is only over 20k hands but its something im going to pay closer attention too.
one good sign was that in a few hands that i reviewed where i paid off river bets i stopped the replayer and guessed the opponents hand. in 2 hands i pretty much pegged him in a narrow range and would of actually folded had i played the hand out again. (these are not hands that i remember actually playing)
so it was a good review and gave me some things to think about for my next session. i dropped about 1/2 a buy-in at 50 plo while playing but had a blast doing so. plo can be a pretty fun game but i think i will work harder on my nl game right now and when i get up to the mid stakes i'll start putting some time into devloping my plo game.
i won't play tonite but i think i'll be playing a bunch later in the week and over the weekend and am looking good at hitting gold status on the ironman challenge.
tg
i played 900+ hands and ended the session down $20 which is pretty much break even. most of the hands were at 100nl but i did get in some play at the 160 deep tables. the play was a little better but still pretty poor.
i actually thought i had made money on the session until i checked out pokertracker after the session. i forgot that i stacked off two hands that killed the profit. here are the hands from memory:
hand 1) a mediocre player min-raises from the CO, button who is a little laggish cold calls, sb folds and i call in the bb w/ KTo. (we all have full buy-ins)
(pot $6.50) flop comes K9x rainbow, i lead for $5, CO calls and button calls. (CO probably plays AK and 98 this exact same way)
(pot $21.50) turn is a Ten putting 2 spades on board, i lead for $18, CO folds, button raises to like $50ish, i think and shove and he calls.
he had QJo and hit his gutter ball on the turn. the river was a deuce and i missed my 4 outer. at the time i didn't think he would call a flop bet w/ a gut shot but i've been seeing people stick around w/ naked gutshots fairly often of late. i guess i'll have to start giving people more credit when gutshots hit in multi-way pots like this. i think his flop call is fine here since the CO could of min-raised a monster and im showing strength leading into 2 people on the flop. with full stacks in play i think he can expect to get paid off often enough to make it profitable.
my mistake was thinking he would not of stuck around w/ QJ. i figure he's 3-betting 99 and KK but could have KQ, T9 or a hand like JsTs. the only real hand i thought i had to be scared of at the time was a set of X's (i think X was a 5 or 6)
if i leave QJ out of his range im a 75% favourite against his range. if i include both QJo and QJs in his range im a 42% dog. it's a pretty big difference but even if i'm a 42% dog im getting the odds to play if for stacks but just because im getting the odds it doesn't mean i have to call. in retrospect i think it's probably a fold because i just don't see him showing up with worst hands as often as he'll have a set or a straight.
my thinking that he could be raising KQ is probably a little off as well and when i remove it from his range and keep QJ in there im a 30% dog which makes it a clear fold.
hand 2) folds to me in the CO and i open w/ AhJd (std pot size raise of $3.50), Button cold calls, both blinds fold. the button had a very high cold calling frequency so i think he's doing this with a lot of hands.
(pot $8.50) flop is JhTx8h, i lead for $7 and the button min-raises to $14. his range is so wide here and the flop is so draw heavy i 3-bet to like $50, he puts the rest in and i call.
he cold called w/ Qd9d and flopped the nuts. he fills up on the turn and i miss my runner runner.
i ran his range through pokerstove and it came out pretty much 50/50 so i don't think getting the money in is a mistake especially after he min-raises the flop. im pretty much forced to 3-bet as he could be min-raising a ton of hands i have crushed and there are a ton of potential scare cards that can come on the turn. once i 3-bet im pretty much committed. tough hand.
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last nite i didn't really have much time to play so i fired up a couple tables of 50 plo and did some pokertracker review for the month.
i did a filter on my biggest losing hands of the month and the top 3 in order are: ( i don't remember if they were suited or not)
1) A9
2) JT
3 KJ
going through those hands and other big pots i lost i realized that im doing way too much smooth calling on flops where i have a mediocre top pair. im going to start mixing in some raises to better define my hand and find out where i'm at. i reviewed a lot of hands where im smooth calling the flop in position and getting blown out on the turn. maybe if my hand reading was a bit better i would be better able to adjust but for now i think im better off raising in pots where my opponent could be betting a lot of different hands and taking it from there.
also, im losing most of my money on A9 and JT when im raising a limper up and getting called. i think the reason might be that some of the limpers im raising are limping w/ better hands than A9 and JT and therefore my raises aren't really for value. this is only over 20k hands but its something im going to pay closer attention too.
one good sign was that in a few hands that i reviewed where i paid off river bets i stopped the replayer and guessed the opponents hand. in 2 hands i pretty much pegged him in a narrow range and would of actually folded had i played the hand out again. (these are not hands that i remember actually playing)
so it was a good review and gave me some things to think about for my next session. i dropped about 1/2 a buy-in at 50 plo while playing but had a blast doing so. plo can be a pretty fun game but i think i will work harder on my nl game right now and when i get up to the mid stakes i'll start putting some time into devloping my plo game.
i won't play tonite but i think i'll be playing a bunch later in the week and over the weekend and am looking good at hitting gold status on the ironman challenge.
tg
Sunday, June 24, 2007
back at it
ended up not being able to sleep last nite so i put in about 1200 hands.
i made back about $150 and played pretty well.
i also got a chance to log a few hands tonite.
i played 800+ hands and ended the session up about $160. about 215 hands of that was @ .40/.80 deep stack ($160 buy-in - 200bb's)
there were 2 tables of this going and it was unbelievably soft. guys stacking off 300bb's w/ ATo. unfortunately i couldn't pick up a hand before the 2 donkeys busted so i pretty much broke even on those tables. my session would have been a little more profitable but on one of my 100nl tables i was getting absolutely pwned by this uber donk. he called every raise and outflopped me in every pot.
the $160 deep tables are just so unbelievably soft when i play that i think im going to start sitting on them just to try to get them going. it's just unbelievable.
anyways, i posted in the cr forums about how some of the more experienced nl 6 max players find the swings. it seems that a 4 buy-in swing is fairly normal for a session (something i started to wonder about) and some guys say they swing anywhere between 8 buy-ins.
i think this gives me a better perspective of the game and what to expect.
tg
i made back about $150 and played pretty well.
i also got a chance to log a few hands tonite.
i played 800+ hands and ended the session up about $160. about 215 hands of that was @ .40/.80 deep stack ($160 buy-in - 200bb's)
there were 2 tables of this going and it was unbelievably soft. guys stacking off 300bb's w/ ATo. unfortunately i couldn't pick up a hand before the 2 donkeys busted so i pretty much broke even on those tables. my session would have been a little more profitable but on one of my 100nl tables i was getting absolutely pwned by this uber donk. he called every raise and outflopped me in every pot.
the $160 deep tables are just so unbelievably soft when i play that i think im going to start sitting on them just to try to get them going. it's just unbelievable.
anyways, i posted in the cr forums about how some of the more experienced nl 6 max players find the swings. it seems that a 4 buy-in swing is fairly normal for a session (something i started to wonder about) and some guys say they swing anywhere between 8 buy-ins.
i think this gives me a better perspective of the game and what to expect.
tg
Saturday, June 23, 2007
401 hands of hell
funny how this blog has turned into a how much money i've lost today kind of theme.
i sat down and quickly dropped 4 buy-ins ($409.30) in 401 hands.
just a sick sick session. i actually held my composure until the final beat and then for the first time ever chucked my mouse across the room. (felt kinda good except that i timed out in all my other hands)
here are the hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200430 - standard cooler
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200443 - villain is your standard maniac, he shoved the turn so fast i was expecting to see a pair w/ the ace of clubs or something.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200445 - a hand against another uber maniac. im not usually a big fan of jamming AK pre in cash games but im way ahead of his squeezing range and i "thought" i had fold equity but apparenlty 99 is good.
and the mouse smasher to finish it off,
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200450
days like this make me wish i just dicked around and played $5 sngs for fun like some of my friends.
this month has just been so sick. it seems like i go small win, big loss, small win, big loss.........
admittedly i played poorly at the beginning of the month and deserve those results. its just so frustrating lately. i get on these uber aggressive tables and everytime i raise im getting 3-bet and forced to fold. then when i finally pick up a monster i get zero action or sucked out on. (obv over generalizations because im losing)
so it looks like im going to have a big losing month for the first time that i really remember. im not sure how in the red i am in mtts but im done quite a bit in cash.
im bitter and depressed. my br is a shade under 3.3k now but i have about $400 in rakeback owed to me. if it wasn't for rakeback i'd probably be playing 1cent/2cent underolled.
im going to go puke.
tg
i sat down and quickly dropped 4 buy-ins ($409.30) in 401 hands.
just a sick sick session. i actually held my composure until the final beat and then for the first time ever chucked my mouse across the room. (felt kinda good except that i timed out in all my other hands)
here are the hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200430 - standard cooler
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200443 - villain is your standard maniac, he shoved the turn so fast i was expecting to see a pair w/ the ace of clubs or something.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200445 - a hand against another uber maniac. im not usually a big fan of jamming AK pre in cash games but im way ahead of his squeezing range and i "thought" i had fold equity but apparenlty 99 is good.
and the mouse smasher to finish it off,
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1200450
days like this make me wish i just dicked around and played $5 sngs for fun like some of my friends.
this month has just been so sick. it seems like i go small win, big loss, small win, big loss.........
admittedly i played poorly at the beginning of the month and deserve those results. its just so frustrating lately. i get on these uber aggressive tables and everytime i raise im getting 3-bet and forced to fold. then when i finally pick up a monster i get zero action or sucked out on. (obv over generalizations because im losing)
so it looks like im going to have a big losing month for the first time that i really remember. im not sure how in the red i am in mtts but im done quite a bit in cash.
im bitter and depressed. my br is a shade under 3.3k now but i have about $400 in rakeback owed to me. if it wasn't for rakeback i'd probably be playing 1cent/2cent underolled.
im going to go puke.
tg
Friday, June 22, 2007
tons of hands, small win
played close to 3200 hands of 100nl today. i think to some multi-tablers that's not that much but to me that is a ton.
