2008 year in review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

tg

xmas wasn't so merry

on the poker front at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gonna play tonight aiming for another 2k hands.

tg.

i never liked festivus anyways

well a continuing theme of this blog for the last few months, i got smoked last night 6 tabling 200nl to the tune of 1.3k.

i held my emotions in check during it and it wasn't that bad until i lost two huge pots in succession and made a mediocre stop. i don't have the hh's but the big pots were:

AJ vs K3 on a AT37 board, villain was a spew monkey playing wildly bad so i extended my session cuz i was on his left, anyways, i 3-bet him pre knowing he would never fold anything, potted the flop and check/called his inevtable shove on the turn. he binked a K on the rvr. this was a $500 pot.

KK vs 6c4c on a board that ran out 7c3c3x5c3x and i got raised ai on the river when we were both pretty deep. when he raises the river i think im beat 99% of the time but i had earlier made a huge river c/r on him and got him to fold a big hand which he was none too happy with in the chat so i had a feeling he wanted to play back at me. this led to me calling but i knew it was wrong. $700 pot.

AQ vs JJ on JxxAx board, $600 pot, villain had be calling a lot of my raises in pos and floating the majority of flops so i cbet the flop 3w (i believe i had a bdfd to go with the overs) and he just called, turn Ace i check/called thinking i'd give him the opportunity to try and take the pot away although in hindsight im not sure how often he'll stab at an Ace on the turn. on the river i check/called all-in which i think i have to now that my hand is so under repped and he had top set from the get go.

so 3 pretty shitty spots but in the last 2 hands my play was not optimal and i need to take repsonsiblity for those results. so this has knocked my roll down to 8.5k on ftp, 1.2k in rake account and a couple hundo on stars. im going to stick to 200nl for now but will move down to 100nl if my ftp roll hits 8k.

im actually off work in an hour and am heading to the casino this afternoon for a little xmas 1/2nl. i'll also try to squeeze in a small session before i go to get the 200pts i need for the day.

tg

snowed in

so i was snowed in all weekend which resulted in lots of poker. i got home friday afternoon and between then and sunday morning i played about 3700 hands which is quite a lot for me. a lot of it was 4 tabling but i ramped it up to 6 tabling later in the weekend. last night i played a bit again and got another 800 hands in or so.

not sure of the net result of the weekend but i did peak at my montly results last night since i was really uncertain where i was at. i knew that sunday morning was a pretty poor session where i got stacked a few times and was involved in some pretty marginal spots. on the contrary my saturday sessions were good and i ran up stacks on most of my tables.

turns out that after about 9k hands this month im down $100 but have a winrate of 2.5bb/100 since i made about $500 when i moved down and played some 100nl. at one point i was down 1.8k on the month but then went down to 100nl and have got it back to even now.

something else i've noticed is that i seem to dial in a lot more on my reads when im playing more tables rather than less. this seems counter intuitive but it the more thats going on, the better i focus and the less i drift off. (i've always thought it was the opposite) the negative to multi tabling that i've felt in the past is that i rush too many of my decisions. i think this all stems from an ADD problem but im no doctor. so i think from now on my main game will be 6 tabling as long as games are good.

i might also take a crack at 9 tabling once in a while but would probably move down in limits before attempting that.

also, i need to collect 200 points a day for the final 9 days of the month to get gold iron man status which in turn will increase my iron man year end bonus so i will be playing everyday for the rest of the year, albeit sometimes just long enough to get the 200 points required.

tg

this week

i played a little 200nl earlier in the week but only for about an hour 4 tabling. i recorded the session and marked down some hands for review but unfortunately im having a hard time getting the video to play on my laptop so i haven't got to watch it.

i did review some hands that were pretty interesting. here's one:

Villain is 21/19/34, cbet 72.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

CO: $214
BTN: $40
SB: $400.15
Hero (BB): $219
UTG: $580.70
MP: $67

Pre-Flop:
dealt to Hero
(BB)
UTG raises to $7, 4 folds, Hero calls $5

Flop: ($15) (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn: ($15) (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $10, Hero calls $10

