Camp Happy Poker Blog

2006-11-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

Here's where I stand at $1/$2 limit 6-max...

Hands played: 4,484
Amount won/lost: $69.20
VP$IP: 19.22%
PFR: 7.34%
AF: 2.39
BB/100: 0.77
Won at showdown: 60.47%

3 biggest winners:
QT0: +$103.75 (50 times)
AA: +$80.00 (18 times)
ATs: +$68.50 (20 times)

3 biggest losers:
TT: -$43.77 (19 times)
QJ0: -$30.00 (38 times)
A9s: -$23.00 (18 times)

KK is still a loser for me, but it is slowly improving. TT was not fun for me tonight - it lost five out of six times I saw it, and both times that I made a set with it I lost, once to a straight and once to a flush.

On the other hand, the deck hit me in the face tonight. And then it hit me again. And again. And again - you get the idea. I had never seen anything like this before. On the one hand, I had a good night and I'm happy about that. On the other hand, I'm not sure if the results reflect my ability or just way better-than-average cards. To illustrate, here are some of the hoel cards I saw in tonight's 596 hands:

AA: 2 times (won 1)
KK: 3 (won 2)
QQ: 9 (won 8)
JJ: 7 (won 3)
TT: 6 (won 1)

Normal distribution dictates that I would see these five hands a total of 13.54 times. Instead, I saw them 27 times, almost exactly twice as much as is expected. If JJ and TT had performed better than they did, I could have been looking at a real monster of a night. All in all, I'm satisfied. I made some great plays tonight, and some horrible plays. On the bad side, I fell too in love with QJs after it won for me twelve times in a row, and called river check-raises twice because I thought I was invincible, only to lose.

Back to the good, besides all that high pocket pair tomfoolery above, I had this little beauty:

***** Hand History for Game 2474249504 *****
$1/$2 Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, August 03, 23:23:40 EDT 2005
Table Table 11306 (6 max) (Real Money)

djwalk1 posts small blind [$0.50].
LEXCHAN posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Camp Director [ 9h 9c ]
innamorato raises [$2].
baseball1970 calls [$2].
Camp Director calls [$2].
djwalk1 calls [$1.50].

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9s, 8h, 9d ]
djwalk1 bets [$1].
innamorato raises [$2].
baseball1970 calls [$2].
Camp Director calls [$2].
djwalk1 calls [$1].

** Dealing Turn ** [ 8s ]
djwalk1 bets [$2].
innamorato calls [$2].
baseball1970 calls [$2].
Camp Director calls [$2].

** Dealing River ** [ Tc ]
djwalk1 bets [$2].
innamorato calls [$2].
baseball1970 folds.
Camp Director raises [$4].
innamorato calls [$2].

Camp Director shows [ 9h, 9c ] four of a kind, nines.
innamorato doesn't show [ Ad, Kd ] two pairs, nines and eights.
Camp Director wins $34 from the main pot with four of a kind, nines.

I was really hoping someone had another eight, or even better, two, but it was not to be. The betting started off hot and heavy and unfortunately tailed off, but it was still a nice pot.

I saw two different players with PFR's above 50% in a decent sample of hands tonight. Using PokerAce HUD, I was able to recognize this quickly, adjust my play accordingly, and abuse them when I had premium starting cards (which was often).

Also had an interesting experience where a player at one of my tables accused another of playing under two aliases at the same table. I asked him how he knew, but the informant had already left the table. I simply left the table. I was too lazy to email Party support, especially since I had no evidence.

2006-11-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I lied to my blog. I'd said I would return and post by last Wednesday, and it just didn't happen. I hope my blog forgives me. It might not happen because this blog will be going on semi-hiatus effective immediately, due to lack of a poker bankroll.

Well, that's not entirely true. I withdrew $175 from Party Poker to cover my upcoming fantasy football expenses, and left myself $16 to play with when I feel like it. Frankly, I haven't felt like it lately. Since I got back from vacation, I've only played once, and didn't even have fun doing it. The home game has not been held in over a month, due in part to people being away during the summertime, and in part to a fading interest from the participants. Myself, I can't say I have the same interest I did a few months ago. I don't think I'm "pokered out," I still love the game, I think about the game often, and someday I will return.