before the last week or so i would consider 1k to be a very big volume day. i tried 6 tabling today and actually felt fairly comfortable playing that many at once. i can't see myself ever playing more than that but 6 seems like the sweet spot.
i went back to 100nl and was very happy with my play. obviously there are always going to be a couple hands that are misplayed but overall i thought i played well.
i ended up just over a buy-in but was stuck 3 buy-ins early when i just got stuck in very bad spots. i could of actually been up a lot more but i took a couple of nasty beats that felted me.
here's a graph for the day.
i was planning on playing a bunch of mtt's but the way they started off i decided to concentrate on cash games. i played the 10am $24 and busted from that fairly uneventfully. i then played the noon $24 and about 15 mins in i got my AA all-in pre vs. KK and the board came xxKKx and i decided i had enough for a while.
next i played the fifty fifty again and went out about 1.5hrs in when i pushed AJ and about 15bb's overtop a couple limpers and one of them called w/ 99 and it held up. i also played the 10pm $24 and lasted about the same amount of time before getting short and pushing 77 into KK and thats all she wrote.
i might get some hands in tomorrow morning but then my girlfriend is coming home so my play schedule will be slowed considerably.
tg
before the last week or so i would consider 1k to be a very big volume day. i tried 6 tabling today and actually felt fairly comfortable playing that many at once. i can't see myself ever playing more than that but 6 seems like the sweet spot.
i went back to 100nl and was very happy with my play. obviously there are always going to be a couple hands that are misplayed but overall i thought i played well.
i ended up just over a buy-in but was stuck 3 buy-ins early when i just got stuck in very bad spots. i could of actually been up a lot more but i took a couple of nasty beats that felted me.
here's a graph for the day.
i was planning on playing a bunch of mtt's but the way they started off i decided to concentrate on cash games. i played the 10am $24 and busted from that fairly uneventfully. i then played the noon $24 and about 15 mins in i got my AA all-in pre vs. KK and the board came xxKKx and i decided i had enough for a while.
next i played the fifty fifty again and went out about 1.5hrs in when i pushed AJ and about 15bb's overtop a couple limpers and one of them called w/ 99 and it held up. i also played the 10pm $24 and lasted about the same amount of time before getting short and pushing 77 into KK and thats all she wrote.
i might get some hands in tomorrow morning but then my girlfriend is coming home so my play schedule will be slowed considerably.
tg
back to basics
i've logged 1600 hands at 50nl the last two days and am up 2 buy-ins. i've been happy with my play.
my stats are a pretty much the same as before. (17/12.5/4) im not sure why there is such a gap between my vpip and my pfr % but i'll pay some extra attention to that to make sure im not playing too passive pre. the total AF might be a little high as well but im not too concerned about it.
i might try some 100nl today, we'll see.
i've only been stacked twice so far at 50nl. here are the hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1194354 - not sure about this hand, im going to post it on cr forum and see what the opinion is there. villain in the hand very rarely cold calls but he is fairly donkish and is a calling station post flop. i had a bad feeling it was a set throughout the hand but im not sure how else i can play it since he could easily have AQ or AJ and i pretty sure he checks behind on the river with these hands if i check to him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1197609 - im pretty sure i had this guy on tilt since 2 hands earlier i had flopped a set of 9's against his QQ. this hand im not sure i can get away from given the circumstances. my thinking at the time was to fold pre since he's tilting he's going to be looking for a chance to play back at me but the 9c8c is just so damn pretty i couldn't resist.
played a couple donkaments last nite with no success. i played the new fifty fifty on ftp ($50+5 buy-in, 50k guaranteed) and things were going ok until my AQ ran into QT that turned a T for 2p to send me out about 540th out of the 1000+ runners. i also played the 10pm $24 which i believe is a 26k guarantee but im not sure. nothing much happened in this tournament and i eventually pushed 9bb's from the CO w/ A8s and the button called w/QQ and i bricked a river on a 2458 board to get bounced around the middle of the pack.
im off work today so i hope to play a ton.
tg
my stats are a pretty much the same as before. (17/12.5/4) im not sure why there is such a gap between my vpip and my pfr % but i'll pay some extra attention to that to make sure im not playing too passive pre. the total AF might be a little high as well but im not too concerned about it.
i might try some 100nl today, we'll see.
i've only been stacked twice so far at 50nl. here are the hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1194354 - not sure about this hand, im going to post it on cr forum and see what the opinion is there. villain in the hand very rarely cold calls but he is fairly donkish and is a calling station post flop. i had a bad feeling it was a set throughout the hand but im not sure how else i can play it since he could easily have AQ or AJ and i pretty sure he checks behind on the river with these hands if i check to him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1197609 - im pretty sure i had this guy on tilt since 2 hands earlier i had flopped a set of 9's against his QQ. this hand im not sure i can get away from given the circumstances. my thinking at the time was to fold pre since he's tilting he's going to be looking for a chance to play back at me but the 9c8c is just so damn pretty i couldn't resist.
played a couple donkaments last nite with no success. i played the new fifty fifty on ftp ($50+5 buy-in, 50k guaranteed) and things were going ok until my AQ ran into QT that turned a T for 2p to send me out about 540th out of the 1000+ runners. i also played the 10pm $24 which i believe is a 26k guarantee but im not sure. nothing much happened in this tournament and i eventually pushed 9bb's from the CO w/ A8s and the button called w/QQ and i bricked a river on a 2458 board to get bounced around the middle of the pack.
im off work today so i hope to play a ton.
tg
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
dropping down
i've decided to drop down to 50nl for a little while. not sure for how long, could be a couple sessions or could be a couple weeks.
i've been thinking about my play, reading lots and watching a lot of low limit cr vids and i think i see the flaws in my game.
starting back at 50nl will be just less pressure. dropping 5 buy-ins at 50nl is not really that damaging to my br so i won't feel the pressure to win.
br to me is more a matter of being comfortable rather than risk of ruin. (to a certain degree) most people will say that 25 buy-ins is a good br for nl cash as long as you're willing to drop down when you go on a losing streak. so far, i've basically stuck to a 40 buy-in rule for nl cash which is pretty conservative. even that sometimes doesn't feel like enough but at the same time i've seen some really good limit players that were overly conservative with there roll and imo lost out on a lot of profit and growth as a player.
so for now it's down to 50nl to get my confidence back.
a couple other things,
- i cashed in some ftp points and got "the poker mindset", a book that is supposedly really good and deals w/ the mental side of playing poker. i think this will be a good read and should help me w/ my tilting ways. i started reading "poker and zen" a long time ago and never finished it. i found it ok but a lot of it seemed to advocate weak passive play and i never had the urge to finish it.
- im going to start posting in and browsing the nl cash forums on cardrunners. im hoping this will help me plug a few leaks and offer some insight into how others play certain situations.
- lastly, no way im making iron man status on ftp after hardly playing the last week. i might be able to pull out gold but we'll see.
hopefully i'll put some hands in tonite and play well.
tg
i've been thinking about my play, reading lots and watching a lot of low limit cr vids and i think i see the flaws in my game.
starting back at 50nl will be just less pressure. dropping 5 buy-ins at 50nl is not really that damaging to my br so i won't feel the pressure to win.
br to me is more a matter of being comfortable rather than risk of ruin. (to a certain degree) most people will say that 25 buy-ins is a good br for nl cash as long as you're willing to drop down when you go on a losing streak. so far, i've basically stuck to a 40 buy-in rule for nl cash which is pretty conservative. even that sometimes doesn't feel like enough but at the same time i've seen some really good limit players that were overly conservative with there roll and imo lost out on a lot of profit and growth as a player.
so for now it's down to 50nl to get my confidence back.
a couple other things,
- i cashed in some ftp points and got "the poker mindset", a book that is supposedly really good and deals w/ the mental side of playing poker. i think this will be a good read and should help me w/ my tilting ways. i started reading "poker and zen" a long time ago and never finished it. i found it ok but a lot of it seemed to advocate weak passive play and i never had the urge to finish it.
- im going to start posting in and browsing the nl cash forums on cardrunners. im hoping this will help me plug a few leaks and offer some insight into how others play certain situations.
- lastly, no way im making iron man status on ftp after hardly playing the last week. i might be able to pull out gold but we'll see.
hopefully i'll put some hands in tonite and play well.
tg
Monday, June 18, 2007
re-tooling
haven't played too much lately but when i have played it hasn't been good.
i didn't log a single hand thurs, frid and sat. i was pretty busy with other stuff and by the time i got a minute to sit down and play i was tired and unfocused so i decided not to play.
i got up early yesterday and logged about 800 hands of cash. i made 1/2 buy-in that time but didn't necessarily play well. i went out and did some stuff and came back to log another small session. in about 300 hands i played like total garbage and lost about 3 buy-ins. i was pretty sick, walked away and ran some erans. i came back more focused and made 1-1/2 buy-ins back in another 400 hands. i played ok during this time but still not great. i came back at nite to put one more session in and try to get even for the day. once again i played like crap, tilted like a moron and was a total fish in the game. i lost 3-1/2 more buy-ins to make my total loss for the day in the $470 range.
i was depressed, sick to my stomach and emabarassed about my play. the fact that im getting the crap kicked out of me at 100nl is embarassing to me.
a day later and looking at my play i came to a few conclusions.
1) i tilt way too easily when playing cash games.
2) im playing with ego, not smarts.
3) im playing way too lag for my skill level.
4) im not taking my time to make decisions.