River: ($35) (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $23, Hero raises to $88

i think pre-flop is fine, im ahead of his range but an adjustment i've been making is not letting regs play perfectly against me pre-flop. what that means is that if i 3-bet here pre-flop villain will know that im not often bluffing (sb 3-b to utg open = strength) and will fold most hands i dominate (99, TT, AJ) and 4-bet all hands that crush me. (QQ-AA) so basically the only time i get action im in trouble. (not counting the times he just calls w/ AK or something)

anyways, i think his flop check is a pretty good indicator of his hand, he does not have a huge hand here and i think it's probably AJ and less. so on the turn i naturally check/call since the 8 does not change anything on the flop. i think his range for value betting the turn is something like 99-KK, AT, AJ and possibly a 8xs hand but not as likely. i do think though he still has air enough here that i can't just c/f the turn.

the rvr is interesting because i think i am most likely being value bet, but value bet from a hand that is most likely a 1 pair hand. a call is a spew imo and folding is definitly the default but i chose to raise. the pros to a raise is that it looks extremely strong and most tags will simply look at their AT here and figure there is no way they are good and muck, after all who c/c's the turn and c/r the river?

a con to this play that a friend brought up when we went over it together is that it's very hard for me to be repping anything. villain can probably rule out AA or 88 since it's highly unlikely combo wise (assuming he has an ace, ), i prob don't call w/ 55 on the turn so he can rule most of those combo's out leaving only 22 as a viable option. i guess i could also have something like AK which now that i think about it would be a pretty good way to play it.

anyways, villain ended up shoving so i had to fold but im positive he had to have a had a big hand to make the play. if he shoved on me with AT, then all the power to him.

------

after that session the next night i added some sick table mods which really helped freshen up the grind. i decided to sit and play 100nl just to try and get back into winning ways, boost the confidence... i played very well i thought and was pretty dialed in most of the time. im not sure of the financial results but i ran at like 28/23 over 600 hands and felt like i was at a much higher level than the rest of the table. of course it doesn't hurt when you only run into 3-4 regulars when you're 4 tabling. after that session i did about a 3 hour sweat/discussion with a study partner i've hooked up with through a poker forum. we both played about a 45 minute session with the other critiquing play and then reviewed a bunch of hands. i think we both helped each other, and i've picked up some different lines that should help me get action on some of my bigger hands.

wednesday night i also played 100nl again and got 1k hands in 4 tabling with a little break in between. it went well and i think i continued to play pretty focused and reviewed a bunch of hands from that session as well.

last night i was kinda tired and out of it so i chose not to play and just hit the sack early so i'll be ready to grind tonight and tommorrow. i'll move back to 200nl tonight and attempt to crush some regs in attempt to get back to the holy grail of 400nl.

im also thinking of doing some experimental 9 tabling but if i do it will be a lower limit.

tg.

live pokers

i managed not to play anymore internet poker for the rest of the weekend but did get out saturday for about 5.5hrs of live 1/2 pokers. it was really fun as always and was exactly what i needed. the game has a $100 cap buyin and thats what i was in for. the majority of the players do buy-in for the full amount and a lot of them are just really bad degen regulars so often the stacks can get pretty deep.

so early on im sitting the opposite end of the table from my buddy and when the opportunity comes up i switch seats to his left since we both usually dick around and shoot the shit when we play. i also like to have position on him so i can own his soul. so when i make the move a bunch of guys at the table warn me that it's a bad luck seat and i jokingly thank them for warning me once i had already moved. sure enough, about 5 hands in to my new seat, i open J9s from mp, middle aged loud guy that is the table captain and rule enforcer calls in lp and a young guy with about $800 behind calls. (im only a $100 deep) flop comes KQ5ss so i flop the gutty + fd and lead out, middle aged table captain calls, young guy raises, i shove, middle aged table captain tanks and folds and the young guy makes the trivial call w/ KQo. he fades my outs as table captain tells me he had K9 and was waiting for the turn to shove on me because he knew i didn't have a K and that he put me on a Jack hi flush draw. loooolz

so i reload, play a couple more hands, flop a big draw but don't get there and reload another $50 to get my stack up to $100 again. then in the sb we see a 7 way flop in a limped pot and i have 54o, flop comes K54 with a fd, i lead out, bb immediately raises, the rest of the table folds and i really thought i might be in trouble but shoved because it's live poker. dude had KJ and was like, i gotta raise cause i have the King and then spiked a King on the river.

