probably played maybe 2k hands since last post and am up a buy-in. my session on thursday was pretty gross as i felted KK to AA, QQ to AA and JJ to QQ pre and got down about 4.5 buy-ins after about 600 hands. i played well though after ended up slightly in the green when all was said and done including sitting on one table with close to a grand which felt kinda balla.
i had a good first coaching session and will continue with this coach. also i've noticed lately that i've drifted off into auto-pilot so im trying to concentrate and focus more and i think it's helping. a couple times i've made some pretty thin call downs that were correct and i've managed to tone down my spewtard mode when dealing with the plethora of lagtards at 1/2.
im off to play another session right now and might try to make it to the casino tonite for some live pokers.
tg.
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Edit:
well that was fun, 421 hands and dropped $851.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2525334
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2525339
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2525340
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2525343
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
last week
in my last entry i made a goal to play 6k hands over the weekend. i ended up getting in close to 6.5k because i played on sunday as well. i'd definitly say i didn't play all too well and spewed quite a bit over the earlier sessions before reeling it in and playing a bit better near the last couple sessions. im not too worried about the poor play because it really stemmed from getting used to the newer limit. 1/2 plays a lot differently than .50/1.00 imo and i usually end up getting very spewy when dealing with a higher level of aggression than i am used to. i think my play in 3-bet pots was pretty poor and i didn't handle getting 3-bet the best at times.
so over that sample i was up a buy-in but that feels like a bit of a loss. im chalking it up to learning though and already feel pretty comfortable again. one thing i've come across at 1/2 are a couple of huge whales that buy-in full and stay and play long sessions even when they are up. unfortunately some of these guys are the ones that tilt me the most and i seem to get owned by them a lot. i did however win a couple massive pots off them when they're bluffing or overplaying there weak made hands.
last night i played about 1300 hands and ended up 2.5 buy-ins which was good. i got stacked on the first hand i played to said whale when he shoved the river for 2x pot on a 899cc 2x 8x board. i had raised pre, c-bet flop which he check/called, checked the turn behind because he folds nothing and i figure him for a small pair, flush draw or straight draw. i doubted he had a 9 just from the way he plays. so on the river he bets out my stack which is effectively 2x the pot and i am used to seeing this in mtt's and think it's a sign of strength in general. the problem is here i played with this guy the day before and made a couple calls on rivers where he did the same thing (2x pot) and caught him bluffing air, busted draws... he's also to donkish to know to stop doing it so i went ahead and made a hero call w/ AQo and he showed me 86o for the under full. doh!
edit: i wrote this a week ago so i'll just skip to now.
since my 6.5k stretch i've prob played another 2k hands or so and im up a little over 2 buy-ins during that stretch. on saturday i played a short timed session but 6-tabled and felt good about my play. i actually felt like i was on the loose side of tag but i guess i was auto-folding a lot of speculative hands while in other pots and ended up playing a 16.5/13.5 game for the 1300 or so hands i put in. yuck!
anywho, i feel pretty comfortable at the limit now and i start with a new coach tomorrow and im excited about that.
i've been reading dave "raptor" benefields blog a lot lately and it's pretty inspiring. guy is buying houses in vegas along with 100k cars and playing in bobby's room while out there. pretty fucking cool and although i don't really think i have the gambool in me to ever play at those stakes, if i shoot for bobby's room maybe i'll end up in a juicy 50/100 game some day.
tg.
so over that sample i was up a buy-in but that feels like a bit of a loss. im chalking it up to learning though and already feel pretty comfortable again. one thing i've come across at 1/2 are a couple of huge whales that buy-in full and stay and play long sessions even when they are up. unfortunately some of these guys are the ones that tilt me the most and i seem to get owned by them a lot. i did however win a couple massive pots off them when they're bluffing or overplaying there weak made hands.
last night i played about 1300 hands and ended up 2.5 buy-ins which was good. i got stacked on the first hand i played to said whale when he shoved the river for 2x pot on a 899cc 2x 8x board. i had raised pre, c-bet flop which he check/called, checked the turn behind because he folds nothing and i figure him for a small pair, flush draw or straight draw. i doubted he had a 9 just from the way he plays. so on the river he bets out my stack which is effectively 2x the pot and i am used to seeing this in mtt's and think it's a sign of strength in general. the problem is here i played with this guy the day before and made a couple calls on rivers where he did the same thing (2x pot) and caught him bluffing air, busted draws... he's also to donkish to know to stop doing it so i went ahead and made a hero call w/ AQo and he showed me 86o for the under full. doh!
edit: i wrote this a week ago so i'll just skip to now.
since my 6.5k stretch i've prob played another 2k hands or so and im up a little over 2 buy-ins during that stretch. on saturday i played a short timed session but 6-tabled and felt good about my play. i actually felt like i was on the loose side of tag but i guess i was auto-folding a lot of speculative hands while in other pots and ended up playing a 16.5/13.5 game for the 1300 or so hands i put in. yuck!
anywho, i feel pretty comfortable at the limit now and i start with a new coach tomorrow and im excited about that.
i've been reading dave "raptor" benefields blog a lot lately and it's pretty inspiring. guy is buying houses in vegas along with 100k cars and playing in bobby's room while out there. pretty fucking cool and although i don't really think i have the gambool in me to ever play at those stakes, if i shoot for bobby's room maybe i'll end up in a juicy 50/100 game some day.
tg.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
200nl so far
has been.............fairly non-existent.
i played maybe 300 hands late last week and was up about a buy-in. i sat down saturday nite to put in a huge session and ftp was down all night.
early this week i've just been crazy busy with other stuff and haven't had a chance to play. i sat down for a short session last night and lost 3/4 of a buy-in over 600 hands. i have all of tonight, tomorrow night and saturday to play so im setting a goal of playing 6k hands between now and saturday.
i bought a new 24" monitior so i now can comfortably 6 table (or more) without overlap. i'll probably keep 4-tabling for now but if i find a bunch of good games i won't be hesitant to play 6.
here's some hands from last nights session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413781 - nothing to do but mash the keyboard, kick the dog and through the monitor thru a window.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413786 - the 3-bet pre is debatable and probably thin at best. i think this is something i need to work on in my game. anyways, villain is lag and might be a tad spewy post flop but i have no real hard evidence.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413789 - i played this hand brutally. pre-flop i can't isolate raise since limper is so short but i think my hand is strong enough to limp along. i don't see any point in raising the flop so i just call. mistake 1 is calling the turn. villain was not a special player by any means and i think another lead out on this turn is two pair or better. mistake 2 is the river bet, not realizing that sets made up a large portion of his range here. puke.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413793 - if im going to run bad, i want it to be in smaller pots like this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413797 - i think this is pretty standard, it's not too often im behind but if i am i had still a decent amount of equity. (34% in this instance against the nuts)
here's a real cool blog post from online high stakes pro Raptor that i really relate with and is probably one of my larger obstacles to over come as a player.
i might play a few tournies in the upcoming nights as well so it would be nice to boost the bankroll that way. i've also put in a request for a coach through deuces cracked so i'm looking forward to that as well.
gl, tg.
i played maybe 300 hands late last week and was up about a buy-in. i sat down saturday nite to put in a huge session and ftp was down all night.
early this week i've just been crazy busy with other stuff and haven't had a chance to play. i sat down for a short session last night and lost 3/4 of a buy-in over 600 hands. i have all of tonight, tomorrow night and saturday to play so im setting a goal of playing 6k hands between now and saturday.
i bought a new 24" monitior so i now can comfortably 6 table (or more) without overlap. i'll probably keep 4-tabling for now but if i find a bunch of good games i won't be hesitant to play 6.
here's some hands from last nights session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413781 - nothing to do but mash the keyboard, kick the dog and through the monitor thru a window.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413786 - the 3-bet pre is debatable and probably thin at best. i think this is something i need to work on in my game. anyways, villain is lag and might be a tad spewy post flop but i have no real hard evidence.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413789 - i played this hand brutally. pre-flop i can't isolate raise since limper is so short but i think my hand is strong enough to limp along. i don't see any point in raising the flop so i just call. mistake 1 is calling the turn. villain was not a special player by any means and i think another lead out on this turn is two pair or better. mistake 2 is the river bet, not realizing that sets made up a large portion of his range here. puke.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413793 - if im going to run bad, i want it to be in smaller pots like this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2413797 - i think this is pretty standard, it's not too often im behind but if i am i had still a decent amount of equity. (34% in this instance against the nuts)
here's a real cool blog post from online high stakes pro Raptor that i really relate with and is probably one of my larger obstacles to over come as a player.
i might play a few tournies in the upcoming nights as well so it would be nice to boost the bankroll that way. i've also put in a request for a coach through deuces cracked so i'm looking forward to that as well.
gl, tg.
Friday, April 4, 2008
march finale and good start to april
so march was a good month and although i only got about 13k hands i felt i made great strides in my game. i ran pretty good i think and luckily suffered most of my bad luck while playing hu at 50nl.
i had a hard time putting in good long sessions after coming back from vegas so i took a couple extra days off from playing and just did some thinking about hands and also started to run some of my bigger hands through ev calculations to see if i was getting it in good. i find the practice has helped me a great deal and it's something i will be incorporating into my study habits on a full time basis. it's sometimes surprising how little/large your equity is in some spots when matching your hand up to a specific villains range.
so my first session of the month came last night and i played 4 tables of 100nl along with the $75 7pm mtt. i lasted into the third hour of the tournament before busting like a fool and double barreling like an idiot when i probably had zero fold equity.
i put in about 1k hands of 100nl though and had my best cash day ever racking up 7 buy-ins! this actually puts me over the threshold of 8k which was my target for moving up to 1/2nl. (40 buy-ins) i actually feel ready for 1/2 so i'll give it a shot in my next session. i'm sure the larger pots/wins/losses will be larger than what im used to but in my old days of limit holdem cash it usually doesn't take long before it becomes the new norm.
i've started a bunch of datamining of the 1/2 games so that the transition will be smoother. i've been running good so hopefully i don't get wacked when i go up but that's out of my control. i think i'll probably drop back down to 100nl if by bankroll drops back to 7k.
here are some of the big hands from my last session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381604 - villain in this hand is a maniac and i've got notes on him from a mtt i played with him that he is rather reckless and poor. i've already stacked him once where he c/r me all-in on the turn with overs and a flush draw. i usually don't like calling here set mining but this guy was stacking off with a large range and our stacks are deep enough i think to make it profitable.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381730 - villain is a huge passive fish that gets aggressive on the turn and river. i didn't spot that T8 got there on the river since i was set on going for 3 streets with this guy. anyways, i'm not folding top set here to a fish since he is just as likely to have some kind of junky two pair. i was pretty surprised to see what he rolled over.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381761 - interesting hand. not a good flop for me since AK is now beating me and it's a big portion of both of villains range. when the flop gets checked thru im positive the original pre-flop raiser doesn't have a King. he's a cardrunners member and knows what he's doing and i think AK bets there a large portion of the time. turn is a brick and im pretty sure i have the best hand but check again since the 3-bet cold caller could still have a King that he was attempting to c/r with. once he checks again im pretty certain im good. i expect cr member to bet a lot of hands when checked to twice so i call and surprisingly the cold caller calls. KK could be out but i really doubted it. river i check again and its kinda disturbing when cold caller shoves his last remaining stack but i can't put him on a King here and with the odds im getting i call.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381783 - here i bet 2x pot on the river to try and get him to call and to my surprise he jams with garbage. weeeeeeeeeeee
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381802 - i just got to the table but i've seen this guy open limp trashy aces so i label him as bad. after i bet the turn (for value) he's only got a few bucks left so i put him in. i'd usually check this behind on the river if we were deeper but since he only called down with little money left i read him as having a failry mediocre hand. woops!