I just didn't feel right about having a few hundred dollars tied up in online poker, and need to shell out a few hundred more for fantasy football, all while Sara and I are having a tough time financially due to grad school expenses and the usual continuing housing costs. By emptying my bankroll I make Sara happy, I don't particularly harm my own life because I have been on a relaxation kick lately (and therefore haven't wanted to play online poker), and I save us some money. If I want to get back into it, I can 1-table $0.50/$1.00 with my meager $16 and see what happens. After all, it was under those same circumstances where I experienced my best results by far.

So where does that leave this blog? I still intend to post, perhaps weekly or a little more often than that. If the home game resumes, I'll detail the happenings here. If I play online I'll do the same. Who knows? Two years from now this blog may well be my chronicles of turning $16 into $1 million - but I won't hold my breath:)

All along this blog was supposed to be for me, as an aid to my growth as a player. If I've picked up some readers along the way, I'm sorry to disappoint. I will try to provide entertaining content going forward.

2006-11-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

Back from vacation and reinvigorated, here I sit back at work. Since I've decided to ease my way back into the ol' job, I thought I'd slap up a post.

My week off was good; the best part poker-wise was that I finished Harrington on Hold 'Em Volume I and II. These books are completely fantastic. Harrington promised a Volume III which would be 120 poker problems. This sounds pretty cool (and fun) so I'll probably get it when it comes out. I doubt it will help my game much but like I said it should be fun.

I've played once since I returned and it was a disastrous session, losing approximately $85 and putting me back in the red overall. I tinkered with my game a little and it didn't work out too well. I think at these loose loose loose $1/$2 6-max tables that tight is the way to go. I have been considering a sqitch to $1/$2 full-ring, but I'll stick with the short-handed for now. After all, I can't abandon it now that I'm a loser! At full-ring the blinds would tend to eat me alive less while I wait for monsters though.

I will write about that aforementioned bad session when I'm at home, with the power of PokerTracker in front of me. I would like to get a session in tonight and hopefully offset some of those bad results, but we'll see. The Eagles play their first preseason game tonight against the Stillers, and even though preseason is brutal to watch I'll probably do it anyway.

Here's my view of the current controversy in one sentence: I hate T.O., I love the Eagles, and I could care less if he ever plays for the team again.

Sara is starting grad school next month and it's putting quite a strain on our finances. We are both somewhat accelerating our studies to finish in two years each, and therefore accelerating our bills. Tuition is preventing us from paying down the mortgage, or getting new windows, or repaying the student loans we already have from undergrad. It's frustrating, but it will be worth it when we both have our graduate degrees (we hope). After all, the best investment you can make is in yourself, right? Right?? It had better be for the $22,000 per year cost for our schooling.

I don't have much to say right now - possibly a post later tonight, definitely by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Additionally, I've changed the name of this blog to Camp Happy Poker Blog, since that's pretty much all I write about.

Addendum: Props to Blogger on the "recover post" option. I accidentally deleted this one, clicked the button, and BAM it was all back except for the last sentence. That's awesome.

2006-11-03T21:02:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest from $1/$2 6-max limit, and the bonus 5,000 hand recap and analysis.

Hands played: 5,673
Amount won/lost: $72.70
VP$IP: 19.39%
PFR: 7.46%
AF: 2.45
BB/100: 0.64
Won at showdown: 62.32%

Well to be honest, I've played a lot more hands than I thought I would in this relatively short amount of time (12-13 days). I think having just one limit and type of poker to focus on has helped me in this respect. I just sit down, fire up four tables, and play for an hour or two.

On the other hand, I am slightly disappointed with my "winnings," if you can call them that. Right now, I'm at just over a penny a hand in winnings. At the same time, at least I'm winning. I've logged 63.55 table-hours of free entertainment.

My aggression factor is right where I want it. I'm missing some raising opportunities on the river, but at this point in my development as a player I have a tough time distinguishing whether or not I have the best hand in these situations and don't want to risk a re-re-raise.

I think my win at showdown percentage is pretty nice, which tells me I mostly know when I'm good enough.

More stats:

Win: 10.95% of hands - this worries me because it's pretty damn low for 6-handed play. A normal distribution would give me almost 17%. I'm more than happy to give up a few percentage points here because I play much tighter than the average $1/$2 player, but to be at less than 11% sets of alarm bells. Going forward, I would like to raise my VP$IP above 25% (putting in bets in the right situation) and see my win percentage climb to 13-14%.