100nl on ftp right now is quite an aggressive game. for some reason im pulling maniac moves that i would never pull in a mtt. its like my inner donk from 3 years ago is coming out. i don't believe anything anyone is telling me with their betting. for instance, a hand from yesterday. mp limps, i raise from the CO w/ 55 to isolate, bad player cold calls on the button and the bb 3-bets pot. the limper folds and i shove because it looked like a squeeze play. bad player folds and bb calls and shows KK. when i pushed the 55 i did it instanly, no thinking, no use of the time bank, no looking up pahud stats. just a knee jerk reaction of "this guy is full of shit, i'll show him".
this is how im playing nowadays and this is why im losing. at first glance yesterday i made the excuse that "im running bad". although i did run poor yesterday, i played even worse. i would estimate that if i a good player had been playing in my spot yesterday, they might have ended down a buy-in. instead i played and am down 5.
so im going to re-tool.
brystmar (guest pro) on cardrunners has a 5-part series out right now about becoming a solid winning tag in the micro to low stakes. im taking tonite to study these vids and get back to the basics. i watched a few of his vids in early may and they were quite eye-opening to me. since then i've slipped into some bad habits that i need to correct.
on the mtt front, im going to stay patient. im getting deep regularly, just not closing the deal. im pretty confident in my mtt game right now even though the results haven't been there.
my br has slipped to about 3.6k which is scary but i have $300+ in rakeback that i can cash in for. ( thank god for rakeback)
here's to turning over a new leaf and getting back on the winning way! (and howard if you're listening, throw me one of those sicko rex55 runs <<<<<<<<< 6 ft's in one week)
tg
i didn't log a single hand thurs, frid and sat. i was pretty busy with other stuff and by the time i got a minute to sit down and play i was tired and unfocused so i decided not to play.
i got up early yesterday and logged about 800 hands of cash. i made 1/2 buy-in that time but didn't necessarily play well. i went out and did some stuff and came back to log another small session. in about 300 hands i played like total garbage and lost about 3 buy-ins. i was pretty sick, walked away and ran some erans. i came back more focused and made 1-1/2 buy-ins back in another 400 hands. i played ok during this time but still not great. i came back at nite to put one more session in and try to get even for the day. once again i played like crap, tilted like a moron and was a total fish in the game. i lost 3-1/2 more buy-ins to make my total loss for the day in the $470 range.
i was depressed, sick to my stomach and emabarassed about my play. the fact that im getting the crap kicked out of me at 100nl is embarassing to me.
a day later and looking at my play i came to a few conclusions.
1) i tilt way too easily when playing cash games.
2) im playing with ego, not smarts.
3) im playing way too lag for my skill level.
4) im not taking my time to make decisions.
100nl on ftp right now is quite an aggressive game. for some reason im pulling maniac moves that i would never pull in a mtt. its like my inner donk from 3 years ago is coming out. i don't believe anything anyone is telling me with their betting. for instance, a hand from yesterday. mp limps, i raise from the CO w/ 55 to isolate, bad player cold calls on the button and the bb 3-bets pot. the limper folds and i shove because it looked like a squeeze play. bad player folds and bb calls and shows KK. when i pushed the 55 i did it instanly, no thinking, no use of the time bank, no looking up pahud stats. just a knee jerk reaction of "this guy is full of shit, i'll show him".
this is how im playing nowadays and this is why im losing. at first glance yesterday i made the excuse that "im running bad". although i did run poor yesterday, i played even worse. i would estimate that if i a good player had been playing in my spot yesterday, they might have ended down a buy-in. instead i played and am down 5.
so im going to re-tool.
brystmar (guest pro) on cardrunners has a 5-part series out right now about becoming a solid winning tag in the micro to low stakes. im taking tonite to study these vids and get back to the basics. i watched a few of his vids in early may and they were quite eye-opening to me. since then i've slipped into some bad habits that i need to correct.
on the mtt front, im going to stay patient. im getting deep regularly, just not closing the deal. im pretty confident in my mtt game right now even though the results haven't been there.
my br has slipped to about 3.6k which is scary but i have $300+ in rakeback that i can cash in for. ( thank god for rakeback)
here's to turning over a new leaf and getting back on the winning way! (and howard if you're listening, throw me one of those sicko rex55 runs <<<<<<<<< 6 ft's in one week)
tg
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
more bloggage
tuedsday nite i played the 11k guarantee nl @ 6pm, 22k guarantee nl @ 7pm and the 3k lhe @ 7:15.
11k i lasted about 45 mins when i lost a flip w/ 88 vs. AK.
22k i lasted about 2.5 hrs before busting. i think it had over 550 runners and i got knocked out somewhere in the 150-180 range i believe. i was super short the whole time after losing a big pot early w/ AQ vs AT and another w/ TT to a slowplayed KK. i was stuck between 8-11bb's most of the last 2hrs and managed to hang in there. i had a chronic limper on my right that i kept pushing overtop of that helped keep me alive. this is something that i've been doing lately and it seems to work quite well. the limper shuts out the bigger stacks behind from taking shots at you w/ mediocre pairs and hands like AJ and if the limper is playing too many hands there will be no way they'll be able to call profitably. (this particual limper was playing over 40% of her hands but was raising the good ones and limping the trash so it was pretty easy pickings)
here's the hand of the tournament.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1173916
this wasn't the chronic limper but i liked the spot and i had been fairly inactive for a while so i took a shot. T7o, not a problem.
my bustout hand came w/ about 8bb's and i open pushed the button w/ T9o and was called by the sb who had 44. flop was 567 giving me another 4 outs, turn was a 3 giving me a total of 4 outs and the river bricked out to send me packing. another pxfer, rex55 ended up taking this down for a big score so congratulations to her!
the lhe tournament went fairly slowly and i ended up busting about 80th and once again the play was horrendous. my bustout hand came when i was fairly short, utg (very short) raised, i 3-bet AQo from lp and the bb cold called 2-bets w/ the mighty 54o and end up taking it down once we got AI on the flop w/ bottom pair. (utg had QTo so i was in good shape)
cash games were a bit of a rollercoaster and i made one big mistake pre-flop that cost me a $300 pot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1173847
villain had 3-bet me from the blinds a couple of times already this session and i make a bad call pre. if i think he's 3-betting my lp steals light i should just 4-bet pre and force him to a decision while repping a big hand. instead i make the worst play in poker (calling) and im pretty sure i have to felt top pair, a gut shot and the 2nd nut fd there. bad hand but lesson learned.
here's a hand where i had a pretty strong read on both players and got away fairly inexpensively.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1173855
sb is extremely lag but not stupid, ep limper is bad. the flop is decent for my hand and when the limper calls i put him on something pretty mediocre (weak king or some sort of pair) but i was fairly suprised when the sb called. the turn is pretty miserable but im committed to calling off the limpers last $20 and im 90% sure he'll push his remaining stack in with any kind of pair so i check figuring that i'll get to see what the sb does. when the sb calls i think he's either got a naked 8, 7's full or T9 for an open ender. i decide to call the fairly small bet and see what happens on the river. the river is another horrible card and i figure there's nothing left that im beating so i muck and it turns out im right.
i put in 1k hands of cash and ended up making 3/4 of a buy-in which is a win but i wasn't very happy about it. i started off playing well but i think i played very sloppy near the end and bled away a good chunk of money.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
yesterday i was thinking of taking the day off. i've been playing a lot more than im used to and i felt the grind of the cash games starting to wear on me. so i was humming and hawing when i logged onto opr, saw that rex55 crushed the 7pm the nite before and was suddenly inspired to do the same.
so i played my usual, 6pm nl, 7pm nl and 7:15pm lhe. i stuck to just these tournaments and left the cash games for another day. my goal was to put 100% into these 3 tournaments.
the 6pm (over 600 entrants) started out awful, about 15 mins in i raise up KQo from mp and get one lp caller and both blinds come along. the flop comes KJx rainbow, both blinds check, i bet about 1/2 the pot, lp folds, sb min-raises and bb folds. i should probably dump the hand right here but sb happened to showdown Ato in the last pot which was also raised and called so i didn't hold his play in high regard. i called and the turn came a T which now gave me and open ended straight draw to go along w/ my top pair. he now leads out fairly small into the pot but the bet is half his stack (bet 400 w/ another 440 behind, i believe the pot was approaching 900) so i call hoping to hit and make my river decision easy. the river is a brick, he bets his last 440 into like 1700 chip pot and i determine i can't fold getting layed like 5-1 so i call and he shows me KJo.
so im down to 380 after going through the blinds and the level is 15/30. my initial reaction lately is to ship it in and get ready for the 7pm but instead i buckled down and decided to play it out. in reality i still had close to 13bb's so i wasn't in that bad of shape.
so for the next few levels i managed to pick up a small pot here and there to stay on pace w/the structure until 30/60. w/ 580 chips behind, i open pushed from early to mid position w/ KTo (prob not a good push) and was immediatly called by a mp player. he flips up AKo and im toast until i flop a T and turn a flush to double through. not a problem!
i chip away and by the time we hit the 1st break i have 1900. i continue to chip up a little in the 2nd hour when i get an uber donk moved to my left w/ a about 8k. i c/r him in a couple pots because he auto pots the flop when checked to. i get it up to over 2.8k doing this until i double through him AI pre w/ 88 vs his AcKc. (action went 1 limper, i raised and he 3-bet pushed pretty fast which didn't look too strong so i called off my stack) once again howard (lederer) has a little chuckle and gives me the old 8cXcX flop but cuts me a break and bricks the turn and river shipping me the pot.
now im sitting at 5.8k or so. i cruise along winning pots here and there but don't really remember anything too special happening. we get into the money (top 63 pay) and i im sitting around 11k at 400/800 w/ ante. a lp player opens for the 2nd straight time, i have A7o in the bb and re-ship, he surprisingly thinks for a bit before calling w/ AQo. i type nh, gg, gl everyone until i roll a 7 on the turn to suckout for the 2nd time in the tourny.
i now have 25k @ 500/1k w/ 125 antes and get moved tables. w/ 27 left howard now decides ok, i let you suck out twice, now its time to punish you. my table has 3 of the top 4 chip leaders including 1 and 2 who are hyper aggressive. i pick my spots and let them run the table. @ 800/1600 i had about 32k and was punishing the guy on my left by just moving AI when it folded to me in the sb. (he had about 15k) with about 25 left and blinds @ 600/1.2k w/ antes i pick up JTs and decide to raise w/an 8k stack in the bb. he had been playing very tight and had the aggresive chip leaders on either side of him. also, he can't play back at me without a hand because he has zero fold equity. (this is also the guy i had sucked on w/ A7o) he jams and i make an obv call, he has 88 and i fail to improve so i get knocked down to about 24k. the blinds go up to 1k/2k 250a and finally pick up a beautiful KK and make it 5.5k out of my 22k stack. w/ 20k the same bb calls again. the flop comes down Q73 rainbow, he checks, i bet 5k into a 15kish pot, he moves AI, i call and he shows 33. he told me after the hand that he was pulling a stop n go as long as he didn't flop a set so i guess his play isn't that bad. i bow out 2 hands later in the bb and took 19th for a whopping $69.