next blog post will feature my venture into 1/2!
tg
Monday, March 24, 2008
online poker in march
so my online play has been kinda minimal this month when compared to last month. i've only played a little over 8k hands this month which is far below the norm. i did however miss a lot of time because of vegas though and was too busy before leaving to put in any real good sessions.
i played some small full ring sessions before going to vegas to get out of the 6-max mindset and it sucked pretty bad. i dropped a few buy-ins over a small sample. i started playing a little heads-up as well at 50nl just because it seemed fun. well it's turned out to be fun and profitable and i've killed it over a very small sample. coming back to 6-max after the vegas trip i've done very well and am up several buy-ins there too. i'll wait to the end of the month before i post exact numbers but this month is looking good over very few hands. i've taken a different approach at the hu tables targetting mostly players that are sitting at tables with less than a full buy-in but more than 40bb's. it's worked out quite well as it's an early indicator of a poor player and often times i get these guys to go off for multiple buy-ins. one guy i sat down with had like a real random amount in front of him equalling roughly 45bb's. i stacked him like 10 hands in and he immediately rebought full. i stacked him three more times for full buy-ins before he quit me. i also had a negative experience though where i was already sitting on 200bb's and a good player sat with me full. now i didn't know he was good at the time but i stack him early on and start to see that he's good and hard to play against. so after i grind a little more off him and give him about 50 hands to get his stack back i sit out and tell him "gg, i'd rather play someone else". he immediately tells me im a hit'n'run artist which bothers me so i sit back in and plan on playing him for a few more minutes. i then stack him again so i feel like i have to stay for even longer now. so about 25 minutes later im sitting on 100bb's, he's got all his money back + my other 100bb's i had initially and sits out saying he'll be back. i left the table and chalked it up to a lesson learned. while i try to be cordial during hu matches and give people ample time to get even or let them know ahead of time when im quitting, i shouldn't put it ahead of my own priorities and that's maximizing my EV.
my all-in equity in hu pots is horrible and i've had some sick suckouts but to balance it i've been winning lots of races in my 6-max games. i had a sick cooler the other day when i raise/called pre w/ QQ and flopped a set on a KQxhh board and got it all-in to see KK. but to get it back i squeezed w/ KK and the initial pfr just called which i immediately thought had to be AA. he was just too tight for it to be anything else. alas the flop came K high and i doubled through.
i also played a bunch of wsop sats on ftp the other night with no avail. i used my saved up rakeback money to replenish my account of the buy-ins so that i can keep building towards the 1/2nl jump. i think when i jump to 1/2 i will also move up to .50/1.00 hu since it looks like there are a bunch of softies that buy-in for 40bb's. ideally i think i'll always keep my hu stakes below that of my 6-max stakes since the extra variance can be a total kick in the nuts.
i've also got the itch to play plo again but im staying with my goals of learning nl cash before i start to dabble in that again. i went back and looked at my pokertracker plo and saw that i dropped 2.6k playing 100plo so obviously its not a very +ev game for me. i think i'll make myself wait till i'm at least winning at 2/4nl before i will venture into 50plo or something like that.
anyways, hopefully i'll get a 3 or 4 more sessions in before the end of the month. i might also play some tournies and wsop sats using rakeback money when the time permits. i might actually have to play 5 or 6 sessions before the end of the month to keep up with the ironman promo requirements. i'll have to double check that.
oh yeah, the ftp bankroll is currently at 6.7k with another 1k in the rakeback account and i think i have about 1k left in cash from my trip. not sure what i'll do with the cash but im up in the air about putting it on another site, putting it back on ftp, keeping it for live play or blowing it on random shit i don't need.
tg
i played some small full ring sessions before going to vegas to get out of the 6-max mindset and it sucked pretty bad. i dropped a few buy-ins over a small sample. i started playing a little heads-up as well at 50nl just because it seemed fun. well it's turned out to be fun and profitable and i've killed it over a very small sample. coming back to 6-max after the vegas trip i've done very well and am up several buy-ins there too. i'll wait to the end of the month before i post exact numbers but this month is looking good over very few hands. i've taken a different approach at the hu tables targetting mostly players that are sitting at tables with less than a full buy-in but more than 40bb's. it's worked out quite well as it's an early indicator of a poor player and often times i get these guys to go off for multiple buy-ins. one guy i sat down with had like a real random amount in front of him equalling roughly 45bb's. i stacked him like 10 hands in and he immediately rebought full. i stacked him three more times for full buy-ins before he quit me. i also had a negative experience though where i was already sitting on 200bb's and a good player sat with me full. now i didn't know he was good at the time but i stack him early on and start to see that he's good and hard to play against. so after i grind a little more off him and give him about 50 hands to get his stack back i sit out and tell him "gg, i'd rather play someone else". he immediately tells me im a hit'n'run artist which bothers me so i sit back in and plan on playing him for a few more minutes. i then stack him again so i feel like i have to stay for even longer now. so about 25 minutes later im sitting on 100bb's, he's got all his money back + my other 100bb's i had initially and sits out saying he'll be back. i left the table and chalked it up to a lesson learned. while i try to be cordial during hu matches and give people ample time to get even or let them know ahead of time when im quitting, i shouldn't put it ahead of my own priorities and that's maximizing my EV.
my all-in equity in hu pots is horrible and i've had some sick suckouts but to balance it i've been winning lots of races in my 6-max games. i had a sick cooler the other day when i raise/called pre w/ QQ and flopped a set on a KQxhh board and got it all-in to see KK. but to get it back i squeezed w/ KK and the initial pfr just called which i immediately thought had to be AA. he was just too tight for it to be anything else. alas the flop came K high and i doubled through.
i also played a bunch of wsop sats on ftp the other night with no avail. i used my saved up rakeback money to replenish my account of the buy-ins so that i can keep building towards the 1/2nl jump. i think when i jump to 1/2 i will also move up to .50/1.00 hu since it looks like there are a bunch of softies that buy-in for 40bb's. ideally i think i'll always keep my hu stakes below that of my 6-max stakes since the extra variance can be a total kick in the nuts.
i've also got the itch to play plo again but im staying with my goals of learning nl cash before i start to dabble in that again. i went back and looked at my pokertracker plo and saw that i dropped 2.6k playing 100plo so obviously its not a very +ev game for me. i think i'll make myself wait till i'm at least winning at 2/4nl before i will venture into 50plo or something like that.
anyways, hopefully i'll get a 3 or 4 more sessions in before the end of the month. i might also play some tournies and wsop sats using rakeback money when the time permits. i might actually have to play 5 or 6 sessions before the end of the month to keep up with the ironman promo requirements. i'll have to double check that.
oh yeah, the ftp bankroll is currently at 6.7k with another 1k in the rakeback account and i think i have about 1k left in cash from my trip. not sure what i'll do with the cash but im up in the air about putting it on another site, putting it back on ftp, keeping it for live play or blowing it on random shit i don't need.
tg
Monday, March 17, 2008
vegas trip report
i've missed two weeks of blogging but for good reason. i spent the first few days of march getting ready for my vegas trip and didn't really have all that much time to play. then it was off to vegas for 5 nights and since i've come home i've only played sparingly. on the vegas trip i ended up down $200 on the trip playing a mixture of 1/2 and 1/3 no-limit. losing $200 is obviously not the end of the world but it felt like a real kick in the nuts when considering how soft the games were. it was truly mind boggling how bad people play and watching them drag pot after pot and build up huge stacks was a bit demoralizing. oh well, it didn't ruin my trip and i had a blast. i played most of my poker at planet hollywood with other sessions coming at the mirage, venetian and ceasars. here's all the memorable hands:
- first night there, 1/2 w/ $200 effective stacks, 3 limpers to me and i raise it up to $15 from the button w/ KcQc. aggro swedish player to my right is the only one that calls. flop comes T96 with two clubs giving me a pretty strong draw. aggro swede checks, i bet $30, he min-raises to $60 and i 3-bet shove. he snap calls w/ 66 and i don't get there.
- 2nd day, 1/2 with deep stacks. i'm sitting on $450ish and a player gets moved to my table w/ over 2k!!!!! (max buy-in is $200) the chatter around the table was that he had been getting extremely lucky at another table hitting all kinds of crazy hands post flop. he limps utg, 3 more limpers and i limp in the CO w/ JTo. 7 way flop, T83 rainbow, checks to him, he bets like $20 which is weird so i call and decide to re-evaluate on the turn, one of the blinds calls. 3-way to the turn and its a Jack giving me top two. blind checks, big stack looks through me and bets $35. i don't think too long and raise to $85. at the time i liked the small raise, i think it entices him to either call with Tx or maybe do something stupid like re-ship. the blind didn't have much money behind so i wasn't really worried about him. blind folds, big stack instantly goes all-in and i snap call. he rolls over Q9o for a turned straight and fades my 4 outer for a $900+ pot. i made the cardinal sin of going broke in a limped pot although i didn't think there was a way in hell he was betting a gut shot on the flop into 7 people. if this hand would have happened an hour or so later there is no way i go broke on the hand. he played very passively limping preflop almost every hand and check/calling 90% of the time. leading out this hand was one of the only times he ever did it. i think i just call/call if the hand happened later on or even just muck it on the flop.
- couple hands before this happened i made a nice fold holding K7o (bb special) on a KT837 board after the hand was checked through 4 ways on the flop, sb bet out on the turn and i called and a tight player to my left called, on the river sb checked, i bet out and tight player shipped, sb folded and i figured it had to be J9 so i mucked and tight player showed me J9. soul reader.
- sit down at a brand new table at the venetian. 1/2 w/ $300 buy-in. about 5 hands in i decipher that the table is fairly bad and a young guy on my right is horrible and the guy on my left calls raises very light. about two orbits in i've lost a few small pots and have been fairly active, bad young guy open limps the CO, i raise AA on the button, blinds fold and he calls and we take the flop heads-up. flop comes down KQ5r which is not a great flop for aces. he checks, i bet out fairly large and he calls pretty quickly. turn is a 9x which is even crappier card since JT gets there and he insta shoves for like a $130. online i probably just fold this but this guy had been playing all kinds of big little hands and chasing the ass end of open ended straight draws with J5 on a 6789 board and hammering the pot so i snap call him. the river is an 8 and he shows K8s to drag the pot. the best part is he asks me if i had him before the river.
- about an orbit after this hand i've reloaded to about $270 and open JTcc from mp and get the usual 5 callers including buddy on my left that calls every raise. flop comes down a beauty J9x with two clubs giving me top pair + a flush draw. checks to me and i bet out fairly large again (can't remember pot sizes or bet sizes but most my bets were close to pot on the flop) and get called by buddy on my left, all else fold. now buddy on my left had previously called a raise before w/ QTo and raised a c-bet and cold call w/ top pair on a Ten high board and folded to a 3-bet so i'm a little perplexed by his call but really have no idea of his range other than i doubt he has a top pair beat. the turn is a club giving me my flush so i bet out just a little bit more than half pot since i don't really know what he has but i don't want to scare him off his precious middle pair. he thinks and calls. now im a little gun shy and start to worry that i'm gettnig stacked again by a bigger flush. the river is another 9 and for some reason i got a sick feeling that it improved him. probably just gun shy from the previous hand but i checked and he immediately cut out $100 and annonced it as his bet. i made a quick call because im never folding and he tables J9o for the rivered boat. puke! (i should bet/calling this river 100% of the time i think)
- 1/2 back at planet hollywood, im hammered and talking it up with the table and this friendly older lady beside me. i raise up limpers w/ AKo from the bb and older lady calls from utg and one other guy calls. flop is Ace high w/ two spades and i have no spades. i bet out like $40 into $50, older lady snap calls and other dude folds. pot is now $130ish and she has about a $100 behind so i'm going with it no matter what since she was kinda bad and has a wide range. turn is a spade, i put her in and she calls quickly with a sheepish "i got u fucked up" look. we flip before the river to be friendly and she's got A2o w/ no spades for just top pair but the deuce rolls off on the end. whaaaaaaaaaa.