One area where I think I can raise my VP$IP is to complete from the small blind more. No matter which two cards I'm holding, if there are three or four limpers I'm getting pot odds in the neighborhood of 9-1 to complete. Unless I'm dominated this is worth a call. I will try to utilize this when I have a passive player to my immediate left, see some cheap flops, and hopefully cash in big once or twice. FYI, my VP$IP from the small blind is 31.17%.

Total rake paid: $290.75 - I think a solid, easy-to-keep-track-of goal for winnings would be to stay ahead of the rake. This shows just how much money these poker sites haul in, when an above-average player like myself (I say that because I have net winnings) is way behind the rake. I don't think I will continue to play with this frequency so I'm not looking to get into a rake rebate program at this point.

In 79 sessions, I've come out a winner 40 times (50.63%). This is a stat I pay way too much attention to; I'll play an extra ten minutes to try at get from $49 to $51, just so I can say it's a winning session. This is stupid and I should stop.

I've won the most money in the cutoff ($272.16), and the second most on the button ($179.74). Other than the fact that I would expect the button to show the best performance, this makes sense.

The hands where I have cold-called a raise pre-flop are few and far between, but agree with what I would expect. Here they are (a total of 24 times out of 5,673 hands):

88 - 4
99 - 4
33 - 4
66 - 3
44 - 2
KK - 1
KTs - 1
JJ - 1
AJs - 1
AA - 1
ATs - 1
77 - 1

I tend to cold-call raises with middle pair, hoping for a wonderful, wonderful set. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Overall, I should probably use more discretion when cold-calling a raise - but I won't. I love sets!

Here are my won/loss totals for each final hand:
High card - ($617.73)
One pair - ($392.84)
Two Pair - $75.85
Three of a Kind - $283.75
Straight - $180.99
Flush - $213.37
Full House - $362.37
Four of a Kind: $35.00
Royal Flush - $3.44 (more on this later)

I wish I wasn't such a big loser with one pair, but I'm not sure what I can do about it. One to think about.

Out of the 810 players I've seen so far, I sit 8th in winnings. Another goal: I'd like to be first. With time this should be possible just due to the volume of hands I'm seeing compared to my opponents. Incidentally, the first two players on the list I played with tonight for the first time. These two players have netted the third and fourth most from me. Number on on the winnings list won $132.20 in 66 hands - not bad at all. Of course, with a VP$IP of 75.76% this hardly seems sustainable.

I've lost at least $10 in my five longest sessions. I'm not sure if this comes from a loss of focus over time or a stubborness to leave the table a loser, where I play longer. Probably a combination. It could also be meaningless because I'm a winner in nine out of my next ten longest sessions, and the loss is $1.13. Biggest one session win: $80.75 in 104 hands. Biggest one session loss: $50.00 (three times) in 114, 71, and 35(?!) hands.

My favorite session: I sat down, posted, and as the first hand was beign dealt Sara asked to come work on the yard. I played one hand:

***** Hand History for Game 2449130878 *****
$1/$2 Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 30, 13:56:21 EDT 2005
Table Table 10783 (6 max) (Real Money)

rainbow2 posts small blind [$0.50].
Pissert posts big blind [$1].
Camp Director posts big blind [$1].
Aiite posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Camp Director [ As Ac ]
Camp Director raises [$1].
Aiite calls [$1].
aaltier calls [$2].
Pissert calls [$1].

** Dealing Flop ** [ 8c, Qh, 9c ]
Pissert bets [$1].
Camp Director calls [$1].
Aiite calls [$1].
aaltier calls [$1].

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5s ]
Pissert bets [$2].
Camp Director raises [$4].
Aiite folds.
aaltier calls [$4].
Pissert calls [$2].

** Dealing River ** [ 6s ]
Pissert checks.
Camp Director bets [$2].
aaltier folds.
Pissert raises [$4].
Camp Director calls [$2].
Pissert shows [ Jc, Ad ] high card ace.

Camp Director shows [ As, Ac ] a pair of aces.
Camp Director wins $31.50 from the main pot with a pair of aces.

That was a good one. My BB/100 was 1,025.00 for that session.