i rebuy again then just starting rolling. i flopped a couple big hands and got flop action and slowly built my stack up. once i got over $200 in my stack i started playing a lot more in position and outplaying people post flop. then i get dealt AA and open the pot up from ep and table captain pipes up that i've been pretty quiet for a while and i tell them it's true and that i must have aces. a couple people call and he goes on to tell me he knows im always lying about what hand i have an how great his reads are blah blah blah. flop comes 542r which is as good as any for me, i lead out and KJ guy from before calls, rest fold. at this point i think he's got something like 65 or 66-TT and sometimes a set. turn is an 9 which isn't great but not bad either, i bet out again (i think i opened to 7 pf and had 4 callers making the pot 30ish, bet 20 on the flop making the pot 70ish on the turn and bet 36) and he sighs and says, do you really have Aces? and i say nothing and he calls. the river was a 10 and i really thought he wanted to fold his marginal hand so i only bet 41 and he tanked and called. i showed the aces and looked over at the table captain to see what his reaction was and it was pretty priceless. KJ dude insta mucked and i asked him if he had like 88 or 66 and he just shook his head so i think he was looking me up pretty light.

after that hand and few others i had close to a $450 stack and a couple of pints in me and started to get more aggressive 3-betting the big stack young guy and raising limpers a lot. i was bluffing people out of pots left right and centre and showing them my air after they folded and they just wouldn't adjust to it all. one young guy thats a regular sat down during this time and started trying to talk me out of raising pre-flop with stuff like "careful" and "i wouldn't do that if i were you" and i basically told him, 3-bet me pre-flop and i'll fold like a little girl, no questions asked. instead he cold called my isolation raise pre-flop oop and c/f to a delayed cbet on the turn of a rag board. he says, we've got the same hand but im going to fold, i asked really? what do you think i have, and he says AK. i flipped the ol QTo and after that he shutup for a bit.

the hand of the night came near the end of the session when i was fairly buzzed, big stack young guy raises, i 3-bet w/ AcKh from mp, this weird guy that was acting real tough and seemingly thought he was some kind of poker professional cold calls from the sb, short stack bb donk shoves allin but its only like $10 on top of my 3-bet, the big stack folds i call and smug guy calls. flop is QTX with 3 clubs giving me the gutty plus nut flush draw so i ship it in and smug guy snap calls and states "i wish i had more money" with a shit eatin grin on his face as he tables QQ. all i said was "no you don't" and proceeded to spike the 3c on the turn and brick the river. i gave him a little jab after the hand telling him he should wait till the hands over before he starts counting his money.

that was about it, i doubled a drunk reg up when he set mined with 40bb's and got there and i ended up cashing out like a $110 profit which wasn't bad considering i was buried from the start.

it was a nice little night that made me realize that im not the worst poker player in the world and that although the last few months have been pretty shitty online, i may still be better than i give myself credit for sometimes.

im going to hook up my new mouse tonight and give it a go. i think im going to record my session as well for review later on.

tg

fuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

just played a short 4 tabling session. the session ended something like this.

<<<<<<<<<<<

i thought i was playing well but was just getting owned by horrible players, then got stacked w/ AK vs AA when facing a squeeze from a habitual 3-bettor, i had a bunch of decent sized bluffs that all got picked off or shoved on (so maybe i wasn't playing very good?). then i tilted and decided to give myself a few more laps at each table to get things back in order (stupid move obv, get off the fckn tables) and tilted off a couple buyins with more bluffs and called it off w/ AJ vs AT on a ATxxx board. the clincher was a horrendous player that would c/c my turn bet w/ K9 on a AT46 board and spiked the ol King ball on the rvr. ( i had JJ)

that was it, i chucked my mouse at the wall but that wasn't enough so i ripped the phone out of the wall and chucked it at the wall too. im pretty embarassed about it and it's only the second time it's every happened to me (see june 07 blogs, i think it's around there). i've cooled down since but at the time i just wanted to quit.

i don't know how much i lost but i think i might move down to 100nl and see what happens. sometimes i think i should just play 24 tables of 50nl with 8/6 stats and make money.