- last day in vegas, playing 1/2 at the mirage. i've been very active mostly getting good hands and raising limpers. i've already made a big 3-bet squeeze with AK and took it down pre-flop. villain in this hand is an active young guy that i thought was decent until i saw him c/c flops twice in raised pots w/ bare overcards. he's also 3-bet once before and when the hand went to showdown he mucked claiming to have overcards to the J hi board. i open to $7 in ep w/ AKo and he 3-bets from mp to $30 and it folds back to me. most times i would just call here but this guy seemed aggro/donkish enough to be playing back at me with a large range. i decide to make it a $100 straight committing myself to it. he goes all-in and im worried and call. he's got KK and although i flop a flush draw and turn a gutter ball i don't get there. he does a big fist pump and yells when the river bricks like a true champ.
- last session of the trip, i sit down with the mindset that if i get stacked im probably just going to call it a night and maybe go bet sports or dick around in the pit. limped pot and i check my option in the bb w/ 66. probably 6 way action to the flop of Q64cc. i lead out for $10, all fold to button who calls. turn is another 4 filling me up so now i bet out $30 because i don't think he's folding a Queen and live players never fold flush draws. he calls. the river is another 4 making the board Q6444. this is a gin card for me if he has a Queen as there is no way he's ever folding a boat. he open shoves for like a $130 and i jokingly say well i hope you don't have a four as i call. he tables J4o for runner runner perfect. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
after that hand i reload to a full stack and start getting bitched at by some lady because i took like $55 in chips off the table and rebought for a full $200 just to make it easier for the dealer and also so i can just reload my stack out of pocket when i get down a little after posting blinds and what not. she goes off on me and the dealer for about 10 minutes basically acusing me of "going south" before finally the dealer tells her he has no idea how to explain it to her other than the simplistic way he already has. the best part about it is she had like $23 in front of her!
anyways, before i could cash out i flopped like 5 sets and ran up like a $800 stack. i guess all the big hands i posted are hands i lost but all the big hands i won were pretty basic and not very interesting. also, a lot of the time i never get to see the losing hand since im usually betting the river and flipping my hand over first so i have no real "he called me with Jack hi" stories. here's one hand where i sucked out and won a big pot against my buddy.
1/2, effective stacks are about $250. buddy raises in ep and i call right behind w/ T9hh. everyone else folds and we take a flop of K52 rainbow with no hearts so i flop complete air. he bets out and 90% of the time he is full of complete shit raising absolute trash like J5o and bluffing tons. so i decide to flat call and take it away on the turn. the turn is an offsuit 9 which now gives me what could be the best hand. he bets out again and i decide against raising since he will often two or three barrel with air. so i elect to just call and the river comes a Ten giving me two pair. he checks and i figure he is check/folding a lot but bet out big just in case he does have a hand. he snap calls and shows me AA. when i showed the T9 i thought he was going to throw up. i then asked him how he liked the flop call because i didn't think he realized i floated complete air. he called me a fucking idiot the rest of the trip and i laughed for about 10 mins straight.
some other random funny shit i heard/saw was this one guy took about 3 minutes on a river decision when he was first to act and had been check/calling the whole way down. after about two minutes the dealer asked him if he was aware that the action was on him which he said yes. so after a while he bets out and me and the other guy in the pot both fold. he rakes the pot in and apologizes for taking so long saying "sorry, im not very fast at calculating my odds yet". same guy about an hour later and a few bud lights, folds in ep and everyone else limps. it's like a 6 way pot and the flop comes out 632. on the flop it's checked to lp when he pipes up and says "damn, i woulda had two pair". the table erupts in laughter and the dealer asks him not to talk during hands he's not involved in and he replies with "well you keep dealing me 62". i couldn't stop laughing for literally 10 minutes. apparently the fella had not tipped the dealers or the waitresses all night (which is a big no no in vegas) so about an hour later my buddy gets it all-in pre-flop w/ JJ vs the idiot's QQ, the dealer puts the flop out and the door card is the Jack. the dealer looks straight at the idoit and says "thats how i roll". it might have been the funniest two hours of my life.
anyways, it was a good time and i look forward to going back in the future. overall im not entirely happy with my play. i was very anxious a lot of the time and impatient at other times. i think i might have forced things a little too much but i did gain a lot of experience playing live. i've always been nervous sitting down in a live game no matter what the stakes because i think i'm afraid to screw up or look stupid. i think i shed a lot of that during this trip. if i had to rate my play i would say it was maybe a 7/10. i don't think i thought out decisions like i should have in some spots and other spots i think i played too spewy pre-flop. one thing that i didn't realize about live play is the need to portray yourself as an action player. a lot of the stuff that you read in supersystem about garnering a gamblers image at the table is really true even when playing with casual players. they want to sit with people who will splash around with them, not some shark waiting to pounce on them with the nuts. i found one good way of giving off this illusion was putting the live straddle on whenever i had been inactive for a few hands or even just limp some trashy hand for the sake of showing them im in there.
way too long of a post, i'll make a seperate one with online results so far this month.
tg
- first night there, 1/2 w/ $200 effective stacks, 3 limpers to me and i raise it up to $15 from the button w/ KcQc. aggro swedish player to my right is the only one that calls. flop comes T96 with two clubs giving me a pretty strong draw. aggro swede checks, i bet $30, he min-raises to $60 and i 3-bet shove. he snap calls w/ 66 and i don't get there.
- 2nd day, 1/2 with deep stacks. i'm sitting on $450ish and a player gets moved to my table w/ over 2k!!!!! (max buy-in is $200) the chatter around the table was that he had been getting extremely lucky at another table hitting all kinds of crazy hands post flop. he limps utg, 3 more limpers and i limp in the CO w/ JTo. 7 way flop, T83 rainbow, checks to him, he bets like $20 which is weird so i call and decide to re-evaluate on the turn, one of the blinds calls. 3-way to the turn and its a Jack giving me top two. blind checks, big stack looks through me and bets $35. i don't think too long and raise to $85. at the time i liked the small raise, i think it entices him to either call with Tx or maybe do something stupid like re-ship. the blind didn't have much money behind so i wasn't really worried about him. blind folds, big stack instantly goes all-in and i snap call. he rolls over Q9o for a turned straight and fades my 4 outer for a $900+ pot. i made the cardinal sin of going broke in a limped pot although i didn't think there was a way in hell he was betting a gut shot on the flop into 7 people. if this hand would have happened an hour or so later there is no way i go broke on the hand. he played very passively limping preflop almost every hand and check/calling 90% of the time. leading out this hand was one of the only times he ever did it. i think i just call/call if the hand happened later on or even just muck it on the flop.
- couple hands before this happened i made a nice fold holding K7o (bb special) on a KT837 board after the hand was checked through 4 ways on the flop, sb bet out on the turn and i called and a tight player to my left called, on the river sb checked, i bet out and tight player shipped, sb folded and i figured it had to be J9 so i mucked and tight player showed me J9. soul reader.
- sit down at a brand new table at the venetian. 1/2 w/ $300 buy-in. about 5 hands in i decipher that the table is fairly bad and a young guy on my right is horrible and the guy on my left calls raises very light. about two orbits in i've lost a few small pots and have been fairly active, bad young guy open limps the CO, i raise AA on the button, blinds fold and he calls and we take the flop heads-up. flop comes down KQ5r which is not a great flop for aces. he checks, i bet out fairly large and he calls pretty quickly. turn is a 9x which is even crappier card since JT gets there and he insta shoves for like a $130. online i probably just fold this but this guy had been playing all kinds of big little hands and chasing the ass end of open ended straight draws with J5 on a 6789 board and hammering the pot so i snap call him. the river is an 8 and he shows K8s to drag the pot. the best part is he asks me if i had him before the river.
- about an orbit after this hand i've reloaded to about $270 and open JTcc from mp and get the usual 5 callers including buddy on my left that calls every raise. flop comes down a beauty J9x with two clubs giving me top pair + a flush draw. checks to me and i bet out fairly large again (can't remember pot sizes or bet sizes but most my bets were close to pot on the flop) and get called by buddy on my left, all else fold. now buddy on my left had previously called a raise before w/ QTo and raised a c-bet and cold call w/ top pair on a Ten high board and folded to a 3-bet so i'm a little perplexed by his call but really have no idea of his range other than i doubt he has a top pair beat. the turn is a club giving me my flush so i bet out just a little bit more than half pot since i don't really know what he has but i don't want to scare him off his precious middle pair. he thinks and calls. now im a little gun shy and start to worry that i'm gettnig stacked again by a bigger flush. the river is another 9 and for some reason i got a sick feeling that it improved him. probably just gun shy from the previous hand but i checked and he immediately cut out $100 and annonced it as his bet. i made a quick call because im never folding and he tables J9o for the rivered boat. puke! (i should bet/calling this river 100% of the time i think)
- 1/2 back at planet hollywood, im hammered and talking it up with the table and this friendly older lady beside me. i raise up limpers w/ AKo from the bb and older lady calls from utg and one other guy calls. flop is Ace high w/ two spades and i have no spades. i bet out like $40 into $50, older lady snap calls and other dude folds. pot is now $130ish and she has about a $100 behind so i'm going with it no matter what since she was kinda bad and has a wide range. turn is a spade, i put her in and she calls quickly with a sheepish "i got u fucked up" look. we flip before the river to be friendly and she's got A2o w/ no spades for just top pair but the deuce rolls off on the end. whaaaaaaaaaa.
- last day in vegas, playing 1/2 at the mirage. i've been very active mostly getting good hands and raising limpers. i've already made a big 3-bet squeeze with AK and took it down pre-flop. villain in this hand is an active young guy that i thought was decent until i saw him c/c flops twice in raised pots w/ bare overcards. he's also 3-bet once before and when the hand went to showdown he mucked claiming to have overcards to the J hi board. i open to $7 in ep w/ AKo and he 3-bets from mp to $30 and it folds back to me. most times i would just call here but this guy seemed aggro/donkish enough to be playing back at me with a large range. i decide to make it a $100 straight committing myself to it. he goes all-in and im worried and call. he's got KK and although i flop a flush draw and turn a gutter ball i don't get there. he does a big fist pump and yells when the river bricks like a true champ.
- last session of the trip, i sit down with the mindset that if i get stacked im probably just going to call it a night and maybe go bet sports or dick around in the pit. limped pot and i check my option in the bb w/ 66. probably 6 way action to the flop of Q64cc. i lead out for $10, all fold to button who calls. turn is another 4 filling me up so now i bet out $30 because i don't think he's folding a Queen and live players never fold flush draws. he calls. the river is another 4 making the board Q6444. this is a gin card for me if he has a Queen as there is no way he's ever folding a boat. he open shoves for like a $130 and i jokingly say well i hope you don't have a four as i call. he tables J4o for runner runner perfect. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
after that hand i reload to a full stack and start getting bitched at by some lady because i took like $55 in chips off the table and rebought for a full $200 just to make it easier for the dealer and also so i can just reload my stack out of pocket when i get down a little after posting blinds and what not. she goes off on me and the dealer for about 10 minutes basically acusing me of "going south" before finally the dealer tells her he has no idea how to explain it to her other than the simplistic way he already has. the best part about it is she had like $23 in front of her!
anyways, before i could cash out i flopped like 5 sets and ran up like a $800 stack. i guess all the big hands i posted are hands i lost but all the big hands i won were pretty basic and not very interesting. also, a lot of the time i never get to see the losing hand since im usually betting the river and flipping my hand over first so i have no real "he called me with Jack hi" stories. here's one hand where i sucked out and won a big pot against my buddy.