7pm was another roller coaster. i never seem to start off good in this tournament as i dipped down to about 2.3k early from the 3k starting stack. i then had a big hand where i doubled up (can't remember what it was) and had some decent chips.
@ 50/100 and a 4.6k stack, i raise to 300 utg w/ AKo, scott fischman calls, mp shorty pushes for 360 total, donkish player in lp calls the 360, bb calls, and fischman and i both call the extra 60. the flop comes K high w/ 2 spades, bb checks, i lead for 1400 into the 1800ish chip pot, fischman folds, donkish player flat calls 1/3 of his stack and bb folds. the turn is a third spade and i tank. donkish player could very well call on a fd. i check to see what he would do and he insta-shoves. i tank again and figure i can't beat much so i fold saving my remaining chips. the hands get flipped up because of the AI player and donkish player has KQo w/ no spades and drags the massive pot. i throw up all over my desk and we go to break.
so as if i'm not steamed already, this girl at the table (who had been calling scott fischman a donk and a calling station for most of the first hour) starts giving me shit for betting a dry side pot when a player is AI ????????????????????????
this woman wanted me to check it down w/ 308 people left in the tourament?????????????????????????????????
i asked her if she was fucking nuts!
she says no, and asked me why would i bluff on the flop and give the AI person a chance at getting back into the tournament?????????????????????????????????
so i kindly told her that i had AK and thought i was outdrawn on the turn or already beat on the flop.
then she says "why did you only call pre-flop w/ AK"
i puke all over my desk again before i politely tell her that i was the one that raised.
finally she lets me off the hook by berating the donkish player for a bit so i can regain my thoughts.
after that, blinds are 60/120, lag mp raises to 360, i re-raise to 1200 out of my 2200 chip stack committing myself to the hand, the player right behind me pushes, initial raiser folds and i call it off.
he has JJ and im gonzo.
the lhe went great in the 1st hour. i had about 4k entering the 2nd hour and couldn't make a hand. i eventually busted w/ AQ vs AK on an Ace high board and bowed out around 80th out of about 160 runners.
all-in-all a bit of frustrating nite. i thought i played very well and i think my mtt game is back to where i want it to be. just a bit frustrated about getting deep and not getting the big payday in a while.
i guess it'll come eventually.
tg
11k i lasted about 45 mins when i lost a flip w/ 88 vs. AK.
22k i lasted about 2.5 hrs before busting. i think it had over 550 runners and i got knocked out somewhere in the 150-180 range i believe. i was super short the whole time after losing a big pot early w/ AQ vs AT and another w/ TT to a slowplayed KK. i was stuck between 8-11bb's most of the last 2hrs and managed to hang in there. i had a chronic limper on my right that i kept pushing overtop of that helped keep me alive. this is something that i've been doing lately and it seems to work quite well. the limper shuts out the bigger stacks behind from taking shots at you w/ mediocre pairs and hands like AJ and if the limper is playing too many hands there will be no way they'll be able to call profitably. (this particual limper was playing over 40% of her hands but was raising the good ones and limping the trash so it was pretty easy pickings)
here's the hand of the tournament.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1173916
this wasn't the chronic limper but i liked the spot and i had been fairly inactive for a while so i took a shot. T7o, not a problem.
my bustout hand came w/ about 8bb's and i open pushed the button w/ T9o and was called by the sb who had 44. flop was 567 giving me another 4 outs, turn was a 3 giving me a total of 4 outs and the river bricked out to send me packing. another pxfer, rex55 ended up taking this down for a big score so congratulations to her!
the lhe tournament went fairly slowly and i ended up busting about 80th and once again the play was horrendous. my bustout hand came when i was fairly short, utg (very short) raised, i 3-bet AQo from lp and the bb cold called 2-bets w/ the mighty 54o and end up taking it down once we got AI on the flop w/ bottom pair. (utg had QTo so i was in good shape)
cash games were a bit of a rollercoaster and i made one big mistake pre-flop that cost me a $300 pot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1173847
villain had 3-bet me from the blinds a couple of times already this session and i make a bad call pre. if i think he's 3-betting my lp steals light i should just 4-bet pre and force him to a decision while repping a big hand. instead i make the worst play in poker (calling) and im pretty sure i have to felt top pair, a gut shot and the 2nd nut fd there. bad hand but lesson learned.
here's a hand where i had a pretty strong read on both players and got away fairly inexpensively.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1173855
sb is extremely lag but not stupid, ep limper is bad. the flop is decent for my hand and when the limper calls i put him on something pretty mediocre (weak king or some sort of pair) but i was fairly suprised when the sb called. the turn is pretty miserable but im committed to calling off the limpers last $20 and im 90% sure he'll push his remaining stack in with any kind of pair so i check figuring that i'll get to see what the sb does. when the sb calls i think he's either got a naked 8, 7's full or T9 for an open ender. i decide to call the fairly small bet and see what happens on the river. the river is another horrible card and i figure there's nothing left that im beating so i muck and it turns out im right.
i put in 1k hands of cash and ended up making 3/4 of a buy-in which is a win but i wasn't very happy about it. i started off playing well but i think i played very sloppy near the end and bled away a good chunk of money.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
yesterday i was thinking of taking the day off. i've been playing a lot more than im used to and i felt the grind of the cash games starting to wear on me. so i was humming and hawing when i logged onto opr, saw that rex55 crushed the 7pm the nite before and was suddenly inspired to do the same.
so i played my usual, 6pm nl, 7pm nl and 7:15pm lhe. i stuck to just these tournaments and left the cash games for another day. my goal was to put 100% into these 3 tournaments.
the 6pm (over 600 entrants) started out awful, about 15 mins in i raise up KQo from mp and get one lp caller and both blinds come along. the flop comes KJx rainbow, both blinds check, i bet about 1/2 the pot, lp folds, sb min-raises and bb folds. i should probably dump the hand right here but sb happened to showdown Ato in the last pot which was also raised and called so i didn't hold his play in high regard. i called and the turn came a T which now gave me and open ended straight draw to go along w/ my top pair. he now leads out fairly small into the pot but the bet is half his stack (bet 400 w/ another 440 behind, i believe the pot was approaching 900) so i call hoping to hit and make my river decision easy. the river is a brick, he bets his last 440 into like 1700 chip pot and i determine i can't fold getting layed like 5-1 so i call and he shows me KJo.
so im down to 380 after going through the blinds and the level is 15/30. my initial reaction lately is to ship it in and get ready for the 7pm but instead i buckled down and decided to play it out. in reality i still had close to 13bb's so i wasn't in that bad of shape.
so for the next few levels i managed to pick up a small pot here and there to stay on pace w/the structure until 30/60. w/ 580 chips behind, i open pushed from early to mid position w/ KTo (prob not a good push) and was immediatly called by a mp player. he flips up AKo and im toast until i flop a T and turn a flush to double through. not a problem!
i chip away and by the time we hit the 1st break i have 1900. i continue to chip up a little in the 2nd hour when i get an uber donk moved to my left w/ a about 8k. i c/r him in a couple pots because he auto pots the flop when checked to. i get it up to over 2.8k doing this until i double through him AI pre w/ 88 vs his AcKc. (action went 1 limper, i raised and he 3-bet pushed pretty fast which didn't look too strong so i called off my stack) once again howard (lederer) has a little chuckle and gives me the old 8cXcX flop but cuts me a break and bricks the turn and river shipping me the pot.
now im sitting at 5.8k or so. i cruise along winning pots here and there but don't really remember anything too special happening. we get into the money (top 63 pay) and i im sitting around 11k at 400/800 w/ ante. a lp player opens for the 2nd straight time, i have A7o in the bb and re-ship, he surprisingly thinks for a bit before calling w/ AQo. i type nh, gg, gl everyone until i roll a 7 on the turn to suckout for the 2nd time in the tourny.
i now have 25k @ 500/1k w/ 125 antes and get moved tables. w/ 27 left howard now decides ok, i let you suck out twice, now its time to punish you. my table has 3 of the top 4 chip leaders including 1 and 2 who are hyper aggressive. i pick my spots and let them run the table. @ 800/1600 i had about 32k and was punishing the guy on my left by just moving AI when it folded to me in the sb. (he had about 15k) with about 25 left and blinds @ 600/1.2k w/ antes i pick up JTs and decide to raise w/an 8k stack in the bb. he had been playing very tight and had the aggresive chip leaders on either side of him. also, he can't play back at me without a hand because he has zero fold equity. (this is also the guy i had sucked on w/ A7o) he jams and i make an obv call, he has 88 and i fail to improve so i get knocked down to about 24k. the blinds go up to 1k/2k 250a and finally pick up a beautiful KK and make it 5.5k out of my 22k stack. w/ 20k the same bb calls again. the flop comes down Q73 rainbow, he checks, i bet 5k into a 15kish pot, he moves AI, i call and he shows 33. he told me after the hand that he was pulling a stop n go as long as he didn't flop a set so i guess his play isn't that bad. i bow out 2 hands later in the bb and took 19th for a whopping $69.
7pm was another roller coaster. i never seem to start off good in this tournament as i dipped down to about 2.3k early from the 3k starting stack. i then had a big hand where i doubled up (can't remember what it was) and had some decent chips.