tg

2 tabling

i've been 2 tabling the last couple nights and i find i do focus more but also at the same time i haven't really been getting into many interesting situations since very few hands are getting played.

i've played around 2k hands but to tell the truth im not sure how much im up or down. thats because im no longer checking the cashier or hem after my session to see the $ result. instead i've removed the $ earned and bb/100 stats from hem so i can concentrate on playing my best and letting the money fall where it may. this goes hand in hand with another thing i've been doing lately which is not analyzing hands played until after the session. i'll often play a hand and start wondering if it was a bad or good stack off and what i should have done different. during this time im not concentrating on the hands im playing and im also beating myself if the play turns out to be -ev. so lately once the hand is over its over, i tag it using the hem hud feature for later review, take notes if necessary on my opponent and clear it from head until my post session review.

all these little mental things seem to be improving my mood and enthusiasm during play and i think will do a lot of good in furthering my developement. i'll probably check my balance and winnings/loses at the end of each month as long as i feel something horrific isn't happening and im no longer rolled for a certain level.

i do know though that im down a bit to start off because my first 2 tabling session was a disaster and i dropped $700 in 300 hands with most of it coming from a horrible river call very deep.

tomorrow is my b-day and it looks like im going to the casino to play a nice long 1/2 session and drink lots of pints. i will play tonight but i think i'll probably go back to 3 or 4 tabling since 2 tabling is not getting me thinking too deeply.

tg

what i've been up to

i was playing quite a bit throughout early november and was well on my way to playing at least 20k hands in the course of the month. then one week i just got burnt out from other things and was tired and unfocused so i didn't really feel like playing, so i didn't.

that only left me a couple days left to play because i was leaving on the 29th for a weeks vacation. i played two sessions which were absolutely horrible and anfocused and i managed to drop about a 1k over the course of 900 or so hands. that was it for me for the month and i'll have to dig through hem at home but i think i made about $500 over the course of 13k hands or so.

kind of a drag because up until those sessions i was having a pretty decent month being up like 1.6k which was a good confident boost.

the bitter taste of the last few sessions really left me pondering my problems over the past couple months. my thoughts led me back to the same old thing, lack of focus and concentration. as much as i try to learn and improve away from the table, the second i sit down i fire up 4-6 tables and go on auto pilot. and my auto pilot system is not that good. i tend to make knee jerk reactions based on emotion and generally make educated guesses. the end result is a lot of standard lines and a real lack of hand reading. when looking at my play im really only playing my hand strength a lot of the time, when my hand is weak i fold no matter my opponents range, when my hand is strong i bet/raise no matter my opponents range and when my hand has mediocre strength i play the guessing game.

so what can i do to fix this? well, i think the first thing is to reduce the amount of tables i play. i've never even considered playing less than 4 tables but i think my focus and concentration will improve if i start just 2 tabling or even playing one table at a time. so this means that the small amount of hands that i play a month will probably get smaller but at the same time whats the point of playing 20k hands a month if im not playing any of them optimally.

when i focus i have the ability to play pretty well imo. so my goal for december to start is to play 5k hands 2 tabling and see how i do. if i feel more focused and see better play emerging i will consider adding a third table. i really don't see myself going back to 4 tabling for the next 25k hands or so but im not going to write anything in stone.

i think down the line i can see myself having some sort of structure where i play 4 tables 75% of the time but go back to 2 tables 25% time to ensure im thinking and learning and not just grinding.

anyways, i played about 500 hands the other morning when i got back from vaca and made about $90 playing the "old" style.

im going to play tonight a bit but will ease back into things. i think i might also start playing on deep tables since i think a lot of regs don't adjust their strategy when deep and tend to make a lot of exploitable mistakes. i also might start mixing in hu into my play since i really only play 2 tables of that at a time anyways and it would help with getting hands in.

tg

haven't played much

well i kinda bailed on my plan of playing tons of hands friday night/saturday and only ended up playing about 750 hands friday night total. the results were good though and i made close to $800 over that time span. saturday i didn't get up until 1pm so i obv needed the rest and decided to just chill out and not play since i was a little out of it. i did however put in a 7hr session that night playing 1/2 live at the casino. the game has $100 buy-in cap and it's ridicuously soft and rather entertaining to play. i busted my first $100 getting KK in vs 88 on a 982cc flop where i had no clubs and a King was dead. after that though i pretty much just had my way and built up a $450 stack from second $100 buy-in. i lost a couple pots near the end though and ended up booking a $100 win.