10 biggest winners:
QT0: +$111.69 (55 times)
AA: +$96.75 (24 times)
QQ: +$91.12 (28 times)
ATs: +$69.13 (22 times)
JJ: +$66.50 (28 times)
99: +$54.25 (33 times)
88: +$51.50 (28 times)
44: +$49.75 (32 times)
AQo: +$44.87 (57 times)
AK0: +$44.69 (56 times)

10 biggest losers:
TT: -$39.84 (28 times)
QJ0: -$32.50 (47 times)
Q8o: -$31.50 (52 times) [have never won with this hand]
T3o: -$23.50 (37 times)
42o: -$23.50 (64 times)
T4o: -$22.50 (58 times) [have never won with this hand]
J7o: -$22.00 (53 times) [have never won with this hand]
J40: -$22.00 (46 times) [have never won with this hand]
J50: -$22.00 (40 times)
T8o: -$21.00 (55 times) [have never won with this hand]

Because I know you've all been holding your breath, KK is now +$20.91 (25 times), after holding up eight out of the last nine times I've seen it. Thank christ. Now, if I could only get TT in the black... The only other pocket pair in the red right now is 22, at -$1.50 (24 times).

10 hands I have seen the most:
64o (76)
84o (66)
42o (64)
62o (63)
Q2o (61)
43o (61)
K3o (60)
73o (59)
72o (58) I've only won once with the Hammer, and have never raised pre-flop with it. This will need to change.
T4o (58)

All ten hands are losers.

10 hands I see the least:
Q3s (6)
82s (9)
QTs (10)
K2s (11)
T6s (11)
97s (11)
63s (12)
T3s (12)
J4s (12)
K7s (12)
T5s (12)

82s, T6s, and 63s are winners in this group. The rest are duds.

Best 5 win percentages:
AA: 75.00%
QQ: 67.86&
AKs: 65.00%
QJs: 63.16%
JJ: 60.71%
BONUS - KK: 60.00%

QJs won the first twelve times I held it, a lost the most recent seven times I've had it. Weird.

That's almost enough for now, except for this:

***** Hand History for Game 2484933749 *****
$1/$2 Texas Hold'em - Friday, August 05, 22:57:46 EDT 2005
Table Table 11090 (6 max) (Real Money)

grettaz posts small blind [$0.50].
Camp Director posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to mjb39618 [ Qc Td ]
tonyfg calls [$1].
jbedell is all-In.
Camp Director calls [$0.72].
tonyfg calls [$0.72].

** Dealing Flop ** [ Ac, 2h, Jc ]
Camp Director checks.
tonyfg checks.

** Dealing Turn ** [ Kc ]
Camp Director bets [$2].
tonyfg folds.

** Dealing River ** [ Tc ]

Camp Director shows [ Qc, Td ] Royal Flush.
jbedell shows [ Ad, Ts ] two pairs, aces and tens.
Camp Director wins $2 from side pot #1 with Royal Flush.
Camp Director wins $5.16 from the main pot with Royal Flush.

Nothing like backing into calling a pre-flop raise only because another player was all-in, backing into a royal flush, and getting no action on it. I did like how Party capitalized "Royal Flush" - pretty cool.

I'm off to Rehoboth Beach for a week; by the time I get back I'm going to need some marathon sessions of low-limit short-handed poker. See you then.

2006-11-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Here I am, stuck at a client again. I'm scheduled here all week for the financial statement audit and today we all pretty much had nothing to do. We've been promised more work to come tomorrow, so hopefully I won't be so bored as to have to resort to writing blog entries. One or two days is about all I can take of "nothing to do" - after that I'll begin to go stir crazy.

In the world of poker, not much has really happened since last night's post. I am constantly revisiting my play/results throughout the day, however. Hopefully I can get a session in tonight, or at the least tomorrow morning before work. This shouldn't be a problem so expect updated results tomorrow.

Let me expand on an item I mentioned in last night's post:

I'm dealt QTo UTG in a 6-max game. What do I do? I'm pretty sure the average loose $1/$2 table this is not a raising hand, but is it even a calling hand? There are three more players to act behind me, plus the blinds, and I don't want to have to call a raise with this hand. But I fear that folding QTo in a 6-max game is playing too tight and setting myself up for the blinds to eat me alive. So, what do you do at a loose table (say four players seeing the flop, and approximately one out of two hands is raised pre-flop)?

Along the same lines, does the play change if it's QTs?