@ 50/100 and a 4.6k stack, i raise to 300 utg w/ AKo, scott fischman calls, mp shorty pushes for 360 total, donkish player in lp calls the 360, bb calls, and fischman and i both call the extra 60. the flop comes K high w/ 2 spades, bb checks, i lead for 1400 into the 1800ish chip pot, fischman folds, donkish player flat calls 1/3 of his stack and bb folds. the turn is a third spade and i tank. donkish player could very well call on a fd. i check to see what he would do and he insta-shoves. i tank again and figure i can't beat much so i fold saving my remaining chips. the hands get flipped up because of the AI player and donkish player has KQo w/ no spades and drags the massive pot. i throw up all over my desk and we go to break.
so as if i'm not steamed already, this girl at the table (who had been calling scott fischman a donk and a calling station for most of the first hour) starts giving me shit for betting a dry side pot when a player is AI ????????????????????????
this woman wanted me to check it down w/ 308 people left in the tourament?????????????????????????????????
i asked her if she was fucking nuts!
she says no, and asked me why would i bluff on the flop and give the AI person a chance at getting back into the tournament?????????????????????????????????
so i kindly told her that i had AK and thought i was outdrawn on the turn or already beat on the flop.
then she says "why did you only call pre-flop w/ AK"
i puke all over my desk again before i politely tell her that i was the one that raised.
finally she lets me off the hook by berating the donkish player for a bit so i can regain my thoughts.
after that, blinds are 60/120, lag mp raises to 360, i re-raise to 1200 out of my 2200 chip stack committing myself to the hand, the player right behind me pushes, initial raiser folds and i call it off.
he has JJ and im gonzo.
the lhe went great in the 1st hour. i had about 4k entering the 2nd hour and couldn't make a hand. i eventually busted w/ AQ vs AK on an Ace high board and bowed out around 80th out of about 160 runners.
all-in-all a bit of frustrating nite. i thought i played very well and i think my mtt game is back to where i want it to be. just a bit frustrated about getting deep and not getting the big payday in a while.
i guess it'll come eventually.
tg
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
a good nite
put in a good session last nite even though it started off on the wrong foot.
i got in around 6:30 and logged on to ftp to register for the 22k guarantee nl $75 mtt. i was in a hurry because i still had some stuff to do so i quikly went to the tournaments tab, saw the $75 buy-in and registered. i stroll back to my computer @ 7pm and notice that the tourny is in full swing and im down to 1260 chips! like an idiot, i registered for a turbo satellite to the big monday 1k.
i was pretty pissed because a) i hate satellites and seem to suck at them and b) i looooooove the 7pm multi and was jacked to play it. (it was too late to register)
i gave the sat my best shot, there were 34 players and top 2 got seats and 3rd got $224. i was extreme short stack after losing a race w/ around 18 people left but amazingly lasted until i got knocked out in 8th. (i had between 2-5bb's around this whole time)
since i missed the 7pm nl mtt i decided to quench my tourny thirst by hopping into the 7:15pm 3k guarantee lhe that i wrote about earlier. the tournament only drew 107 players which resulted in a nice $432 overlay provided by ftp. (thanks howard)
as i wrote previously, the play was pretty poor and i managed to get the chip lead w/ about 70 players left and stayed top 3 in chips till i got to the final table. the final table was an absolute roller coaster and im not sure i played optimally but i still think i held my own. i eventually bounced out in 5th for $225. 1st payed $810 and i was definitly eyeing that but im fairly happy finishing 5th since i've probably played less than 400 hands of limit in the last year. it was kinda funny how all the subtleties came back to me after so long.
so during the tournament i logged 900+ hands of nl cash and came out of it up a buy-in. i thought i played very well and was very focused throughout instead of making knee jerk reaction plays and going through the motions. i was finally on the giving end of a cooler as someone ran their KK into my AA. i also made some nice laydowns (i think i did at least, i guess you never know) and played my players well. i made a couple nice reads and calls that were unfortunately not rewarded as i got sucked out on both times but that's pokah!
anyways, playing again tonite so prob update again tomorrow.
i think im actually going to hit iron man status on ftp as i've played everyday except one so far this month. most months i prob only get to play an avg of 3 or 4 times a week so i sometimes creep into silver at best.
one other thing, im doing more reading lately so i hope to give opinions of books i've read. i just finished Ace on the river by Barry Greenstein and it was a good book. mostly geared towards players who are venturing out to become pro and the pitfalls to avoid but a good read for anyone that plays and follows poker.
i just started reading Read em and Weap by Joe Navarro. it's a book about reading people and tells and i heard it's pretty good. it's also endorsed by 11-time WSOP champion Phil Helmuth so before long i'll be looking into peoples souls and dodging bullets baby!
gl @ the tables.
tg
i got in around 6:30 and logged on to ftp to register for the 22k guarantee nl $75 mtt. i was in a hurry because i still had some stuff to do so i quikly went to the tournaments tab, saw the $75 buy-in and registered. i stroll back to my computer @ 7pm and notice that the tourny is in full swing and im down to 1260 chips! like an idiot, i registered for a turbo satellite to the big monday 1k.
i was pretty pissed because a) i hate satellites and seem to suck at them and b) i looooooove the 7pm multi and was jacked to play it. (it was too late to register)
i gave the sat my best shot, there were 34 players and top 2 got seats and 3rd got $224. i was extreme short stack after losing a race w/ around 18 people left but amazingly lasted until i got knocked out in 8th. (i had between 2-5bb's around this whole time)
since i missed the 7pm nl mtt i decided to quench my tourny thirst by hopping into the 7:15pm 3k guarantee lhe that i wrote about earlier. the tournament only drew 107 players which resulted in a nice $432 overlay provided by ftp. (thanks howard)
as i wrote previously, the play was pretty poor and i managed to get the chip lead w/ about 70 players left and stayed top 3 in chips till i got to the final table. the final table was an absolute roller coaster and im not sure i played optimally but i still think i held my own. i eventually bounced out in 5th for $225. 1st payed $810 and i was definitly eyeing that but im fairly happy finishing 5th since i've probably played less than 400 hands of limit in the last year. it was kinda funny how all the subtleties came back to me after so long.
so during the tournament i logged 900+ hands of nl cash and came out of it up a buy-in. i thought i played very well and was very focused throughout instead of making knee jerk reaction plays and going through the motions. i was finally on the giving end of a cooler as someone ran their KK into my AA. i also made some nice laydowns (i think i did at least, i guess you never know) and played my players well. i made a couple nice reads and calls that were unfortunately not rewarded as i got sucked out on both times but that's pokah!
anyways, playing again tonite so prob update again tomorrow.
i think im actually going to hit iron man status on ftp as i've played everyday except one so far this month. most months i prob only get to play an avg of 3 or 4 times a week so i sometimes creep into silver at best.
one other thing, im doing more reading lately so i hope to give opinions of books i've read. i just finished Ace on the river by Barry Greenstein and it was a good book. mostly geared towards players who are venturing out to become pro and the pitfalls to avoid but a good read for anyone that plays and follows poker.
i just started reading Read em and Weap by Joe Navarro. it's a book about reading people and tells and i heard it's pretty good. it's also endorsed by 11-time WSOP champion Phil Helmuth so before long i'll be looking into peoples souls and dodging bullets baby!
gl @ the tables.
tg
Monday, June 11, 2007
slight move in the right direction
well i put in a few more hands last nite of cash and decided to play the 8pm $24 mtt.
the small session did not start well. about 8 hands in to the mtt i had chipped up to 1.7k when i ran KK into AA for the gazillionth time. that left me w/ about 185 chips and although i battled proudly my 44 for was no match for QsTs on a all spade flop.
from there i concentrated on my 4 tables of cash.
immediately i dropped half a buy-in to a shorter stack when i was c/r AI on a Jx7d2d5x board holding AdKd and villains TT held up.
simultaneously i lost another half buy-in on a different table when i 3-bet an ep short stack w/ JJ in the sb. the flop came Kxx and i led out pretty much putting him AI and he called w/ AK.
thinking back on this hand i think i might be able to make a smaller bet (this player was not very good) and get away from it when he pushes. the pot on the flop was about $27 and if i just put out a smaller probe bet like $10 or $12 i think it would acheive the same result against this type of player.
so stuck a buy-in quick i was little worried. then i dropped another one.
i raised pre from the hijak w/ KQs and got one caller on the button. he had solid aggressive stats and didn't appear to get out of line. the flop came Q63 rainbow, i led out my standard 3/4 pot and he called. the river was a beautiful K (im not sure if it made 4 different suits or if it put a backdoor flush draw on the board, i don't have the hh w/ me) i led out on the turn again for another 3/4 pot size bet and now the button min-raised me, i shoved and he called and showed me 33 and i bricked the river.
thinking back on this hand this morning i really think i should be able to fold this. i guess its dependant on whether the turn put a backdoor flush draw up but even then i think he would shove w/ a pair and a fd. (something like 67s that he floated the flop with) a very large portion of the time that i get min-raised on the turn after getting smooth called on the flop, im shown a monster. villains hand range pre-flop argues more for a fold as well. he's 3-betting AQ+ and JJ+ and the only real hands i see him cold calling with are small to med pairs (22-99) and maybe a smaller suited broadway hand to a lesser degree. Basically in this hand my thinking went, "i have top 2 and im just not folding it" which i now think is wrong. he is never showing up with a hand im beating here. i think he either has to have a set or KQ and i'm playing for a chop. so not to be results orientated but i'd say its a fold.
so after 15 mins im down 2 buy-ins and knocked out of my tournament. i was about to smash my mouse when i decided to buckle down like a champ and play my ass off. i concentrated harder, i focused more, i put thought into every decision and i hit a few hands :)
88 on a T8T board when villain held JTo and a couple other beauties i can't seem to remember and i ended up getting unstuck for the session and made a little over a buy-in. this puts my total loss in cash games for the day at about 1/2 a buy-in.
a small success but i'll take it.
the blog is actually helping me to review some key hands and im picking up on plays im making that are not quite optimal. im going to start paying more attention to my bet sizing on the turn as i think this may be where im leaking a little bit.
looking forward to another session tonite.