1/2, effective stacks are about $250. buddy raises in ep and i call right behind w/ T9hh. everyone else folds and we take a flop of K52 rainbow with no hearts so i flop complete air. he bets out and 90% of the time he is full of complete shit raising absolute trash like J5o and bluffing tons. so i decide to flat call and take it away on the turn. the turn is an offsuit 9 which now gives me what could be the best hand. he bets out again and i decide against raising since he will often two or three barrel with air. so i elect to just call and the river comes a Ten giving me two pair. he checks and i figure he is check/folding a lot but bet out big just in case he does have a hand. he snap calls and shows me AA. when i showed the T9 i thought he was going to throw up. i then asked him how he liked the flop call because i didn't think he realized i floated complete air. he called me a fucking idiot the rest of the trip and i laughed for about 10 mins straight.
some other random funny shit i heard/saw was this one guy took about 3 minutes on a river decision when he was first to act and had been check/calling the whole way down. after about two minutes the dealer asked him if he was aware that the action was on him which he said yes. so after a while he bets out and me and the other guy in the pot both fold. he rakes the pot in and apologizes for taking so long saying "sorry, im not very fast at calculating my odds yet". same guy about an hour later and a few bud lights, folds in ep and everyone else limps. it's like a 6 way pot and the flop comes out 632. on the flop it's checked to lp when he pipes up and says "damn, i woulda had two pair". the table erupts in laughter and the dealer asks him not to talk during hands he's not involved in and he replies with "well you keep dealing me 62". i couldn't stop laughing for literally 10 minutes. apparently the fella had not tipped the dealers or the waitresses all night (which is a big no no in vegas) so about an hour later my buddy gets it all-in pre-flop w/ JJ vs the idiot's QQ, the dealer puts the flop out and the door card is the Jack. the dealer looks straight at the idoit and says "thats how i roll". it might have been the funniest two hours of my life.
anyways, it was a good time and i look forward to going back in the future. overall im not entirely happy with my play. i was very anxious a lot of the time and impatient at other times. i think i might have forced things a little too much but i did gain a lot of experience playing live. i've always been nervous sitting down in a live game no matter what the stakes because i think i'm afraid to screw up or look stupid. i think i shed a lot of that during this trip. if i had to rate my play i would say it was maybe a 7/10. i don't think i thought out decisions like i should have in some spots and other spots i think i played too spewy pre-flop. one thing that i didn't realize about live play is the need to portray yourself as an action player. a lot of the stuff that you read in supersystem about garnering a gamblers image at the table is really true even when playing with casual players. they want to sit with people who will splash around with them, not some shark waiting to pounce on them with the nuts. i found one good way of giving off this illusion was putting the live straddle on whenever i had been inactive for a few hands or even just limp some trashy hand for the sake of showing them im in there.
way too long of a post, i'll make a seperate one with online results so far this month.
tg
Sunday, March 2, 2008
feb results
overall i'd say im pretty happy with this. the first 9k hands is at 50nl and the rest at 100nl with a small hu match that i played at the end of the month vs a bad player.
i sat down to play yesterday but my head wasn't in it so i shut it down rather than dump a bunch. i might only get to play one more session before vegas so we'll see. also interesting was my friday night session i played without pokertracker or hud since i was converting my database to postgeslkjaskjfa or whatever its called. it wasn't near as hard as i thought it would be (playing w/o hud that is) and felt that i had a good read on most players anyways. anyways, i hope to get lots of hands in march but it will be hard missing the first 1/3 of the month being in vegas. im also gonna start to play a little hu when im in the mood since i think edges in hu matches are much larger than ring games.
tg
Thursday, February 28, 2008
logging more hands
so i put a good session last nite and managed to log over 1300 hands 4-tabling while also playing in the $75 7pm mtt. i busted around 140ish i think in what was probably a 650 person field im guessing. i had a bit of a roller coaster start and then won a big pot when i flopped flush over flush. after that i won and lost some small pots till i got it all-in pre-flop w/ JJ vs AKs and my JJ held. i blew off some chips later when i made a raise from ep w/ 66 and got cold called. flop came 442 rainbow, i c-bet, cold caller shoved and i folded. with 14bb's left i had a pretty tight image and opened KJs from mp which i hate since i can't stand a re-raise but i thought i was tight enough to get away with it. guy right behind me cold calls and we take the flop head-up. flop is KJx with two spades, i elected to open jam and he snap called w/ Aces and spiked an Ace on the river.
over the course of my cash game session i made a half buy-in. the following all occurred within about 7 minutes at one table near the end of my session.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183143
about 1 lap later;
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183155
so i get stacked twice very quickly and decide to play up a tilted image on this hand;
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183162
fortunately i get very lucky but the verbal berating i got from the poor sucker with the aces was pretty priceless.
here are the other hands where i stacked someone in the session.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183179 - villain is very loose passive and is playing 50% of his hands to any action. i figure him for a pretty wide range here including all pairs probably Tens and lower and almost any broadway hand. flop sucks and against most players i would just check it back since their range is usually heavily weighted towards pairs which are going to give me action but since this guy is calling with JT and what not i think i have to c-bet. here's where i screw up, i bet, he insta-raises all-in and when i looked at the pot size i thought i was getting like 5-1 since on ftp they include the whole stack he just shoved in. so figuring i probably had 6 outs i made the call, then realized after the fact that i wasn't even getting 3-1. oooops!
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183202 - this hand was pretty standard, villain has taggish stats but makes way too many moves pre-flop and post-flop. he 4-bet shoves AK pre-flop all day here so when he shoves on the flop im pretty sure he has a worse Ace, the same ace or a flush draw.
i may play a little tonight but im unsure yet. tomorrow i think i will be getting in a good amount of hands to end off the month. i'm pretty surprised that i've already played over 21k hands this month. thats a lot for me since my playing time is limited and i usually just stick to 4 tabling. my graph so far 100nl over 12k hands looks a little like the mcdonalds arch but 12k hands is nothing to worry about. i'm just going to keep plugging leaks till i reach my goals.
random thoughts/occurrences:
- rakeback account is up to 1.4k and am just gonna let it keep accumulating till i need it.
- i re-upped my cardrunners membership and also joined deucescracked since they look like they are putting out a good product and don't have drm protection on their videos.
- i leave for vegas in a week which is just disgusting to think about. i can't fucking wait.
- my roll is now spread to 3k in pocket for vegas, 5.2k on my ftp account after paying for my cr and dc subscriptions and shipping a friend a hundo, and 1.4k in rakeback.
- i had this feeling of just not wanting to lose in vegas when i go but fuck that. i'm only going to be playing low limit shit and i should be by far the best player at the table when i play so here's hoping i destroy the games.
feb pt screen shot coming saturday!
tg
over the course of my cash game session i made a half buy-in. the following all occurred within about 7 minutes at one table near the end of my session.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183143
about 1 lap later;
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183155
so i get stacked twice very quickly and decide to play up a tilted image on this hand;
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183162
fortunately i get very lucky but the verbal berating i got from the poor sucker with the aces was pretty priceless.
here are the other hands where i stacked someone in the session.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183179 - villain is very loose passive and is playing 50% of his hands to any action. i figure him for a pretty wide range here including all pairs probably Tens and lower and almost any broadway hand. flop sucks and against most players i would just check it back since their range is usually heavily weighted towards pairs which are going to give me action but since this guy is calling with JT and what not i think i have to c-bet. here's where i screw up, i bet, he insta-raises all-in and when i looked at the pot size i thought i was getting like 5-1 since on ftp they include the whole stack he just shoved in. so figuring i probably had 6 outs i made the call, then realized after the fact that i wasn't even getting 3-1. oooops!
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2183202 - this hand was pretty standard, villain has taggish stats but makes way too many moves pre-flop and post-flop. he 4-bet shoves AK pre-flop all day here so when he shoves on the flop im pretty sure he has a worse Ace, the same ace or a flush draw.
i may play a little tonight but im unsure yet. tomorrow i think i will be getting in a good amount of hands to end off the month. i'm pretty surprised that i've already played over 21k hands this month. thats a lot for me since my playing time is limited and i usually just stick to 4 tabling. my graph so far 100nl over 12k hands looks a little like the mcdonalds arch but 12k hands is nothing to worry about. i'm just going to keep plugging leaks till i reach my goals.
random thoughts/occurrences:
- rakeback account is up to 1.4k and am just gonna let it keep accumulating till i need it.
- i re-upped my cardrunners membership and also joined deucescracked since they look like they are putting out a good product and don't have drm protection on their videos.
- i leave for vegas in a week which is just disgusting to think about. i can't fucking wait.
- my roll is now spread to 3k in pocket for vegas, 5.2k on my ftp account after paying for my cr and dc subscriptions and shipping a friend a hundo, and 1.4k in rakeback.
- i had this feeling of just not wanting to lose in vegas when i go but fuck that. i'm only going to be playing low limit shit and i should be by far the best player at the table when i play so here's hoping i destroy the games.
feb pt screen shot coming saturday!
tg
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
small sessions
had a small opening to play a few hands two nights and ended up winning a little bit over 500ish hands. i was trying to fix my pt db at the same time so i played exceptionally nitty over the sample. here's the only hand i got stacked on and i think villain played it well if he had a good read on me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2169989 - pre-flop is standard. on the flop i've been scaling back on my c-betting frequency but even into two players this board is so dry that it's hard for them to hit it. surprisingly they both call and i'm pretty much done with the hand unless i improve. turn gives me a gutter ball to the nuts and i don't see any value in betting here. if i had gotten only one caller i might double barrell this turn since i get floated by a lot of mid pairs on boards like this that will probably give up after the second broadway hits. so i take the free card hoping to hit a Ten and to a lesser extent an Ace or King. so the river now gives me tptk but on a bit of an ugly board. my first inclination was to just show it down but i can't really put anyone on a hand that beats me and checks it twice. so i decide to fire out a smallish value bet to try and entice a Jack or weak Queen to call. when i get c/r'd i wanted to die. three things led me to calling here: a) although i've never seen this player make a c/r river bluff i think it could be part of his arsenal b) my river bet looks extremely weak c) i can't put him on any hand that beats me with that line.
last nite i hopped on for a quick little one hour session and it was kinda sick. the end result was losing close to 4 buy-ins. here's all the big hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177316 - the good
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177321 - the bad (part 1)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177327 - the bad (part 2)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177332 - the bad (part 3)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177341 - the bad (part 4)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177351 - the ugly. villain does not cold call raises often so i really put him on a smallish to med pair that he's not comfortable re-raising with or maybe even an AQ or AJ. on the flop im just calling since if he does have a hand like 77, 88... i don't want to stop him from betting and he only has 2 outs to beat me. also i still have the pre-flop raiser to act and he could be going for a c/r on this flop w/ a big hand. on the turn once again im just check/calling. im not scared of a flush and if he does have the range i think he does, im not getting any more value from raising. on the river i think i should be leading out here since the majority of the time he will give up and hope to show down against a flush draw and if he does have something like 99 he might call thinking im bluffing a busted flush draw. anyways, i checked, he shoved and i was very surprised to see AA.
i'll be playing a nice long session tonight and should be able to sneak in a mtt or two on the side.