I suppose these are the sort of questions I could pose on the 2+2 or RGP boards, but who wants to go to all that trouble? Instinct tells me that QTo should be folded in this situation, while QTs can stand a call, even if there is a chance of a raise behind. As the old saying goes (from SSHE?): You should be looking for reasons to fold pre-flop, and reasons to stay in the hand post-flop.

On another note, I'm slowly getting through Harrington on Hold 'Em Volume One, with Volume Two awaiting me on the bookshelf. I will agree with every other review I've read about this book by saying that it's probably the best one out there. The book is on a higher plane - definitely not for beginners. Harrington walks you through hands by taking you into the mind of every player at the table, and it has really helped give me a firmer grasp on third- and fourth-order poker thinking. Of course, higher level thinking won't do me much good at the $1/$2 6-max limit tables that I call home, but that's ok because I still find the book to be an enjoyable read.

The meeting I wrote of last week regarding the potential promotion at work was pushed back and will be help tomorrow at lunchtime. Even though I have to act like it's no big deal at all, it's killing me to have to wait this long to find out. I just keep telling myself that my bosses wouldn't have gone to the trouble of scheduling and rescheduling a meeting, only to tell me that I didn't get the promotion. My expectations are for a compromise between the position I desire and where I am right now, which would be fair because the position I applied for is a little bit over my head experience-wise. Still, out of this experience I've learned that it rarely hurts to try, even if you think something's out of reach. My department is extremely short-handed right now and we are having a tough time hiring from outside, so I threw my name into the hat. It put my bosses in a tough position because if they flat-out turned me down, they run the risk of alienating me and potentially losing me in the near future. And to tell the truth, who knows if that would have been the case. I like where I work, but of most importance to me is to have an upward slope to my career path. One bad thing about my current firm is that discussion of that area seems somewhat taboo - nobody really talks about it. Even our raises are given to us on a piece of paper that is put in with our paycheck - there is no discussion on the matter. So I'm hoping that by applying for this position that at the very least my bosses will recognize that I'll be taking an active approach throughout my career.

And then there are the Phillies. EVer since I was seven or eight years old, they have been my team. The Phillies and the Eagles were precious to me, and the 76ers and Flyers, while not on the same level, were also important. I've experienced one playoff season in sixteen years of rooting for the Phils, the wonderful year of 1993. I was there for Game 6 of the NLCS, when the Phillies beat the Braves to advance to the World Series, and it was a great moment. I stuck with the team throughout the dreadful late 1990s, which is harder than it seems. Those teams of 1995-1998 gave me little hope for success, in 1999 the Phils had a good year for them and won 70 games, and in 2000 plummeted back to their usual 65-97. It's been better since, with win totals of 86, 80, 86, and 86 since, but still no playoffs. Still, I stuck with them. Well now I am officially renouncing the Phillies, for two reasons:

1) They made ZERO trades at the trading deadline. I would have preferred them to deal Wagner and possibly Urbina, along with either Ryan Howard or Thome. Instead they did nothing.

2) Rumor around the City is that the team is quietly negotiating a contract extension with GM Ed Wade. This man has been the General Manager for eight years without ever reaching the playoffs or displaying a level of job performance that could be called "competent."

The second one is the one that really gets me - if the Phillies have Ed Wade as their GM next year while missing the playoffs this year, I'm going to have to pick a new team to root for until there is some sort of regime change. I'm thinking either picking a team out of a hat to follow on a temporary basis, or deciding between the Orioles and Nationals, since they are the closest teams to where I live, and I could never root for the Mets. It won't be the same, so I'll probably continue to follow the Phillies, but refuse to financially support them. I attended four games early in the season (I only paid for the tickets for one) and have refused to go back since. Damn Phillies are making me crazy. The wackiest part is that I was so optimistic before the season started, I predicted 103 wins for the Phils. In addition, I bet my friend $100 that they would win at least 87 games. I could very well win the bet and the Phillies could still miss the playoffs. Bastards.

Enough rambling for now - I will be on vacation next week so don't expect any of these disjointed, impossible-to-follow posts. Try to make it through the week without me.

2005-08-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

$1/$2 limit 6-max results:

Hands played: 3,888
Amount won/lost: $11.87
VP$IP: 19.03%
PFR: 7.25%
AF: 2.35
BB/100: 0.15
Won at showdown: 60.48%

I've added that last stat because I think it carries some weight; am I calling bets on the river when I know I'm beat? In the past my number has been around 50%, so I think where it sits now represents some progression in my game.