the small session did not start well. about 8 hands in to the mtt i had chipped up to 1.7k when i ran KK into AA for the gazillionth time. that left me w/ about 185 chips and although i battled proudly my 44 for was no match for QsTs on a all spade flop.
from there i concentrated on my 4 tables of cash.
immediately i dropped half a buy-in to a shorter stack when i was c/r AI on a Jx7d2d5x board holding AdKd and villains TT held up.
simultaneously i lost another half buy-in on a different table when i 3-bet an ep short stack w/ JJ in the sb. the flop came Kxx and i led out pretty much putting him AI and he called w/ AK.
thinking back on this hand i think i might be able to make a smaller bet (this player was not very good) and get away from it when he pushes. the pot on the flop was about $27 and if i just put out a smaller probe bet like $10 or $12 i think it would acheive the same result against this type of player.
so stuck a buy-in quick i was little worried. then i dropped another one.
i raised pre from the hijak w/ KQs and got one caller on the button. he had solid aggressive stats and didn't appear to get out of line. the flop came Q63 rainbow, i led out my standard 3/4 pot and he called. the river was a beautiful K (im not sure if it made 4 different suits or if it put a backdoor flush draw on the board, i don't have the hh w/ me) i led out on the turn again for another 3/4 pot size bet and now the button min-raised me, i shoved and he called and showed me 33 and i bricked the river.
thinking back on this hand this morning i really think i should be able to fold this. i guess its dependant on whether the turn put a backdoor flush draw up but even then i think he would shove w/ a pair and a fd. (something like 67s that he floated the flop with) a very large portion of the time that i get min-raised on the turn after getting smooth called on the flop, im shown a monster. villains hand range pre-flop argues more for a fold as well. he's 3-betting AQ+ and JJ+ and the only real hands i see him cold calling with are small to med pairs (22-99) and maybe a smaller suited broadway hand to a lesser degree. Basically in this hand my thinking went, "i have top 2 and im just not folding it" which i now think is wrong. he is never showing up with a hand im beating here. i think he either has to have a set or KQ and i'm playing for a chop. so not to be results orientated but i'd say its a fold.
so after 15 mins im down 2 buy-ins and knocked out of my tournament. i was about to smash my mouse when i decided to buckle down like a champ and play my ass off. i concentrated harder, i focused more, i put thought into every decision and i hit a few hands :)
88 on a T8T board when villain held JTo and a couple other beauties i can't seem to remember and i ended up getting unstuck for the session and made a little over a buy-in. this puts my total loss in cash games for the day at about 1/2 a buy-in.
a small success but i'll take it.
the blog is actually helping me to review some key hands and im picking up on plays im making that are not quite optimal. im going to start paying more attention to my bet sizing on the turn as i think this may be where im leaking a little bit.
looking forward to another session tonite.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
bubble boy and cash game bleeder
i ended up playing another session fri nite which if i recall was about another 700 hands of cash and the 6pm $24 mtt.
busted near the end of the 1st hour when i ran AKo into a bad players KK. the cash game was a slow loss again and i think i dropped about 3/4 of a buy-in.
went out and played in my regular home game w/ 6 other friends. we usually play $20 buy-in sng basically w/ 50 chips and 1/2 blinds to start. we then bump up the blinds everytime someone gets knocked out and usually the final two get paid. (its an atrocious luck fest but its something fun to do once in a while and breaks up the grind of online poker)
i ended up donking out 1st in the 1st game after raising utg blind and what not and then came 2nd in the 2nd one we played to break even for the nite.
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i played a very short session yesterday as i had some other stuff i wanted to do. i contemplated just dedicating the whole day to online and putting in as many hours as my body and mind could take but thought better of it. i've had some poor results so i thought it might be best to take a night off.
my results were ok, i think i played about 550 hands and ended up stuck about 3/4 of a buy-in due to a pretty big pot i lost w/ K7 on K6854 board. villain had 97 and i think i got what i deserved playing past the flop w/ trash.
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today i got up and played the $24 10am mtt on ftp. call me bublble boy cuz there i was out in 37th again when the top 36 pay. (ran 66 into AA and put my 2bb's in the next hand w/ 44 and had the whole table call and check me down)
im actually very happy with how i played this tournament. (except for the 66 hand, hindsight tells me i should of prob folded) i decided to deviate from my usual tight play early and play it more like i would a cash game. that meant raising up limpers in lp, opening up a lot more from lp and generally playing a lot more aggressive. the result was i had about 5.2k at the first break and had a great image for getting paid off. about mid way through the 2nd hour i had dwindled to about 4.7k when i opened the button w/ KK and got re-popped AI by the bb w/ A6s; he flopped an Ace and rivered a 6 just for good measure to put me down to 2.2k w/ 100/200 blinds.
instead of mailing it in from here i hunkered down and played the short stack that im used to. i was down to about 1.8k when i shoved KTo from the hijak @ 120/240 25a and picked up the blinds. i now had 2.3k and then next hand utg and utg+1 both limp, i shove w/ QQ and utg insta-calls. i moan figuring he's limp/re-raising w/ AA but no, he flips over the mighty A7o and i bust him to go up to around 6k.
played mostly small pots after that bouncing between 8.5k and 6k until the 6's hand.
during the mtt i had my usual 4 tables of $100 nl going. played 921 hands and ended up down $160. its been pretty sick this week in cash. while i started off playing poorly i think i've buckled down and have played pretty well the last couple days.
this morning i was at great tables w/ great live ones in the game and just kinda got held over. it seems when i flop poorly im facing tons of pressure and when i flop gin i get no action. im sure it'll even itself out over the long term but it can be frustrating in the short term.
here's the big pot of the morning that definitly hurt since this guy was all over the place and i was just waiting to get his stack.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1162396
anyways, im hoping to play again tonite, prob just cash games. im looking forward to booking a win since i believe my last like 6 sessions have been losers. ugh.
here are my cash stats so far for the month:
busted near the end of the 1st hour when i ran AKo into a bad players KK. the cash game was a slow loss again and i think i dropped about 3/4 of a buy-in.
went out and played in my regular home game w/ 6 other friends. we usually play $20 buy-in sng basically w/ 50 chips and 1/2 blinds to start. we then bump up the blinds everytime someone gets knocked out and usually the final two get paid. (its an atrocious luck fest but its something fun to do once in a while and breaks up the grind of online poker)
i ended up donking out 1st in the 1st game after raising utg blind and what not and then came 2nd in the 2nd one we played to break even for the nite.
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i played a very short session yesterday as i had some other stuff i wanted to do. i contemplated just dedicating the whole day to online and putting in as many hours as my body and mind could take but thought better of it. i've had some poor results so i thought it might be best to take a night off.
my results were ok, i think i played about 550 hands and ended up stuck about 3/4 of a buy-in due to a pretty big pot i lost w/ K7 on K6854 board. villain had 97 and i think i got what i deserved playing past the flop w/ trash.
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today i got up and played the $24 10am mtt on ftp. call me bublble boy cuz there i was out in 37th again when the top 36 pay. (ran 66 into AA and put my 2bb's in the next hand w/ 44 and had the whole table call and check me down)
im actually very happy with how i played this tournament. (except for the 66 hand, hindsight tells me i should of prob folded) i decided to deviate from my usual tight play early and play it more like i would a cash game. that meant raising up limpers in lp, opening up a lot more from lp and generally playing a lot more aggressive. the result was i had about 5.2k at the first break and had a great image for getting paid off. about mid way through the 2nd hour i had dwindled to about 4.7k when i opened the button w/ KK and got re-popped AI by the bb w/ A6s; he flopped an Ace and rivered a 6 just for good measure to put me down to 2.2k w/ 100/200 blinds.
instead of mailing it in from here i hunkered down and played the short stack that im used to. i was down to about 1.8k when i shoved KTo from the hijak @ 120/240 25a and picked up the blinds. i now had 2.3k and then next hand utg and utg+1 both limp, i shove w/ QQ and utg insta-calls. i moan figuring he's limp/re-raising w/ AA but no, he flips over the mighty A7o and i bust him to go up to around 6k.
played mostly small pots after that bouncing between 8.5k and 6k until the 6's hand.
during the mtt i had my usual 4 tables of $100 nl going. played 921 hands and ended up down $160. its been pretty sick this week in cash. while i started off playing poorly i think i've buckled down and have played pretty well the last couple days.
this morning i was at great tables w/ great live ones in the game and just kinda got held over. it seems when i flop poorly im facing tons of pressure and when i flop gin i get no action. im sure it'll even itself out over the long term but it can be frustrating in the short term.
here's the big pot of the morning that definitly hurt since this guy was all over the place and i was just waiting to get his stack.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1162396
anyways, im hoping to play again tonite, prob just cash games. im looking forward to booking a win since i believe my last like 6 sessions have been losers. ugh.
here are my cash stats so far for the month:
not good............
Friday, June 8, 2007
bah argh!
sat down to put in a huge session last night and log into ftp to find out they've finally added a time bank feature. (long overdue)
so i sit down, open up 4 cash tables and registered for the 7pm $69 nl and the 7:15pm $24 lhe tournies.
a couple minutes into the session, the software starts lagging and timing me out of hands. i'd like to think i don't tilt tooooooooo easily but bad internet connections and faulty software makes me go on uber monkey tilt.
so i ended up only logging 400 hands in cash and was down a little over a buy-in. i un-registered for the later evening tournies and decided to just play out the two i had already started.
the lhe went fairly well but i eventually busted about middle of the pack. this is the first time i played this tournament in a long time (i think i've only played it 2 or 3 times total) and couldn't believe how poor the play was. im probably a pretty mediocre lhe player at the moment but i think even a mediocre player has a good sized edge in this tournament.
the 7pm nl went well and i eventually busted 40th out of a 378 person field. i made a questionable play late that cost me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157127
i had been fairly tight and am working on staying active and picking up blinds in the mid to late stages so i raise up KQ from ep knowing i can muck to a re-raise. bb flat calls and i had actually played the majority of the lhe tourny with him and didn't think too much about his play. i check behind on the flop figuring he re-pops any pair and if he checks the turn i can take a stab and prob take it down. i can't see him having any hand that can stand a bet on the turn here so i stabbed and was wrong.
after that i got a free look in the bb and flopped open ended but missed and was out in 40th.