tg
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2169989 - pre-flop is standard. on the flop i've been scaling back on my c-betting frequency but even into two players this board is so dry that it's hard for them to hit it. surprisingly they both call and i'm pretty much done with the hand unless i improve. turn gives me a gutter ball to the nuts and i don't see any value in betting here. if i had gotten only one caller i might double barrell this turn since i get floated by a lot of mid pairs on boards like this that will probably give up after the second broadway hits. so i take the free card hoping to hit a Ten and to a lesser extent an Ace or King. so the river now gives me tptk but on a bit of an ugly board. my first inclination was to just show it down but i can't really put anyone on a hand that beats me and checks it twice. so i decide to fire out a smallish value bet to try and entice a Jack or weak Queen to call. when i get c/r'd i wanted to die. three things led me to calling here: a) although i've never seen this player make a c/r river bluff i think it could be part of his arsenal b) my river bet looks extremely weak c) i can't put him on any hand that beats me with that line.
last nite i hopped on for a quick little one hour session and it was kinda sick. the end result was losing close to 4 buy-ins. here's all the big hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177316 - the good
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177321 - the bad (part 1)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177327 - the bad (part 2)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177332 - the bad (part 3)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177341 - the bad (part 4)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2177351 - the ugly. villain does not cold call raises often so i really put him on a smallish to med pair that he's not comfortable re-raising with or maybe even an AQ or AJ. on the flop im just calling since if he does have a hand like 77, 88... i don't want to stop him from betting and he only has 2 outs to beat me. also i still have the pre-flop raiser to act and he could be going for a c/r on this flop w/ a big hand. on the turn once again im just check/calling. im not scared of a flush and if he does have the range i think he does, im not getting any more value from raising. on the river i think i should be leading out here since the majority of the time he will give up and hope to show down against a flush draw and if he does have something like 99 he might call thinking im bluffing a busted flush draw. anyways, i checked, he shoved and i was very surprised to see AA.
i'll be playing a nice long session tonight and should be able to sneak in a mtt or two on the side.
tg
Monday, February 25, 2008
such slackage
on the posting that is. i suck and am lazy. i have however been playing a decent amount of poker of late. i think i played a little more of 50nl after the following week after my last post but then one day fired up some 100nl and have been playing that ever since.
my first session at 100nl was pretty bad and i got in a ton of tough spots where i stacked off in questionale spots. after that i went on a good run of sessions and was up in the black again. then i had another bad day and dropped close to 5 buy-ins but have come back on a nice run again and am back at a good winrate
i'm going to save the screen shots for the end of the month but i've got about 18k or 19k hands played so far this month with it evenly split between 50nl and 100nl.
on the tournament front i've only got to play two tournaments this month and didn't do too much in either. in one $26 i built up well before calling it off w/ 99 to a 3-bet shove that screamed AK which it was and lost the race. at the same time i worked my way through a 600ish person field in the $75 and didn't really have chips for most of it. when down to about 90 players i went on a nice rush and built up nicely before running AQ into AK where i probably could of folded but since i had a very lag image i went with it. during the rush my table was playing sooooo tight and the guy to my left warned me that "if he got a good hand, he was gonna play it". so w/ about 65 left and 63 paying, utg shoves like 3bb's, i'm utg+1 w/ just over 10bb's and re-ship w/ AKo, tight player snap calls and i know im done. i failed to hit and his QQ held to bust me just shy of the money.
here are some interesting hands where i got stacked from the last few sessions:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2165597 - here villain is kinda unknown but i had feeling he was fishy. my normal line here would be to 3-bet his min-raise on the flop but i decided to take a slightly different line and go for a c/r on the turn. unfortunately he checks the turn behind. on the river i decide to check again mostly to induce bluffs although the ace probably scares him from betting a Ten so i should probably just lead out. no value in raising his river bet.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2165566 - villain is an extreme fish and calls down with any pair no matter what the action. i don't think he knows there is a fold button. the flop raise is for both value and to protect my hand. i put him on a weak ace when he leads or possibly even just a bare Queen or Jack. i bet the turn for value and now start to wonder if he's maybe also got a bare diamond as well. river blank and he checks to me again, i pretty much insta-shoved for value and got quite the surprise. i was drawing slim the whole way and after reviewing the hand i find it very hard to put him on AQ/AJ when he limp/calls pre but when i check back on his stats he's raising less than 1% of his hands which means he could very well have JJ or QQ there although unlikely. missing seeing that in his hud costs me as i should probably just check this behind. the other holding he could play like this is KTo which also has me beat.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2165559 - fishy player limps and strong tag player isolates him with a raise from the button. this is a very common situation in these games and i think the button has a very wide raising range here. i think this is a fairly standard 3-bet although it's definitly on the aggressive side. folds back to villain tag and he just calls. i put him on a semi weak hand when he just flats. he could be trapping with a big hand but i kinda doubted it and put him on a more mediocre hand like AJ, AQ and mid pp's since he knows that i know he would isolate light and that i would 3-bet light. anyways, on the flop i make a somewhat smaller c-bet which i normally make in 3-bet pots pre-flop. at first i was hesitant to bet this flop because i'm not nuts about getting it in with just the flush draw and clearly behind or getting blown off my draw but this flop is really hard to hit and i think he will release the majority of his range. his raise definitly tells me he's got a hand and at this point i start to ponder whether he has AK, KQ or possibly even KK. i really think that's how narrow his range is here but he's raised small and i actually am getting the right price to see the turn and make my flush. if i don't improve on the turn i'll just dump the hand. the Ten improves me giving me a gutter to go along w/ my nut flush draw. i could shove here and maybe i should but the pot will be so big he's going to have to call even if he thinks there's a good chance he's beat. i check, he shoves but now i realize with the additional outs i'm probably getting the right price if i have a 12 outer like i expect. so i timed down and made the call but bricked out. def an interesting hand and there are many arguments to be made about every move on every street i think. in just writing down my thoughts here im now thinking that i maybe should be 3-bet shoving the flop? who knows, i'll continue to think about it and mabye even post it in the cr forums.
i'll post more thougths later,
tg
my first session at 100nl was pretty bad and i got in a ton of tough spots where i stacked off in questionale spots. after that i went on a good run of sessions and was up in the black again. then i had another bad day and dropped close to 5 buy-ins but have come back on a nice run again and am back at a good winrate
i'm going to save the screen shots for the end of the month but i've got about 18k or 19k hands played so far this month with it evenly split between 50nl and 100nl.
on the tournament front i've only got to play two tournaments this month and didn't do too much in either. in one $26 i built up well before calling it off w/ 99 to a 3-bet shove that screamed AK which it was and lost the race. at the same time i worked my way through a 600ish person field in the $75 and didn't really have chips for most of it. when down to about 90 players i went on a nice rush and built up nicely before running AQ into AK where i probably could of folded but since i had a very lag image i went with it. during the rush my table was playing sooooo tight and the guy to my left warned me that "if he got a good hand, he was gonna play it". so w/ about 65 left and 63 paying, utg shoves like 3bb's, i'm utg+1 w/ just over 10bb's and re-ship w/ AKo, tight player snap calls and i know im done. i failed to hit and his QQ held to bust me just shy of the money.
here are some interesting hands where i got stacked from the last few sessions:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2165597 - here villain is kinda unknown but i had feeling he was fishy. my normal line here would be to 3-bet his min-raise on the flop but i decided to take a slightly different line and go for a c/r on the turn. unfortunately he checks the turn behind. on the river i decide to check again mostly to induce bluffs although the ace probably scares him from betting a Ten so i should probably just lead out. no value in raising his river bet.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2165566 - villain is an extreme fish and calls down with any pair no matter what the action. i don't think he knows there is a fold button. the flop raise is for both value and to protect my hand. i put him on a weak ace when he leads or possibly even just a bare Queen or Jack. i bet the turn for value and now start to wonder if he's maybe also got a bare diamond as well. river blank and he checks to me again, i pretty much insta-shoved for value and got quite the surprise. i was drawing slim the whole way and after reviewing the hand i find it very hard to put him on AQ/AJ when he limp/calls pre but when i check back on his stats he's raising less than 1% of his hands which means he could very well have JJ or QQ there although unlikely. missing seeing that in his hud costs me as i should probably just check this behind. the other holding he could play like this is KTo which also has me beat.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2165559 - fishy player limps and strong tag player isolates him with a raise from the button. this is a very common situation in these games and i think the button has a very wide raising range here. i think this is a fairly standard 3-bet although it's definitly on the aggressive side. folds back to villain tag and he just calls. i put him on a semi weak hand when he just flats. he could be trapping with a big hand but i kinda doubted it and put him on a more mediocre hand like AJ, AQ and mid pp's since he knows that i know he would isolate light and that i would 3-bet light. anyways, on the flop i make a somewhat smaller c-bet which i normally make in 3-bet pots pre-flop. at first i was hesitant to bet this flop because i'm not nuts about getting it in with just the flush draw and clearly behind or getting blown off my draw but this flop is really hard to hit and i think he will release the majority of his range. his raise definitly tells me he's got a hand and at this point i start to ponder whether he has AK, KQ or possibly even KK. i really think that's how narrow his range is here but he's raised small and i actually am getting the right price to see the turn and make my flush. if i don't improve on the turn i'll just dump the hand. the Ten improves me giving me a gutter to go along w/ my nut flush draw. i could shove here and maybe i should but the pot will be so big he's going to have to call even if he thinks there's a good chance he's beat. i check, he shoves but now i realize with the additional outs i'm probably getting the right price if i have a 12 outer like i expect. so i timed down and made the call but bricked out. def an interesting hand and there are many arguments to be made about every move on every street i think. in just writing down my thoughts here im now thinking that i maybe should be 3-bet shoving the flop? who knows, i'll continue to think about it and mabye even post it in the cr forums.
i'll post more thougths later,
tg
Monday, February 11, 2008
almost hit 5k hands
my goal going into the weekend was to play 5k hands and i basically got there. i think the final tally was 4,774 hands or something like that which for me is an absolute ton. my goal of 5k was going to be 4 tabling friday nite, saturday aft and sunday aft but i never got to play friday nite at all. so when i sat down saturday for my session i decided to try 8 tabling. it actually went a lot better than i thought it would since anytime i've ever tried anything over 5 tables it's been tough.
while it helped me to put in a ton of hands i don't think 8 tabling is optimal for a player trying to learn the game. the only time i think it's a good idea really is when you're playing to make money rather than playing to improve, get better and move up limits. So after the dust settled i made a wopping $31 for my effort. the quest started off slow and i was down a couple buy-ins early but came back and finished saturday up 3 buy-ins. then on sunday a hit a few more tough spots and ended up losing back over 2 buy-ins.
i also got out to play live on saturday night and after waiting 3 hours sat down for some 1/2nl w/ a $100 cap buy-in. they've actually started introducing 1/2 tables w/ a $200 cap so i think i'll play those from now on since the 2/5nl game has a $300 cap. the games made me happy to realize that there is still a ton of money to be made in poker. in the two tables i sat at i did not see one player that was good. not saying im great but if it weren't for my raises every pot would have been 7 ways limped. i ended up losing $30 after dicking around a bit at the end of the session and once c-betting what i thought was a heads up pot but not seeing a third guy had limp/called my raise and shoved the flop so that cost me. can't wait to play in vegas but i'll definitly have to be more disciplined than i am when playing live close to home.