i played a little monday night but was getting totally run over while not playing all that great and managed to drop $550 over another 750 hands or so. last night i didn't play at all and chilled out and watched wsop main event final table. it was pretty exciting watching a tournament where i knew none of the results and now i have the urge to play a bunch of tournaments. i think i'll hold off since i don't want to waste bankroll chasing stupid mtt dreams. i'd rather just grind away and get back to 2/4.

i'll play the next few nights and hopefully play well.

tg

gettin hands in

i've played about 5.6k hands so far this month and am up around $850 which is nice. i basically try to get in around 1k hands per day, usually over two sessions that are broken up between a visit to the gym. last night i only played around 600 hands and booked most of my profit so far for the month and felt like relaxing afterwards. i generally don't play on sundays so im going to try and grind out around 4k hands between tonight and tomorrow during the day so i can take sunday off. i've also had a real craving to play live again so i think im heading down to play a little 1/2 live saturday night. im going to try and stay somewhat disciplined and not splash around as much as i usually do when i play live and hopefully i'll book a little win.

here's a hand from last night.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

CO: $242.00
BTN: $411.30
SB: $740.35
BB: $202.00
UTG: $413.20
Hero (MP): $436.60

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP with K :diamond: J :heart:

UTG calls $2, Hero raises to $11, CO calls $11, 4 folds

Flop: ($27.00) 7 :spade: 2 :spade: 8 :club: (2 players)

Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($27.00) 2 :heart: (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $15, Hero raises to $48, CO calls $33

River: ($123.00) 2 :diamond: (2 players)

Hero bets $90, CO folds

Final Pot: $123.00Hero shows K :diamond: J :heart: (three of a kind, Twos)Hero wins $120.00(Rake: $3.00)

villain is tag reg and when he cc's the iso raise his hand range is probably pairs 99 and down and maybe some suited broadways. on the flop he's never folding a pp and there are more combo's of pairs in his range that suited broadways that he doesn't 3-bet so i chose to check and give up but he checks behind. on the turn im in a similar boat as that of the flop except for one thing, i highly doubt that he checked a strong hand back on the flop. i think he's either a) pot controlling a small pair or b) trying to take it down w/ his big sc's w/o showdown. so i check again and decide that if he bets his hand range can't handle the heat of a c/r. when i c/r i can legitimately be repping an overpair or a set since i might have been going for a c/r on the flop and missed. the turn isn't a scary card if i have those hands and im not afraid of a flush draw since he would most likely bet that on the flop. now, the important part to the hand is that when i chose to c/r the turn, i must follow up with a river bet. i think 55 or 99 is gonna be suspicious of a turn c/r and could possibly put me on a semi-bluff and call but will have a hard time calling a river bet. i fire the rvr, he folds and i actually showed the KJ and made note of it. next time i face the same villain i will take this line with the nuts and relieve him of his stack.

tg

poker is shight

after my big win last week i had another small session where i won a buy-in and was feeling good. then as if howard lederer had some sort of webcam in my house and could see me smiling i got doom switched again and had my worse session ever at 1/2 dropping close to 1.6k.

i got back at it nov 1st and wiped the slate clean. so far i've put in a decent amount of hands for me and am hoping to play 25k hands 6 tabling this month. i'd also like to win the monies but that might be asking too much of team full tilt.

tg

confidence booster

so i made my triumphant return saturday and decided to play 3 shorter sessions of 200nl with each session being roughly 500 hands. 4 tabling this equates to just over an hour per session and helps to keep me focused while playing. i ended up playing only 2 sessions since i ran out of time and decided it was best for me to just book a win at this point.

my first session went well and i built up stacks on most of my tables before shutting down. i never checked HEM to see how much i was up or down because i think part of my problem sometimes with playing small sessions is that my results after each small session (whether it be positive or negative) seem to affect my session going forward.

my second session i felt once again that i was playing well and had a rather bad player on my right on most of my tables. i had pissed him off pretty badly by 3-betting him a lot and he was spewing to me pretty good.