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started a session at 11am this morning. played a $20 45 sng, the 11am $20 mtt that drew about a 125 players and the 12pm $24 mtt that had 365 runners.
busted out of the 45 sng 12th w/ flush over flush, busted about half way through the 11am when i pushed 9bb's overtop a mp limper w/ ATo and the sb woke up w/ AQo.
the 12pm i busted as bubble boy (37th) after i pushed from lp w/ 64o and about 8bb's and the sb called w/ AK. i don't really mind the push as i had been moved about an orbit before and hadn't played a hand. the bb had about 6bb's and looked like he was trying to eak into the money. i could care less about cashing so the difference between 36th and 37th is meaningless to me.
all while this i logged close to 900 hands of cash before i started to feel my concentration slip. i thought i played well for all but 3 hands and ended up down 3/4 buy-in. here are the hands i think i could've played better.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157164
inexcusable, i really need to take this type of play out of my game. there is a lot of aggression at these limits and often times when a tag see's another tag raise up a limper they will 3-bet w/ a large range. thats why i push but i still think its a horrible play unless i've seen villain do this on multiple occasions which i had not in this situation.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157176
i just sat at this table and zero read on the villain. with the size of his 4-bet i think this should be a fairly easy fold on the flop.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157181
i'd usually never felt TT pre but i had notes on the villain that he'll 4-bet push AK so once he does this and only has 3/4 of a buy-in i felt compelled to call. not really sure the best line to take here but i don't really like mine.
im hoping to play more tonite (both mtts and cash) and i might even have a little home game going on with the boys so more updates tomorrow.
tg
so i sit down, open up 4 cash tables and registered for the 7pm $69 nl and the 7:15pm $24 lhe tournies.
a couple minutes into the session, the software starts lagging and timing me out of hands. i'd like to think i don't tilt tooooooooo easily but bad internet connections and faulty software makes me go on uber monkey tilt.
so i ended up only logging 400 hands in cash and was down a little over a buy-in. i un-registered for the later evening tournies and decided to just play out the two i had already started.
the lhe went fairly well but i eventually busted about middle of the pack. this is the first time i played this tournament in a long time (i think i've only played it 2 or 3 times total) and couldn't believe how poor the play was. im probably a pretty mediocre lhe player at the moment but i think even a mediocre player has a good sized edge in this tournament.
the 7pm nl went well and i eventually busted 40th out of a 378 person field. i made a questionable play late that cost me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157127
i had been fairly tight and am working on staying active and picking up blinds in the mid to late stages so i raise up KQ from ep knowing i can muck to a re-raise. bb flat calls and i had actually played the majority of the lhe tourny with him and didn't think too much about his play. i check behind on the flop figuring he re-pops any pair and if he checks the turn i can take a stab and prob take it down. i can't see him having any hand that can stand a bet on the turn here so i stabbed and was wrong.
after that i got a free look in the bb and flopped open ended but missed and was out in 40th.
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started a session at 11am this morning. played a $20 45 sng, the 11am $20 mtt that drew about a 125 players and the 12pm $24 mtt that had 365 runners.
busted out of the 45 sng 12th w/ flush over flush, busted about half way through the 11am when i pushed 9bb's overtop a mp limper w/ ATo and the sb woke up w/ AQo.
the 12pm i busted as bubble boy (37th) after i pushed from lp w/ 64o and about 8bb's and the sb called w/ AK. i don't really mind the push as i had been moved about an orbit before and hadn't played a hand. the bb had about 6bb's and looked like he was trying to eak into the money. i could care less about cashing so the difference between 36th and 37th is meaningless to me.
all while this i logged close to 900 hands of cash before i started to feel my concentration slip. i thought i played well for all but 3 hands and ended up down 3/4 buy-in. here are the hands i think i could've played better.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157164
inexcusable, i really need to take this type of play out of my game. there is a lot of aggression at these limits and often times when a tag see's another tag raise up a limper they will 3-bet w/ a large range. thats why i push but i still think its a horrible play unless i've seen villain do this on multiple occasions which i had not in this situation.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157176
i just sat at this table and zero read on the villain. with the size of his 4-bet i think this should be a fairly easy fold on the flop.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1157181
i'd usually never felt TT pre but i had notes on the villain that he'll 4-bet push AK so once he does this and only has 3/4 of a buy-in i felt compelled to call. not really sure the best line to take here but i don't really like mine.
im hoping to play more tonite (both mtts and cash) and i might even have a little home game going on with the boys so more updates tomorrow.
tg
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
a little more insight and june goals!
First off thanks for those who provided feedback. it's much appreciated.
I hope to get some links up (if i figure out how to navigate this site) of some of the other poker blogs that i frequent. a couple must check out blogs are rex55, bel0wab0ve, daniel negreanu, shannon shorr and many of the cardrunner blogs including sbrugby and cts (muckemsayuhhh on ftp)
i think i enjoy these blogs so much because i really don't have any friends or family that truely understand poker and the ups and downs. having blogs like these available kind of helps me reassure myself that others experience the same joys and frustrations that i go through on a day to day, month to month basis.
something else i meant to mention in my first blog is that poker is more of a hobby/passion that i enjoy spending my free time on. i have a full time job and only get to play poker a couple times a week. this makes playing mtts a lot harder for me since i don't usually have big bricks of time to spend on playing out a tournament. this is the reason i've started playing more cash games recently because of the flexibility of getting up and sitting down whenever i want.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My goals for June are pretty basic. i want to play a ton of poker!
I've put in a couple of small cash game sessions so far w/ some crazy ups and downs. my current game is $100 nl 6 max on ftp. (thats .50/1.00 blinds not 50/100 blinds) i usually play 4 -6 tables at a time. lately its been 4 tables of nl cash, a plo table or an mtt on the side.
100nl is a pretty low limit but i think its where my skill level is currently and i've never been one to be too proud to play a specific limit. it actually probably has a lot more to do with being a nit and realistic on how much im willing to lose in a session.
i was up about 6 buy-ins early this month but have since lost about 8 buy-ins including a $763 loss in one session. this is by far the largest cash game loss to date. it was a pretty sick night, i took a couple beats and a few coolers but i bled horribly and played just as bad. i was talking to a friend on messenger and told him i was going to shut it down for the night because i figured i was down about 4 or 5 buy-ins. when i checked pokertracker i was down $638. i kinda cringed and immediately took off the auto-post blinds and planned on playing out my non blind hands before shutting it down. i then took runner runner against an uber donk after he 3-bet me pre w/ 54o to drop another buy-in.
i've yet to play any mtts this month but i have played a couple of the $20 45 person sngs which imo are the best way to build a bankroll and sharpen mtt skills.
my girlfriend leaves for europe tonight and will be gone for 16 days so over that time period im hoping to get a ton of poker in. im even taking this friday off work so i can hit the ground running and get lots of hands in and clear some time for mtts.
i don't usually set goals in terms of money won since predicting how the cards will fall is impossible. i will set my goal at getting 25k hands in at 100nl and 160nl deep and to play to the best of my ability and maybe learn a few new things. i'll also continue to log a few hands at plo as im trying to learn the intricasies of the game. i'll probably just play at the $50 buy-in level for that until i am more comfortable with the game.
as for mtts, i will try and play as many as possible but trying to put a number on how many is too hard. i'll look for 100% roi for the month in these.
thats it for now, i might get a short session in tonite after getting home from the airport otherwise i'll look to later in the week to log more hands.
gl @ the tables.
ps. my next blog will probably be about my extreme jealousy towards anyone playing a wsop event.
I hope to get some links up (if i figure out how to navigate this site) of some of the other poker blogs that i frequent. a couple must check out blogs are rex55, bel0wab0ve, daniel negreanu, shannon shorr and many of the cardrunner blogs including sbrugby and cts (muckemsayuhhh on ftp)
i think i enjoy these blogs so much because i really don't have any friends or family that truely understand poker and the ups and downs. having blogs like these available kind of helps me reassure myself that others experience the same joys and frustrations that i go through on a day to day, month to month basis.
something else i meant to mention in my first blog is that poker is more of a hobby/passion that i enjoy spending my free time on. i have a full time job and only get to play poker a couple times a week. this makes playing mtts a lot harder for me since i don't usually have big bricks of time to spend on playing out a tournament. this is the reason i've started playing more cash games recently because of the flexibility of getting up and sitting down whenever i want.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My goals for June are pretty basic. i want to play a ton of poker!
I've put in a couple of small cash game sessions so far w/ some crazy ups and downs. my current game is $100 nl 6 max on ftp. (thats .50/1.00 blinds not 50/100 blinds) i usually play 4 -6 tables at a time. lately its been 4 tables of nl cash, a plo table or an mtt on the side.
100nl is a pretty low limit but i think its where my skill level is currently and i've never been one to be too proud to play a specific limit. it actually probably has a lot more to do with being a nit and realistic on how much im willing to lose in a session.
i was up about 6 buy-ins early this month but have since lost about 8 buy-ins including a $763 loss in one session. this is by far the largest cash game loss to date. it was a pretty sick night, i took a couple beats and a few coolers but i bled horribly and played just as bad. i was talking to a friend on messenger and told him i was going to shut it down for the night because i figured i was down about 4 or 5 buy-ins. when i checked pokertracker i was down $638. i kinda cringed and immediately took off the auto-post blinds and planned on playing out my non blind hands before shutting it down. i then took runner runner against an uber donk after he 3-bet me pre w/ 54o to drop another buy-in.
i've yet to play any mtts this month but i have played a couple of the $20 45 person sngs which imo are the best way to build a bankroll and sharpen mtt skills.
my girlfriend leaves for europe tonight and will be gone for 16 days so over that time period im hoping to get a ton of poker in. im even taking this friday off work so i can hit the ground running and get lots of hands in and clear some time for mtts.
i don't usually set goals in terms of money won since predicting how the cards will fall is impossible. i will set my goal at getting 25k hands in at 100nl and 160nl deep and to play to the best of my ability and maybe learn a few new things. i'll also continue to log a few hands at plo as im trying to learn the intricasies of the game. i'll probably just play at the $50 buy-in level for that until i am more comfortable with the game.
as for mtts, i will try and play as many as possible but trying to put a number on how many is too hard. i'll look for 100% roi for the month in these.
thats it for now, i might get a short session in tonite after getting home from the airport otherwise i'll look to later in the week to log more hands.
gl @ the tables.
ps. my next blog will probably be about my extreme jealousy towards anyone playing a wsop event.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Intro
well this is kinda sad but.................. i finally broke down and started a poker blog. i don't assume that many people will be interested in it or will even know about but here it is nonetheless.
i've started it for a couple reasons:
1) i spend a lot of time reading poker blogs and find reading about others ups and downs to be quite helpful and inspirational.