anyways, here are all the hands that i got stacked with during the course of the weekend. some are just plain ugly play but i'll explain my thoughts.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082883 - villain just sat down and is complete unknown, against a good player i can get away from this but i have a hard time folding w/o a read. maybe i should be folding to unknowns too.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082882 - villain was very bad maniac and has a huge opening range and his flop min-raise is so wide that i'm never folding to him. i only call the raise cuz if i shove he might find a fold but will almost certainly shove the turn thinking he has fold equity.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082881 - i get stacked again w/ an overpair to an unknown villain on a super bad flop for my hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082879 - ugghh, embarassing. i didn't have any pahud stats on villain yet but he's been aggressive and has 3-bet my raises a couple times already. i decide to call light in position this time and get married to top pair. the thing that made me call down was that he was timing down every street before making his bet which i thought was weak. oh well. he ended up being a very snug player and i think every move i saw him make early was a legit hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082877 - this one is pretty standard.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082875 - a beat to spice things up.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082874 - this one sucked. villain is playing 70/30ish over a good enough sample and i snap called. i think this is a very borderline ev call and im not sold on folding or calling either way.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082873 - this hand me sick to my stomach. villain is playing 13/9 over a large sample and is on two or three of my other tables. i've not seen him get out of line once and when he put the small 4-bet in i was 90% sure he had Aces but went with it anyways. i went through the math and it looks like he would need to be showing up w/ QQ a small % of the time and AK a decent % of the time to make it worth calling. i've never been one to agree to folding KK pre but this hand might make me a believer.
tg
while it helped me to put in a ton of hands i don't think 8 tabling is optimal for a player trying to learn the game. the only time i think it's a good idea really is when you're playing to make money rather than playing to improve, get better and move up limits. So after the dust settled i made a wopping $31 for my effort. the quest started off slow and i was down a couple buy-ins early but came back and finished saturday up 3 buy-ins. then on sunday a hit a few more tough spots and ended up losing back over 2 buy-ins.
i also got out to play live on saturday night and after waiting 3 hours sat down for some 1/2nl w/ a $100 cap buy-in. they've actually started introducing 1/2 tables w/ a $200 cap so i think i'll play those from now on since the 2/5nl game has a $300 cap. the games made me happy to realize that there is still a ton of money to be made in poker. in the two tables i sat at i did not see one player that was good. not saying im great but if it weren't for my raises every pot would have been 7 ways limped. i ended up losing $30 after dicking around a bit at the end of the session and once c-betting what i thought was a heads up pot but not seeing a third guy had limp/called my raise and shoved the flop so that cost me. can't wait to play in vegas but i'll definitly have to be more disciplined than i am when playing live close to home.
anyways, here are all the hands that i got stacked with during the course of the weekend. some are just plain ugly play but i'll explain my thoughts.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082883 - villain just sat down and is complete unknown, against a good player i can get away from this but i have a hard time folding w/o a read. maybe i should be folding to unknowns too.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082882 - villain was very bad maniac and has a huge opening range and his flop min-raise is so wide that i'm never folding to him. i only call the raise cuz if i shove he might find a fold but will almost certainly shove the turn thinking he has fold equity.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082881 - i get stacked again w/ an overpair to an unknown villain on a super bad flop for my hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082879 - ugghh, embarassing. i didn't have any pahud stats on villain yet but he's been aggressive and has 3-bet my raises a couple times already. i decide to call light in position this time and get married to top pair. the thing that made me call down was that he was timing down every street before making his bet which i thought was weak. oh well. he ended up being a very snug player and i think every move i saw him make early was a legit hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082877 - this one is pretty standard.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082875 - a beat to spice things up.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082874 - this one sucked. villain is playing 70/30ish over a good enough sample and i snap called. i think this is a very borderline ev call and im not sold on folding or calling either way.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2082873 - this hand me sick to my stomach. villain is playing 13/9 over a large sample and is on two or three of my other tables. i've not seen him get out of line once and when he put the small 4-bet in i was 90% sure he had Aces but went with it anyways. i went through the math and it looks like he would need to be showing up w/ QQ a small % of the time and AK a decent % of the time to make it worth calling. i've never been one to agree to folding KK pre but this hand might make me a believer.
tg
Friday, February 8, 2008
getting in the groove
didn't get to play this week until last night where i put in a nice little 1200 hand session. i ended up down a buy-in but think i played pretty well. for the first time ever, i'm actually confident playing a nl cash game no matter 6-max. i think i've turned a corner from playing a guessing game when thinking out a hand to becoming a lot more in tune with ranges and how certain style players would play certain hand types.
something about it just seems a bit clearer for some reason. i had an excellent coaching session last night that brought to light a major leak i have and that apparently is pretty common, especially in a player that is coming from a limit holdem background. also, some of the hands i've misplayed over the last week, i've analysed after the session and come up with the correct decisions that should have been made.
so this weekend i should have quite a bit of time to play. i'm going to set a goal of 5k hands but won't force on myself if i feel im not playing at the top of my game. i might also get a chance to play some live saturday night which i've absolutely been itching for. i'm so pumped right now that i'm actually dying to move up to 100nl from 50nl. i think since i started playing 50nl in late jan i've played maybe 11k hands and am up around 6 buy-ins.
we'll see, it wouldn't really be taking a shot per se since i have the bankroll for it but in the beginning i did say i wanted to play 50nl for the month of feb so maybe i'll just stick with that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
so when i haven't been playing this week, i've been researching another site to put $ on. i love everything about full tilt and would never fully leave the site but i would like to take a few shots on other sites to try find the softest competition possible. i've researched pretty much every site on the net and have come to two sites that i'll probably try out. party poker and pacific poker seem like the most logical. for one, party is supposedly still pretty soft and if i can back door a rakeback deal there i think i'd like to try and play a couple thousand hands so i can make my own judgement. pacific has recenlty added rakeback so i would have a rakeback deal there plus they supposedly have the softest games online still. the software seems a little clunky but manageable. for now im going to stay on ftp but maybe once im back from vegas in march i will re-invest some of that roll into a diff site.
ftops is running currently but i haven't had the urge to play anything. i might try to sat into the sunday 6pm event but other than that i will probably play a few regular mtts during the course of the weekend.
hopefully my next update will include a couple hands with thoughts.
tg
something about it just seems a bit clearer for some reason. i had an excellent coaching session last night that brought to light a major leak i have and that apparently is pretty common, especially in a player that is coming from a limit holdem background. also, some of the hands i've misplayed over the last week, i've analysed after the session and come up with the correct decisions that should have been made.
so this weekend i should have quite a bit of time to play. i'm going to set a goal of 5k hands but won't force on myself if i feel im not playing at the top of my game. i might also get a chance to play some live saturday night which i've absolutely been itching for. i'm so pumped right now that i'm actually dying to move up to 100nl from 50nl. i think since i started playing 50nl in late jan i've played maybe 11k hands and am up around 6 buy-ins.
we'll see, it wouldn't really be taking a shot per se since i have the bankroll for it but in the beginning i did say i wanted to play 50nl for the month of feb so maybe i'll just stick with that.
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so when i haven't been playing this week, i've been researching another site to put $ on. i love everything about full tilt and would never fully leave the site but i would like to take a few shots on other sites to try find the softest competition possible. i've researched pretty much every site on the net and have come to two sites that i'll probably try out. party poker and pacific poker seem like the most logical. for one, party is supposedly still pretty soft and if i can back door a rakeback deal there i think i'd like to try and play a couple thousand hands so i can make my own judgement. pacific has recenlty added rakeback so i would have a rakeback deal there plus they supposedly have the softest games online still. the software seems a little clunky but manageable. for now im going to stay on ftp but maybe once im back from vegas in march i will re-invest some of that roll into a diff site.
ftops is running currently but i haven't had the urge to play anything. i might try to sat into the sunday 6pm event but other than that i will probably play a few regular mtts during the course of the weekend.
hopefully my next update will include a couple hands with thoughts.
tg
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
bunch of nl cash
so i've mainly been playing 50nl 6-max of late. i feel i have a lot better mindset for tackling these games now than i did back last summer. i managed to play about 6k hands of 50nl at the end of january finishing down a little over two buy-ins. i was up as much as 7 early and then had a horrid session losing close to 9 buy-ins over a stretch of 1800 hands.
i had a coaching session last week which went well and re-affirmed a few things i was doing well and addressed a few areas where i could be leaking money. since the beginning of february i've played about 3.1k hands and am up 9 buy-ins i believe. definilty running hotter than expectation but i think im starting to get a better grasp at the games as well. one thing for sure, the 50nl games on full tilt probably play like 10/20 nl live. it's unbelievable, i spend so much time hopping tables since there are plenty more tags than there are fish in the games. still, i think i'm playing the tags well and even though most have good pt stats, i find they are still making some fairly big mistakes against me.
so far i think im playing pretty close to 20/17 with an af > 3. the af should come down some as the sample size gets bigger. i'm hoping to start reviewing hands in the blog but for now i don't have pokertracker holdem on this computer which makes it hard.
i think i've only had a chance to play two tournies since my last post, one i busted early i believe and the other, surprise surprise, i finshed 31st out of 1198 people for another close but no cigar finish.
i withdrew 4k from ftp yesterday for my vegas trip and a few expenses that have come up. i think i'll end up having around 3k to play with in vegas + a few extra bucks for the odd time i'll actually eat. i guess i've pretty much passed off the idea of playing in any events at the wynn while im there. if they have satellites and i have time i might hop in one of them but i'm not going to plunking down 1.5k on one tournament. i still have time to hit a decent score in a tourny online but variance makes it unlikely. for the next month i will probably only playing mtt's on tuesday nights and even then i'll probably only play the 7pm $75 and the 8pm $26 on ftp. upon coming back from vegas i might stick some money on another site since i think there have to be softer spots online than full tilt right now. the problem is finding a site that i can get rakeback on, supports pokertracker and pahud and has the soft traffic im looking for.
not sure how long i'll play 50nl for but will probably just move up based on feel and what my winrate is over a more significant sample.
til next time.
tg
i had a coaching session last week which went well and re-affirmed a few things i was doing well and addressed a few areas where i could be leaking money. since the beginning of february i've played about 3.1k hands and am up 9 buy-ins i believe. definilty running hotter than expectation but i think im starting to get a better grasp at the games as well. one thing for sure, the 50nl games on full tilt probably play like 10/20 nl live. it's unbelievable, i spend so much time hopping tables since there are plenty more tags than there are fish in the games. still, i think i'm playing the tags well and even though most have good pt stats, i find they are still making some fairly big mistakes against me.
so far i think im playing pretty close to 20/17 with an af > 3. the af should come down some as the sample size gets bigger. i'm hoping to start reviewing hands in the blog but for now i don't have pokertracker holdem on this computer which makes it hard.
i think i've only had a chance to play two tournies since my last post, one i busted early i believe and the other, surprise surprise, i finshed 31st out of 1198 people for another close but no cigar finish.
i withdrew 4k from ftp yesterday for my vegas trip and a few expenses that have come up. i think i'll end up having around 3k to play with in vegas + a few extra bucks for the odd time i'll actually eat. i guess i've pretty much passed off the idea of playing in any events at the wynn while im there. if they have satellites and i have time i might hop in one of them but i'm not going to plunking down 1.5k on one tournament. i still have time to hit a decent score in a tourny online but variance makes it unlikely. for the next month i will probably only playing mtt's on tuesday nights and even then i'll probably only play the 7pm $75 and the 8pm $26 on ftp. upon coming back from vegas i might stick some money on another site since i think there have to be softer spots online than full tilt right now. the problem is finding a site that i can get rakeback on, supports pokertracker and pahud and has the soft traffic im looking for.
not sure how long i'll play 50nl for but will probably just move up based on feel and what my winrate is over a more significant sample.
til next time.
tg
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
all over the place
so i haven't posted in a long time after trying to get back in the groove of posting. i guess for the most part i've slacked on posting because there has nothing really noteworthy to post about. i played a ton of poker between my last post and last week but didn't really have much to show for it.
on the tournament front it's been the same old story. play well, run well, get deep, bust out in the final 3 tables. i finally had an early bustout the other day when i ran KK into AA pre but other than that i'm usually making the 2nd hour of everything.
for most of the time i've been playing cash and it's been a mix of lhe 6-max, limit O8 and razz. i started picking up on razz a bit and really enjoy the game. my first session i won like 40bb's one tabling on the side. since then it's been a slow bleed and i've probably lost that back plus some. very fun game but very frustrating at times. i had one session where i was getting dealt premium after premium and then bricking 4th and 5th if i made it that far. lo8 has gotten kinda boring to me and i've also found that i get a little too impatient and end up spewing chips in spots where im beat handily. i still plan on playing some to switch things up but for now am only hopping in good full ring games. limit holdem went well and i've probably made another 60bb's or so after going stale for a bit.
last week i had a bit of a frustrating night. i don't do well playing a heavy schedule and when i've played for more than 3 or 4 days in a row i tend to need a break from the game. last week i think i had played about 5 days in a row and was in need of a night off. instead i played again trying to make something happen on the tournament front since i have been getting close. it ended up in a bit of a disaster and tilted off my tournaments after just not caring. that pisses me off when i do that so decided to take a little break. i didn't play thursday or friday, played a nice litlle 850 hand session of no-limit 6 max (more on that later) and then took sunday and monday off as well. the break has done me good and i've come away with a few realizations.