anyways, i finished up the day with just over 1k hands played and close to $1.1k profits. that's the biggest day i've ever had at 200nl so im happy about it. after that i went over to the home game and went 2/2 winning both "sngs" we played which may be the greatest accomplishment of my life since i never win in the home game.

i think i've kind of had a "aha" moment after reading my coaches ebook and while i don't understand 100% of it yet (it's a lot of info to digest) i feel as though im on the right track with my game. a new version of his ebook comes out today with additional info added by cts which is sick so i hope to start going over that asap and keep cranking out results.

tg

gots to stick wit it

so after my thurs session i shut it down and didn't look at anything poker really. i've had a few ideas of what to do. my initial reaction was to take this break which i think is by far the best idea. i was also pondering switching games for a bit. i would love to get back into plo and study the game but there are two things that make me hesitant to try:

1. plo is more volatile than nlhe which would be kind of a silly reason to switch over since i would be taking a break from holdem due to harsh variance.
2. i would drop down in stakes considerably and would basically be looking at making a few hundo at best over the next couple months when i can make that in a session at nl.

now, money has never been the sole reason why i play. i play because i love the game but it's hard to seperate poker from money. my goal at the beginning of this cash game adventure was to reach 2/4 nl since you can make a real good chunk of money there. i got there earlier than i expected but also exited back to 1/2 which i wasn't planning on. while i think learning a new game is refreshing and productive to clear your negative mindset of your current game i don't think it's the best idea for me at this point. for example, i've always had a hard time with jumping from game to game when unsuccesful (lhe->sngs->mtts->nl cash->mtts->plo->mixed games->nl cash) and i don't want to let this downswing set this reoccuring problem in action again. i think i've made great strides in my nl game this year and i don't want to throw some of that progress away by getting swept up with something different.

so i will continue with 200nl when i return to action later this week and im gonna grind my ass off. im already pretty hungry to play but im gonna hold off a couple more days. in the meantime i will go over a really good e-book my coach wrote and try my best to understand some of the ideas he presents in it.

tg

final straw

played sparingly tonite just trying to have some fun with it. played 3 tables of 200nl and 1 table of 200ha (plo/plhe mix) which most of the time was hu. two beaut's in the plhe rounds have pretty much driven me to the edge of my patience. Q9 on Q96ccc3x board no good against A2cc and KK (no club) vs 9c9x on T743ccc board no good.

lost like 500ish on the 400 hand session. im done. going to grind 1c/2c stud h/l for the rest of my life as punishment for sucking.

tg

still sliding

i've played another 3k hands or so this week and am down another 1k or so. last saturday i played about 1.3k hands and came out down only $70 which felt like the biggest win of my life the way the deck was treating me.

then the other night i sat down and played was up for a while and running well until i ran QQ into AA pre for a buy-in vs a 65/50 player that was crazy donating and then i misread a guys stats and ended up pulling a pretty huge float/turn semi bluff 140bb deep and then realized the guy was the biggest nit ever and had 3-b pre, bet flop and bet turn. anyways, he tank called, i missed and finished the session down a little over a buy-in ($250ish)which felt like a huge loss.

last night i went through and freshened up my setup on ftp going back to the racetrack table, modding the background, reconfiguring my hud and starting over fresh; then lost $600+ by mostly running big pairs into bigger pairs.

so in going through hem i was kinda interested in how buy-ins this downswing was so far and was surprised when i figured out i am down 29 buy-ins over the last 2 months or so at 2/4 and 1/2. i never in my wildest dreams thought that it was possible to go on that big of a downer although i've heard a lot people say it's happened before. but, i guess on the bright side im not really that pissed off or frustrated like i imagined i would be if i took bath like this so thats good.

right now im contemplating on maybe messing around at lower stakes plo games or playing a couple tables of horse along with some mtt's just to get back to having pressure free fun. im also considering moving my roll to party or stars for a change of pace but i think i'll save radical changes like that for if i really hit rock bottom.

fwiw, br now at 11.3k + about $600 in rb.

tg

driving me to drink

i just can't seem to win lately. after my last post i played a session where i was 3 tabling 200nl but was on a 400nl table that i noticed had 2 huge fish on. overall i lost $700+ that night including $400 to the fish on the 2/4 table.