3 biggest winners:
AA: +$77.25 (16 times)
QTO: +$73.25 (40 times)
44: +$64.25 (21 times)

3 biggest losers:
KK: -$28.59 (18 times)
AQ0: -$27.38 (39 times)
A9s: -$22.50 (14 times)

I made nice dents in my two biggest losers tonight - go me!

After almost 4,000 hands, I've been dealt the following hands the most often:
84o (48)
64o (46)
J7o (45)
K3o (45)

Not pretty. And I've been dealt the following hands the least number of times:
Q3s (4)
82s (5)
A3s (5)

I plan to do a more in-depth stat review once I hit 5,000 hands played. I'm really looking forward to getting inside the numbers more.

At least I'm back in the black after a generally solid session tonight, meaning I have enough to four-table again. I won some nice hands tonight, including a nice one (finally!) with pocket kings. They could be turning around for me...

***** Hand History for Game 2462708017 *****
$1/$2 Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 01, 22:12:02 EDT 2005
Table Table 31097 (6 max) (Real Money)

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Camp Director [ Ks Kh ]
Camp Director raises [$2].
Bob21262 calls [$1.50].
lushh212 raises [$2].
Camp Director raises [$2].
Bob21262 calls [$2].
lushh212 calls [$1].

** Dealing Flop ** [ As, 2h, 6c ]
Bob21262 bets [$1].
lushh212 calls [$1].
Camp Director calls [$1].

** Dealing Turn ** [ Kd ]
Bob21262 checks.
lushh212 checks.
Camp Director bets [$2].
Bob21262 calls [$2].
lushh212 calls [$2].

** Dealing River ** [ 8s ]
Bob21262 checks.
lushh212 bets [$2].
Camp Director raises [$4].
Bob21262 folds.
lushh212 raises [$4].
Camp Director calls [$2].

lushh212 shows [ 8c, 8d ] three of a kind, eights.
Camp Director shows [ Ks, Kh ] three of a kind, kings.
Camp Director wins $33.50 from the main pot with three of a kind, kings.

The call on the flop was because the pot was giving me 20-to-1 odds at that point. With two kings left in the deck my odds of hitting one on the turn were 22.5-to-1. With implied odds added in I thought this was an easy call, and when that king fell on the turn I was one happy man. When I was three-bet on the end I was terrified of a set of aces, hence my call - admittedly a weak play. I suppose I was so used to losing with kings that I thought he had the rockets. It felt good to scoop a nice pot with kings.

2005-07-31T20:10:00.000-07:00

I'm back with this odd fact:

I have been dealt QJs eleven times, and have won all eleven times. What are the odds of that?

2005-07-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

Latest from $1/$2 6-max limit...

Hands played: 3,658
Amount won/lost: ($22.61)
VP$IP: 18.92%
PFR: 7.24%
AF: 2.38
BB/100: (0.31)

3 biggest winners:
AA: +$87.25 (15 times)
QTo: +$73.25 (37 times)
44: +$61.25 (20 times)

3 biggest losers:
AQ0: -$52.13 (34 times)
KK: -$50.34 (15 times)
A9s: -$22.50 (14 times)
I was finally climbing out of that KK hole and then BAM! I got hit with another large loss. Here's the hand in question:

$1/$2 Texas Hold'em - Sunday, July 31, 12:31:22 EDT 2005
Table Table 31076 (6 max) (Real Money)

QUEENEE001 posts small blind [$0.50].
BigMykle posts big blind [$1].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Camp Director [ Kh Ks ]
mike51ham raises [$2].
Camp Director calls [$2].
DAPAPA calls [$2].
QUEENEE001 calls [$1.50].

** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, 3c, 7c ]
QUEENEE001 checks.
mike51ham bets [$1].
Camp Director calls [$1].
DAPAPA raises [$2].
QUEENEE001 folds.
mike51ham calls [$1].
Camp Director calls [$1].

** Dealing Turn ** [ 7h ]
mike51ham bets [$2].
Camp Director calls [$2].
DAPAPA raises [$4].
mike51ham is all-In.
Camp Director raises [$4].
DAPAPA calls [$2].