1 - i have a short attention span and find it hard to stick to one discipline (poker wise) which leads me to game hopping. in the last year i've went from mtt's ----> sng's----> nl cash ---> back to mtt's ----> plo ---> back to mtt's --->hi/lo games ----> limit holdem ----> .....
now, this might not be the worst thing in the world since i have got experience at almost all games except for stud hi. i think with the experience i will have a decent edge in most of these tournaments now since most fields for games other than holdem are quite weak. the flip side of this is im never really building bankroll, rather losing some when trying to get around the learning curve of a game i've never played before. so once again i've got the itch for nl cash. my session last week came at 50nl and instead of filling my game with laggish fps, i went at it tight and solid. i need to develope a good tag base of my game and learn the fundamentals before i can start splashing around with more advanced strategies. i think improving my nl cash game will only benefit my tourny play and will also help me build bankroll since there are always a plethora of nl games to choose from.
2 - im putting too much pressure on myself to build up a big roll. lately the frustration of getting deep and not finishing big has caused me to chase bigger tournaments in search of bigger scores. from now on im not going to worry about making enough money so i can take a shot while in vegas. if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. i have lots of time to progress as a poker player.
so thats it, one big rant of a post and hopefully i can stay on track posting from now on. i am on the lookout for another coach for nl. i think it's well worth the investment and can really alleviate a lot of the growing pains as a player.
tg
on the tournament front it's been the same old story. play well, run well, get deep, bust out in the final 3 tables. i finally had an early bustout the other day when i ran KK into AA pre but other than that i'm usually making the 2nd hour of everything.
for most of the time i've been playing cash and it's been a mix of lhe 6-max, limit O8 and razz. i started picking up on razz a bit and really enjoy the game. my first session i won like 40bb's one tabling on the side. since then it's been a slow bleed and i've probably lost that back plus some. very fun game but very frustrating at times. i had one session where i was getting dealt premium after premium and then bricking 4th and 5th if i made it that far. lo8 has gotten kinda boring to me and i've also found that i get a little too impatient and end up spewing chips in spots where im beat handily. i still plan on playing some to switch things up but for now am only hopping in good full ring games. limit holdem went well and i've probably made another 60bb's or so after going stale for a bit.
last week i had a bit of a frustrating night. i don't do well playing a heavy schedule and when i've played for more than 3 or 4 days in a row i tend to need a break from the game. last week i think i had played about 5 days in a row and was in need of a night off. instead i played again trying to make something happen on the tournament front since i have been getting close. it ended up in a bit of a disaster and tilted off my tournaments after just not caring. that pisses me off when i do that so decided to take a little break. i didn't play thursday or friday, played a nice litlle 850 hand session of no-limit 6 max (more on that later) and then took sunday and monday off as well. the break has done me good and i've come away with a few realizations.
1 - i have a short attention span and find it hard to stick to one discipline (poker wise) which leads me to game hopping. in the last year i've went from mtt's ----> sng's----> nl cash ---> back to mtt's ----> plo ---> back to mtt's --->hi/lo games ----> limit holdem ----> .....
now, this might not be the worst thing in the world since i have got experience at almost all games except for stud hi. i think with the experience i will have a decent edge in most of these tournaments now since most fields for games other than holdem are quite weak. the flip side of this is im never really building bankroll, rather losing some when trying to get around the learning curve of a game i've never played before. so once again i've got the itch for nl cash. my session last week came at 50nl and instead of filling my game with laggish fps, i went at it tight and solid. i need to develope a good tag base of my game and learn the fundamentals before i can start splashing around with more advanced strategies. i think improving my nl cash game will only benefit my tourny play and will also help me build bankroll since there are always a plethora of nl games to choose from.
2 - im putting too much pressure on myself to build up a big roll. lately the frustration of getting deep and not finishing big has caused me to chase bigger tournaments in search of bigger scores. from now on im not going to worry about making enough money so i can take a shot while in vegas. if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. i have lots of time to progress as a poker player.
so thats it, one big rant of a post and hopefully i can stay on track posting from now on. i am on the lookout for another coach for nl. i think it's well worth the investment and can really alleviate a lot of the growing pains as a player.
tg
Monday, January 7, 2008
weekend results + last night
played some on the weekend and overall probably lost a few bucks. i played friday night but didn't get started till late so i missed all the good tournaments and when i don't start till 11pm i don't like to play tournaments since it will mean staying up to the weee hours if i get deep. so i stuck it out 4 tabling 2/4 lhe 6-max and mixed in some 5/10 l08. i think after about 1k hands of lhe and maybe a hundred or so of l08 i think i broke dead nuts even.
saturday night i sat down around 10pm and played the 10:15pm $26 horse mtt and finished something like 65th/241. i also played the $10 rebuy at 10:30pm and pretty much dinked around the rebuy period and finally doubled up near the end w/ 7k before taking the 2k add-on. after the rebuy period i probably played the nittiest poker of my life and pretty much sat there and folded for the entire 2nd hour minus one or two small pots played. it was pretty much a combo of dead cards and poor position at an aggressive table. after that i picked up KK and doubled up when a really bizarre hand occurred.
utg (good player) has about 11k, i have about 5.8k and sb has about 14k to start the hand and the blinds are 200/400/50a.
utg raises to 1k and i decide to just shove and the sb tanks. i figured he must be pretty strong but was rooting for a call. somehow sb called w/ Q8s????????? and utg folded. so i doubled there and then busted sometime later. i was still playing pretty tight and when mp opened i decided to play my AA a little differently. he raised and i smooth called hoping the sb from the previous hand might do something stupid in the bb. he didn't and we took a J98r flop heads-up. kind of a crappy flop but im not folding here anytime so i check, mp bets my stack and i called. he had KJo and spiked a K on the turn and another J on the river to send me packing.
so after that i put in another 700 hands or so of lhe and maybe a 100 or so at l08 and i think ended up losing $80 or so in lhe and broke even in l08 after jamming with what i thought was the nut high and was shown the real nut high. duh.
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saturday night i sat down around 10pm and played the 10:15pm $26 horse mtt and finished something like 65th/241. i also played the $10 rebuy at 10:30pm and pretty much dinked around the rebuy period and finally doubled up near the end w/ 7k before taking the 2k add-on. after the rebuy period i probably played the nittiest poker of my life and pretty much sat there and folded for the entire 2nd hour minus one or two small pots played. it was pretty much a combo of dead cards and poor position at an aggressive table. after that i picked up KK and doubled up when a really bizarre hand occurred.
utg (good player) has about 11k, i have about 5.8k and sb has about 14k to start the hand and the blinds are 200/400/50a.
utg raises to 1k and i decide to just shove and the sb tanks. i figured he must be pretty strong but was rooting for a call. somehow sb called w/ Q8s????????? and utg folded. so i doubled there and then busted sometime later. i was still playing pretty tight and when mp opened i decided to play my AA a little differently. he raised and i smooth called hoping the sb from the previous hand might do something stupid in the bb. he didn't and we took a J98r flop heads-up. kind of a crappy flop but im not folding here anytime so i check, mp bets my stack and i called. he had KJo and spiked a K on the turn and another J on the river to send me packing.
so after that i put in another 700 hands or so of lhe and maybe a 100 or so at l08 and i think ended up losing $80 or so in lhe and broke even in l08 after jamming with what i thought was the nut high and was shown the real nut high. duh.
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tournament poker stunk last night. here's the recap:
7pm $75 - up and down like a yoyo before busting before the 1st break by c/r all-in w/ middle pair against a button limper that i felt was auto betting the flop when checked to. he had a ragged top pair.
7:15pm $26 limit holdem - busted 2nd hour after being crippled with top two against a set.
8pm $26 - lost close to a 1/3 of my stack on the first hand calling a raise in position w/ 76s, called a bet on a J65 one diamond flop, called another bet on a Kd turn, checked behind on the river and was shown AJo. doubled shortly into the 2nd hour re-stealing w/ ATs from the sb and won a race against 99. eventually got short again and lost a flip w/ 88 vs AQo.
8pm $165 - lost 1/2 my stack early flopping top set TT on a T54r board against a donkey when he c/r me all-in and the turn river came 23 and he scooped it with A4o. then used said donkey as my whipping boy and took almost everything back plus some and really ran over the table for a while. late in the 2nd hour i call a min-raise in the bb w/ 22. flop came T73, i checked and pre-flop raiser checked behind, turn came a 9 and i fired out a bet and he called. river came a 7 and i fired another bullet putting him on AK or AQ and he called w/ QT. now im hovering around w/ 16bb's, last hand of the 2nd hour, utg limps, mp limps, sb completes and i check J8s in the bb. flop comes a beauty 858. sb checks, i check, utg bets 2/3 pot, mp calls, sb calls and with so much already in the pot i just shove instead of getting cute. all fold back to sb who calls with Q8o and i don't catch up.
also played a couple $75 45 person sngs and did nothing in them and ran a couple $33 turbo sngs and had one 3rd place.
after that i put in a little hour long session of 2/4 shlhe and 5/10 lo8 and broke even.
next post will have some goals including the upcoming ftops.
tg
Friday, January 4, 2008
been a while
but i haven't really played. i took almost all of the holidays off from poker. it wasn't really planned but i was never really in the mood to play so i spent sometime reading but that was about it. i played a little bit late last week but it was mostly just some limit holdem and omaha hi/lo cash.
my december was an ok month, i made about $500 playing nlh, lost about $250 playing lhe, won about $750 from omaha hi/lo, made a little bit playing sng's and probably broke close to even in tournaments.
i put in my first real session of the year last nigth. played the 7pm $75 and got bounced early on a bad beat that i can't really remember at the moment. the 8pm $26 was unlucky as well as i ran Q2o from the bb into the sb's Q6o on a Q62 flop. the 8pm $163 was another good showing and for the 879434798102348 time i made it deep but finished 27th. i took some beats in this tourny as well early when i built up a stack and then lost QQ vs AQ, KT vs 77 on a T8x flop and chopped AK vs KQ on a KT3 flop when the turn and river came 33. it's getting a little frustrating getting this deep in this tournament and never even getting a sniff of the final table but i guess it could be worse and it's really over a small sample when i think of it.
during the tournaments i ran up to 4 tables of 2/4 6-max limit holdem and got about 1150 hands in. the results were pretty good finishing up $650 which is a sick 162.5bb. i obv ran like god but the opponent play was atrocious. i'll continue to work on my limit holdem game especially 6-max since that's were all the action is at. i also logged some hands playing 5/10 omaha hi/lo and played one hand very poorly that resulted in me being down about 5 bb's in that game.
not sure when i'll play next but my next post will probably include my goals for the first half of '08.