i followed that up with a small win of like $300 or something 2 tabling and then another $400 loss the day after. tonite i played about 950 hands 6 tabling and felt i played pretty well other than a really spewy 5-b bluff that cost me a stack. anyways i dropped close to 1k tonight putting me a grand total of 2.7k in the whole over less than 5k hands for the month.

im kinda sick over it but kinda not at the same time. i think im playing well (lately) but i really don't know i guess. maybe shits just not lining up for me right now or this just could be a correction from running good up until a little while ago. i really can't say, all i can do is just keep blasting away at it and trying to get better.

bankroll is down to 12.2k plus a couple hundred bucks in my rb account. this game truly is depressing some times.

tg

im back

wow, full month w/o posting. so my return kinda sucked as i realized that i was still playing kinda bad and unfocused. my number problem by far is lack of focus but outside of going to a doctor and asking for ADD meds im unsure of what to do about it. im thinking of implementing a thought structure to every hand i play to ensure im going through a full thought process and not knee jerk reacting and kicking myself after.

anyways, i played a little bit of 200nl but prob only got in 8k hands for the rest of the month making like 3 or 4 buy-ins but ending in the red for the second straight month. one of the reasons i didn't get hands in was that i was spending some time with the gf before she left for a 3.5 month tour of europe.

so this left me pumped poker wise to play tons of hands before the end of the year however it's started off kinda shitty and im down like 4 buy-ins over my first 2.5k hands. i also have been in a bit of a mopey mood so at times i've stayed away from the tables but im gonna do my best to grind out hardcore and hopefully be crushing 2/4 by the end of the year.

my new coach is very good and although we haven't spent much time together i've got a copy of an ebook he wrote which is extremely good and seems tailored for me. i'll keep reading and studying that and in the meantime try to crush some souls at 200nl.

tg

aug results + more losing = small break

first losing month this year, but not really a big deal since my volume of hands is so low.



























my sept started off okay winning 2 buy-ins in my first session but then quickly unravelled again as i lost a couple thousand back and am negative again for the month. i must admit i got pretty tilted near the end of my last session even after i dropped down to 200nl.

so i've taken about 3 or 4 days completely removed from poker and think i'm ready to come back with a clear head.

i'll be coming back at 200nl though since my bankroll has shot downwards over the last 1.5 months. my bankroll high point was 27k+ but since then i've:

• had a 7k downswing
• shipped all kinds of money off to friends, training site memberships and coaching
• withdrew 5k to send my gf to europe

so all that has knocked me down to 14.5k online so my plan is to drop back down to 200nl and grind back to 16k before moving back up to 400nl.

tg

getting owned!

since my last post i've been getting absolutely destroyed. this is by far my worst downswing since i've started playing nl. im not sure of the amount of hands but im down roughly $5.5k which equates to roughly 14 buy-ins. now, i shouldn't really complain cuz my year so far has been a pretty smooth journy upwards. until now i don't think i've had a downswing larger than 5 buyins and they were usually just really bad sessions that i rebounded back from and never lost much confidence.

this one however has been like getting beat to death with a hammer. it's just a continuos pummeling and it's got my confidence down a lot. i've had points so far at 400nl where i feel im getting owned by regs and it doesn't help when everyone is owning me at the same time.

here's a couple hands from tonites session that caused me to quit my session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3106005 - i've got no idea.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3106012 - this hands illustrates a running theme for me, i'm working on becoming more aggro post flop but every time i do i seem to stack off horribly. i have no idea what he's doing here on the flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3106032 - and when i get them to stick it in bad they bink.

ok, thats the end of my feel bad for myself rant.

here are the positives i can take out of the last week+ as well as what i have to look forward to:

1. i'm actually +1.5k in all-in equity on the month
2. i can only get better
3. i've made some very good "quits" and controlled tilting very well
4. i've hooked up with a new coach who im really excited to work with and have sent off a 35 min video of my play to him for analysis. he also has setup a bit of a program that seems to be right up my alley.
   
5. im running sick hot in the ftp nightly $163 and am 8/65 on the bubble.
6. i've run the $125 i had left over on stars after paying for coaching into $219 playing micro stakes plo.

tg