2) i want to be able to track my progess and record goals. i have a hard time even remembering what limits or games i was playing a year ago.
thats basically it, if someone does stumble across it i hope they find it entertaining. i won't write about life or shit like that. this is not a diary, it's a record of my poker journey. i will update it after every session w/ results and thoughts.
here's my story.
like most, my first taste of poker was dicking around with friends while drinking. we'd get together and play 5-card triple draw dealers choice w/ all kinds of stupid wild cards and what not. we were so clueless that i remember getting into situations where if one guy had the other guy covered in chips (usually pennies) then the shorter stack had to fold. pretty smart.
i thought at the time that 5-card draw was poker. poker to me had no variants so i laughed when i got hoyle casino for my computer and saw texas holdem and omaha holdem poker. i thought it was a couple of games they invented to go along with slots and roulette games.
fast forward a couple years and i see this dude on letterman one night named moneymaker and letterman is talking to him about how he turned a couple of bucks into winning the world series. i thought it was pretty cool but went on clueless for another year or so.
im not sure of the definitive time but i remember the first time i got hooked was watching the 04 main event. i think i saw every episode and was like woa, they play that game form hoyle casino. i remember just being totally addicted to watching it.
i start talking to one of my buddies one day and he tells me that his brothers and a few of there friends play on weekends. i showed up, played every hand, got killed and got a friendly invite back when they couldn't believe how much fun i had donking my money off.
2 weeks later, we decide to head out to a local casino and play some holdem. most of us didn't know the difference between limit and no-limit, 2/5 and 5/10. we waited for over 4 hours to get a seat at a 2/5 limit table. at 3am we sat down and by 3:45am i busted for my $100 buy-in. i felt like shit, my friends played a little while longer until we left around 5am. the whole way home i was embarassed. i sucked bad!!!!!!!!!! i told myself i would never be the donk at the table again.
the next day i went to chapters, picked up a book and started studying. a month later i discovered party poker and deposited a $100 and took a run at 2/4 limit holdem. i was so frustrated that i was breaking even after 2 days that i tilted it off.
i did this 1 more time before taking 3 months off and buying more books and studying a lot harder. i decided i would take a more serious shot and practice some bankroll management (i originally thought that playing 2/4 limit w/ a $100 roll was plenty)
i deposited $150 into paradise poker ( i had since determined party poker was rigged) and started grinding .25/.50 cent limit. i worked my way up eventually going back to party (because the games were so soft) and was playing 3/6 w/ about a $2200 roll. this was over the course of Feb 05 till about Sep 05.
i took a shot at playing $100 buy-in mtts on stars and party. i had a couple final tables but eventually busted on both sites w/ only 10 buy-ins on each. this left me back at ftp. i ran very cold in mtts through May and also started playing nl 6 max cash to subsidize my roll. sngs were getting to be a little frustrating and i truly believe that to be a great poker player you need to know how to play post flop deep stack poker. sngs offer none of this and while i enjoy them, they aren't going to be a part of my bankroll building strategy.
my roll is back down to about 5k but im ready to run it up. no more withdrawals unless its for something poker related (live buy-ins and what not)
im sorry for the long winded post. i tend to ramble.
tg
i've started it for a couple reasons:
1) i spend a lot of time reading poker blogs and find reading about others ups and downs to be quite helpful and inspirational.
2) i want to be able to track my progess and record goals. i have a hard time even remembering what limits or games i was playing a year ago.
thats basically it, if someone does stumble across it i hope they find it entertaining. i won't write about life or shit like that. this is not a diary, it's a record of my poker journey. i will update it after every session w/ results and thoughts.
here's my story.
like most, my first taste of poker was dicking around with friends while drinking. we'd get together and play 5-card triple draw dealers choice w/ all kinds of stupid wild cards and what not. we were so clueless that i remember getting into situations where if one guy had the other guy covered in chips (usually pennies) then the shorter stack had to fold. pretty smart.
i thought at the time that 5-card draw was poker. poker to me had no variants so i laughed when i got hoyle casino for my computer and saw texas holdem and omaha holdem poker. i thought it was a couple of games they invented to go along with slots and roulette games.
fast forward a couple years and i see this dude on letterman one night named moneymaker and letterman is talking to him about how he turned a couple of bucks into winning the world series. i thought it was pretty cool but went on clueless for another year or so.
im not sure of the definitive time but i remember the first time i got hooked was watching the 04 main event. i think i saw every episode and was like woa, they play that game form hoyle casino. i remember just being totally addicted to watching it.
i start talking to one of my buddies one day and he tells me that his brothers and a few of there friends play on weekends. i showed up, played every hand, got killed and got a friendly invite back when they couldn't believe how much fun i had donking my money off.
2 weeks later, we decide to head out to a local casino and play some holdem. most of us didn't know the difference between limit and no-limit, 2/5 and 5/10. we waited for over 4 hours to get a seat at a 2/5 limit table. at 3am we sat down and by 3:45am i busted for my $100 buy-in. i felt like shit, my friends played a little while longer until we left around 5am. the whole way home i was embarassed. i sucked bad!!!!!!!!!! i told myself i would never be the donk at the table again.
the next day i went to chapters, picked up a book and started studying. a month later i discovered party poker and deposited a $100 and took a run at 2/4 limit holdem. i was so frustrated that i was breaking even after 2 days that i tilted it off.
i did this 1 more time before taking 3 months off and buying more books and studying a lot harder. i decided i would take a more serious shot and practice some bankroll management (i originally thought that playing 2/4 limit w/ a $100 roll was plenty)
i deposited $150 into paradise poker ( i had since determined party poker was rigged) and started grinding .25/.50 cent limit. i worked my way up eventually going back to party (because the games were so soft) and was playing 3/6 w/ about a $2200 roll. this was over the course of Feb 05 till about Sep 05.
i then took out the entire $2200 and decided to pay off some debt and start totally fresh. i took about a 2 months away from online and only played live (mostly 2/5 limit)
in Nov 05, i made a $500 deposit back into party and started grinding limit holdem games again. i worked it back up again over the next few months but kind of plateaued. i was getting sick of grinding limit games. i dabbled with sngs and mtts but found them extremely frustrating.
from the summer of 06 to roughly Oct 06 i had struggled a bit and did not play any one game or limit. id go from mtts one week to limit holdem to experimenting w/ nl holdem to trying to donk around pot limit omaha games. my bankroll hovered anywhere from between 1k to 2k hitting a high point of 3.2k before i blew 1k trying to 12 table 3/6 limit on party.
in Sep/Oct i decided to give mtts and sngs a good run. i had been a member of www.pokerxfactor.com for a couple of months but had not really taken advantage of what they were offering. i started grinding away and built up a bit. Then in late Oct 06 i finally won my 1st mtt. i dominated the final table and it was an amazing feeling.
the win shipped me 2.3k and my roll was now at 3.8k. i had just bought a house w/ my girlfriend and we decided it was best to withdrawal most of the win for some house stuff. it kinda sucked because my bankroll was now back down to around 1k. i played more sngs and started killing the 45 and 90 person sngs on ftp. i had the occasional decent cash in mtts but nothing major. i slowly built my roll up to around 3.5k. it was pretty nice run. i was playing the $24 guarantee mtt's, $22 turbo sngs and the $20 45 and 90 person sngs. at this point i had been exclusively playing on ftp.
in Jan 07 i made a goal of winning 2 mtt's by June. i won the 1st (5k guarantee, $24 buy-in) on ftp for 1.8k. i then won the 7pm 18k guarantee 4 days later for 5.5k. it was pretty sick week for me and my roll was now over 10k.
i took a little out and kept playing. i was now playing the $24 and $69 guarantee mtts and $55 turbo sngs. i remember in one weekend taking 4th in a mtt for 1.4k and losing about 1.2k in turbo sngs. i was kinda sick. that was the first time i had lost that much money and it made me quite ill.
i took a step back and played a little lower in sngs but kept grinding the same level mtt's while occasionally taking a shot a few higher buy-ins. by Mar 07 my roll had slid down to around 7k when i shipped a few bucks over to party to play in some mtts there. after a couple days i hit another nice payday winning the 7pm $100 buy-in for 5.6k.
i had gotten my roll over 12k. i decided to haul most of my winnings off party (since i left there site due to fishy reasons of freezing accounts) and left about 1k. i put 1k on stars and took the rest out and blew it on fun stuff like a new computer and dual lcd's, dart board, ping pong table and a nice road bike.
i took a shot at playing $100 buy-in mtts on stars and party. i had a couple final tables but eventually busted on both sites w/ only 10 buy-ins on each. this left me back at ftp. i ran very cold in mtts through May and also started playing nl 6 max cash to subsidize my roll. sngs were getting to be a little frustrating and i truly believe that to be a great poker player you need to know how to play post flop deep stack poker. sngs offer none of this and while i enjoy them, they aren't going to be a part of my bankroll building strategy.
my roll is back down to about 5k but im ready to run it up. no more withdrawals unless its for something poker related (live buy-ins and what not)
im sorry for the long winded post. i tend to ramble.
tg
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