** Dealing River ** [ 8h ]
Camp Director bets [$2].
DAPAPA raises [$4].
Camp Director raises [$4].
DAPAPA raises [$4].
Camp Director calls [$2].

DAPAPA shows [ 8s, 8d ] a full house, Eights full of sevens.
mike51ham doesn't show [ As, 9d ] a pair of sevens.
Camp Director doesn't show [ Kh, Ks ] two pairs, kings and sevens.
DAPAPA wins $22 from side pot #1 with a full house, Eights full of sevens.
DAPAPA wins $23 from the main pot with a full house, Eights full of sevens.

The limp-reraise on the turn was because something told me that I still had the best hand. Actually, when DAPAPA raised on the turn, I had a strong, strong hunch that he didn't have the seven, really the only card that I was scared of. I actually thought to myself "he probably has a pair bigger than the board, like eights." Of course, when an eight hit the board on the river I totally ignored it and capped like a fool. KK would be just negative for me right now if I had won that pot; of course, it probably wouldn't have been capped on the river if DAPAPA hadn't hit his boaty.

A tought weekend of poker overall, I am really disappointed to be in the red after 3,500 hands. Obviously there is something wrong with my game - or more like nineteen things wrong with my game. I need to smoke them out, one by one, and make the necessary adjustments. I think the best way to do this is to just keep pounding away, playing hands and gaining the experience.

I need to develop solid strategy for hands like AJ0, KTo, and other good blackjack hands in barying situations. I tend to waflle on whether I should call the BB and then finally decide it's worth it, only to be raised behind. Then, pot odds usually tell me to call the additional bet and I'm often dominated. On the other hand, I hate to throw it away when I close the action and I'm getting 9-1 pot odds or some such number. Sigh - with the experience will hopefully come the mastery.

I know I'm playing too tight, but I don't know where to make adjustments. I was doing the best at the beginning of this journey - when my VP$IP and PFR were both higher. They have been trending slowly downward, as have my results, but I can't pinpoint exactly how I have been palying any differently. Generally accepted poker principles say in a situation with loose players, you should tighten up. But often I'm on the button with suited crap, say 85, and three have called in front of me with the blinds still to act. Do pot odds justify a call here? Again, I'll continue with the lather, rinse, repeat until I get it right.

I truly believe this is the best way to get better, to just hammer away at a level until I can consistently beat it, and then think about moving to the next level. It just makes me feel pathetic that I can only 3-table right now due to the diminished bankroll.

2005-07-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

Hot off the presses! $1/$2 limit progress (or lack thereof):

Hands played: 2,219
Amount won: $32.41
VP$IP: 20.50
PFR: 7.84%
AF: 2.27
BB/100: 0.73

3 biggest winners:
QTo: +$71.75 (24 times)
Qjs: +$51.25 (10 times)
AA: +49.50 (10 times)

3 biggest losers:
KK: -$45.34 (10 times)
AQ0: -$33.88 (26 times)
Kt0: -$21.25 ( 26 times)

Played pretty poorly today, some of it was my fault, some of it was extenuating circumstances related to two short sessions where I was unable to "get in the groove." Mostly I was following hands too far - on the bright side, I realized this partway through my last of three sessions today, tightened up, and my results showed it. I had aces six times in about 600 hands, which is more than twice the normal occurence. They won each and every time - never too big, but a win is a win. On the other hand, I didn't even get Kings once, so I guess that balances out the frequency with which I saw aces.

Today was disappointing in that my flopped sets rarely got paid off. Maybe I have gotten spoiled over the last few days by donkeys calling me to the river. I think another problem today was that my flopped sets seemed to occur when I was in EP - I would check the flop and no one would bet, then I would bet the turn and it would be folded to me. Bummer!

I have been using PokerAce HUD since yesterday and it is a Godsend. The player stats are helpful, but what I like the most is the hold cards getting shown at showdown, even if they are mucked. It makes things much easier than digging through hand histories. Some of the calls players make on the river are unbelieveable. Like, they have nothing - jack high on a board that contains an ace and a king, and they are calling bets to the river. No draws, no pair, no hope. I love it.

I think when I play tight, I am giving up a lot of pots where I am in the lead, with middle pair and the like. But I think in the long run it costs me much more to call to the river, since I risk 1)having a bad read and actually being behind, and 2)getting drawn out on.