tg
my december was an ok month, i made about $500 playing nlh, lost about $250 playing lhe, won about $750 from omaha hi/lo, made a little bit playing sng's and probably broke close to even in tournaments.
i put in my first real session of the year last nigth. played the 7pm $75 and got bounced early on a bad beat that i can't really remember at the moment. the 8pm $26 was unlucky as well as i ran Q2o from the bb into the sb's Q6o on a Q62 flop. the 8pm $163 was another good showing and for the 879434798102348 time i made it deep but finished 27th. i took some beats in this tourny as well early when i built up a stack and then lost QQ vs AQ, KT vs 77 on a T8x flop and chopped AK vs KQ on a KT3 flop when the turn and river came 33. it's getting a little frustrating getting this deep in this tournament and never even getting a sniff of the final table but i guess it could be worse and it's really over a small sample when i think of it.
during the tournaments i ran up to 4 tables of 2/4 6-max limit holdem and got about 1150 hands in. the results were pretty good finishing up $650 which is a sick 162.5bb. i obv ran like god but the opponent play was atrocious. i'll continue to work on my limit holdem game especially 6-max since that's were all the action is at. i also logged some hands playing 5/10 omaha hi/lo and played one hand very poorly that resulted in me being down about 5 bb's in that game.
not sure when i'll play next but my next post will probably include my goals for the first half of '08.
tg
Saturday, December 22, 2007
more of the same
played a couple times in the last few days. played some more mixed games pretty much breaking even in limit holdem, losing a little bit playing stud 8 (played very bad one day) and up a decent amount in omaha 8. a few of the omaha 8 sessions were up at 8/16 because thats all that was running so i took a shot. the play was pretty poor for that level and i managed to make some hands and scoop a nice little profit.
tournaments have been the same. played a few last nite and went deep in the 10pm $26 but eventually busted like 60th out of a 1200+ field. im probably up a little in sngs but have way too many 2nds and 3rds compared to wins.
i hope to put in a nice session today and play a few of the early afternoon tournaments. oh yeah, i also hopped in a satellite for the 750k sunday and won a seat so i'll have a rare opportunity to play that as well. since im playing it i will probably also play the mulligan and the horse event.
tg
tournaments have been the same. played a few last nite and went deep in the 10pm $26 but eventually busted like 60th out of a 1200+ field. im probably up a little in sngs but have way too many 2nds and 3rds compared to wins.
i hope to put in a nice session today and play a few of the early afternoon tournaments. oh yeah, i also hopped in a satellite for the 750k sunday and won a seat so i'll have a rare opportunity to play that as well. since im playing it i will probably also play the mulligan and the horse event.
tg
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
playing some mixed games
haven't really played much since the last post.
put in maybe an 1.5hr session saturday night before going out and then played for about 3hrs yesterday. all of it was cash and most of the time i had two 3/6 full ring limit holdem tables plus one 2/4 stud eight or better and one 2/4 or 3/6 omaha eight or better.
i think after everything is said and done im probably even in stud 8 although i played one hand so bad it made the baby jesus cry. i think im up about a $100 or so in omaha 8 and down probably close to $250 in holdem. i ran like total garbage yesterd in holdem and dropped about 40 bets over the course of like 450 hands. it was pretty sick but the good part is that a lot of it was due to poor play by opponents.
im almost done reading the stud 8 portion of hi/low split by ray zee and im starting to feel more comfortable with the game although i'll probably need to put in a lot of hands and re-read the book again before i can say im fully competent. i'll read the omaha 8 portion next and then hopefully the books i ordered come in so i can start on them. i ordered "sklansky on poker" which deals mostly with razz, "seven card stud for advanced players" which is a stud hi book and the new revised version of "tournament poker for advanced players". hopefully they will come in during the course of the holidays when i should have lots of time to read up. otherwise i'll probably bust out holdem for advanced players since i feel my holdem game is lacking a bit and i never made it all the way through that book. i'd also like to re-read theory of poker since i read it very quickly when i first bought it and probably didn't understand a lot of the concepts at that time. when i haven't been reading i've watching a lot of cardrunners and pxf vids. sometimes i feel like i have a really good handle on tournment poker when all of a sudden i'll watch a rizen video and be blown away. 2 weeks later i can't believe how bad i used to play and realize that i have so much more to learn.
i should be playing tonight but im not sure if i'll have the whole night to dedicate to tournaments.
tg
put in maybe an 1.5hr session saturday night before going out and then played for about 3hrs yesterday. all of it was cash and most of the time i had two 3/6 full ring limit holdem tables plus one 2/4 stud eight or better and one 2/4 or 3/6 omaha eight or better.
i think after everything is said and done im probably even in stud 8 although i played one hand so bad it made the baby jesus cry. i think im up about a $100 or so in omaha 8 and down probably close to $250 in holdem. i ran like total garbage yesterd in holdem and dropped about 40 bets over the course of like 450 hands. it was pretty sick but the good part is that a lot of it was due to poor play by opponents.
im almost done reading the stud 8 portion of hi/low split by ray zee and im starting to feel more comfortable with the game although i'll probably need to put in a lot of hands and re-read the book again before i can say im fully competent. i'll read the omaha 8 portion next and then hopefully the books i ordered come in so i can start on them. i ordered "sklansky on poker" which deals mostly with razz, "seven card stud for advanced players" which is a stud hi book and the new revised version of "tournament poker for advanced players". hopefully they will come in during the course of the holidays when i should have lots of time to read up. otherwise i'll probably bust out holdem for advanced players since i feel my holdem game is lacking a bit and i never made it all the way through that book. i'd also like to re-read theory of poker since i read it very quickly when i first bought it and probably didn't understand a lot of the concepts at that time. when i haven't been reading i've watching a lot of cardrunners and pxf vids. sometimes i feel like i have a really good handle on tournment poker when all of a sudden i'll watch a rizen video and be blown away. 2 weeks later i can't believe how bad i used to play and realize that i have so much more to learn.
i should be playing tonight but im not sure if i'll have the whole night to dedicate to tournaments.
tg
Saturday, December 15, 2007
i can't win cack bro!
aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
busted 39th in the $163 again for a small cash. felt i played great in this tournament and was down to 1.8k at 200/400/50a blinds and fought all the way back to have like 30k a mere 10 minutes later. here's the bust out hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1812786 - im not sure if i can play this any differently.
also went deep in the $26 plo tourny busting 11th on a sick hand where this guy that was berating others play decided to call off his tourny life on the turn w/ an open ended straight draw and ragged pair.
finally cashed in a $75 45 person sng coming 3rd for like $500 or something so i made a little money on the night but not as much as i could of.
i think i'll play a little cash today and if i don't end up going out tonight i might hop into some more tournies.
tg
busted 39th in the $163 again for a small cash. felt i played great in this tournament and was down to 1.8k at 200/400/50a blinds and fought all the way back to have like 30k a mere 10 minutes later. here's the bust out hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1812786 - im not sure if i can play this any differently.
also went deep in the $26 plo tourny busting 11th on a sick hand where this guy that was berating others play decided to call off his tourny life on the turn w/ an open ended straight draw and ragged pair.
finally cashed in a $75 45 person sng coming 3rd for like $500 or something so i made a little money on the night but not as much as i could of.
i think i'll play a little cash today and if i don't end up going out tonight i might hop into some more tournies.
tg
Thursday, December 13, 2007
getting deep....
but can't finish.
i've went deep in 3 tournies over the last two nights and busted in the final 3 or 4 tables of each.
two nights ago was the hardest. i played the $163 at 8pm and 1st place was a tasty 20.6k. i had my eyes on taking it down all day but it wasn't meant to be. i ended up busting 32nd when my 99 got drawn out by A7o. the hand played itself though as i only had 10bb's in the bb and the sb had about 30bb's and was shoving on me everytime it was folded to him.
last night i went deep twice. the first was the $26 6pm where i busted 26th out of like 604. the bust out in that hand was a pretty sick cooler. the blinds were 800/1600/200a and i had about 20k behind and was in the bb w/ Q7s. mp min-raised and the sb called. both had me covered and i was getting over 6-1 to flick the additional 1600 in so i did since it doesn't really change the flexibility of my stack. the flop came down QQ9r, sb checked and i decided to lead out for 4k into the 11.4k pot. i thought this bet would induce a lot of shoves from a lot of pair hands that mp might have been raising since i would still be able to fold if shoved on. he shoved, sb folded and i obv called. he had 99 for the flopped underfull and i didn't improve.
after that i had went on a nice run and built up chips in the 7pm $75. down to 36 i had about 18bb's and picked up AJo in the cutoff. folded to me and i raised a little less than 3x but was committed to the hand since all three players behind had 15-20bb stacks making it a likely situation for a re-steal. sure enough bb (who just had me covered) re-shipped and i snap called and probably looked like a donkey doing so but i was correct and he had 55. i lost that flip and shortly thereafter shut it down for the night after busting in the 200's of the 1200 person field in the 8pm $26.
i can't complain about not running well though as i think i ran very well to get as deep as i did. in the $163 i put a big suckout on another player for my tourny life when i shoved 7bb's from lp w/ Q8o and snapped off his AQo. also in the $75, i was very short and shoved 43s from lp and snapped off another AQo when the flop came a tasty 256r. all of my big favorites have been holding up and i've been winning my share of flips, i just can't finish the job.
oh well, i think im playing my best right now so that's all i can really ask for. i think i'll take tonite off since it's my b-day and i'll probably be back in action tomorrow night.
im also going to add a win in the nightly $163 to my christmas list.
tg
i've went deep in 3 tournies over the last two nights and busted in the final 3 or 4 tables of each.
two nights ago was the hardest. i played the $163 at 8pm and 1st place was a tasty 20.6k. i had my eyes on taking it down all day but it wasn't meant to be. i ended up busting 32nd when my 99 got drawn out by A7o. the hand played itself though as i only had 10bb's in the bb and the sb had about 30bb's and was shoving on me everytime it was folded to him.
last night i went deep twice. the first was the $26 6pm where i busted 26th out of like 604. the bust out in that hand was a pretty sick cooler. the blinds were 800/1600/200a and i had about 20k behind and was in the bb w/ Q7s. mp min-raised and the sb called. both had me covered and i was getting over 6-1 to flick the additional 1600 in so i did since it doesn't really change the flexibility of my stack. the flop came down QQ9r, sb checked and i decided to lead out for 4k into the 11.4k pot. i thought this bet would induce a lot of shoves from a lot of pair hands that mp might have been raising since i would still be able to fold if shoved on. he shoved, sb folded and i obv called. he had 99 for the flopped underfull and i didn't improve.
after that i had went on a nice run and built up chips in the 7pm $75. down to 36 i had about 18bb's and picked up AJo in the cutoff. folded to me and i raised a little less than 3x but was committed to the hand since all three players behind had 15-20bb stacks making it a likely situation for a re-steal. sure enough bb (who just had me covered) re-shipped and i snap called and probably looked like a donkey doing so but i was correct and he had 55. i lost that flip and shortly thereafter shut it down for the night after busting in the 200's of the 1200 person field in the 8pm $26.
i can't complain about not running well though as i think i ran very well to get as deep as i did. in the $163 i put a big suckout on another player for my tourny life when i shoved 7bb's from lp w/ Q8o and snapped off his AQo. also in the $75, i was very short and shoved 43s from lp and snapped off another AQo when the flop came a tasty 256r. all of my big favorites have been holding up and i've been winning my share of flips, i just can't finish the job.
oh well, i think im playing my best right now so that's all i can really ask for. i think i'll take tonite off since it's my b-day and i'll probably be back in action tomorrow night.
im also going to add a win in the nightly $163 to my christmas list.
tg
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