I have a 9am meeting at work concerning a promotion I applied for. The position is a little bit over my head experience-wise, but my firm is having a hell of a time finding tax people right now and my bosses seem interested in talking to me about it. So even if I get some sort of compromise with extra responsibility and of course a raise, I will be happy. I can't imagine they would have scheduled a meeting with me if they were going to flat turn me down.

2005-07-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

Latest stats at $1/$2 limit:

As of this moment, per PT, I have played
Hands Played: 1,482
Profit/(Loss): $58.54
VP$IP: 21.19%
PF Raise: 8.30%
AF: 2.43
BB/100: 1.98

Top 3 Earning Hands:
QTo: +$54.75 (14 times)
QJs: +$46.25 (8 times)
Ats: +$40.25 (10 times)

Top 3 Losing Hands:
KK: -$45.34 (10 times)
AQo: -$23.38 (15 times)
A7o: -$16.25 (15 times)

KK continues to kill me - this should turn around pretty soon. I feel like I'm playing pretty well. One thing I have to work on is a "stop-win." It seems every session I reach a high water mark - for example, today I was up $80 at one point. I consider quitting and keeping the winnings, but my rationale goes "why stop? You're beating these tables so it should continue." And then I go on to drop is significant portion of my profits back to the table. Probably just coincidence, if I think I have the best of it then I probably do.

I very very very rarely chat while I play, but tonight I broke that personal rule. Here's the hand that spurred my moment of cruelty:

Party Poker (6 max, 4 handed) converter

Preflop: Camp Director is Button with Qh, Jh.
UTG folds.
Camp Director raises $2
SB folds.
Target calls $1

Flop: 9c, 7h, 5c (2 players)
Target checks.
Camp Director bets $1
Target raises $2
Camp Director calls $1

Turn: Th (2 players)
Target bets $2
Camp Director calls $2

River: Kd (2 players)
Target bets $2
Camp Director raises $4
Target raises $4
Camp Director raises $4
Target calls $2
Final Pot:

Results below:
Target has 6s 8c (straight, ten high).
Camp Director has Qh Jh (straight, king high).

Camp Director: and that's why you don't call a raise with 96.

Two things: I got his cards wrong, he had 86. Also, my play looks horrible here now that I reread it. What happened was I made a play for the pot after the flop and got check-raised. I probably should have thrown it away, but with two overcards I thought I still had plenty of outs. The turn gave me the gutshot draw and I had position, so I called that bet. It paid off when we capped at the river and I took a nice pot.

After this hand, this opponent would not leave me alone. Everytime I went to showdown and lost (mucked), he asked me what I called with. He beat me out of a few pots, and then lost a big one to another player he had been verbally sparring with. Opponent #2 said "thanks," and Target responded with "Thank Camp Director, it's his money." BURN! What a loser. This is why I don't chat when I play.

Outcome: Camp Director wins $27.50 with a straight, nine to king.

2005-07-26T04:33:00.000-07:00

Update on my play at $1/$2 limit 6-max.

As of this moment, per PT, I have played
Hands Played: 1,150
Profit/(Loss): $9.38
VP$IP: 22.35%
PF Raise: 9.13%
AF: 2.46
BB/100: 0.41

Top 3 Earning Hands:
Q5s: +$33.00 (3 times)
QJs: +$32.75 (7 times)
44: +$30.75 (4 times)

Top 3 Losing Hands:
KK: -$31.50 (8 times)
AQo: -$18.38 (12 times)
A7o: -$15.75 (12 times)

Not really enough of a sample to do a nice analysis of my play yet, so I'll put that on hold.

The Q5s was the big pot where I turned a flush yesterday for $47.

2005-07-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

Here are two hands from yesterday that fall somewhere between "interesting" and "crazy."

#1:

I am dealt pocket 9s and call a raise pre-flop. The flop is Q92 rainbow. I am in early position and check it to slowplay my set. To my suprise, it's bet and raised behind me and I have to call with my set. Then it's re-raised and capped and gets back around to me again - again, I have to call. FIVE PLAYERS were still in at a 6-max table. I had to figure someone had QQ or AA at this point - one I could beat, the other I could not. But the pot was huge, so I continued - one of the nice things about limit; I wouldn't have to commit my entire stack. The turn is an A, pretty much taking away any chance I had of winning at that point. The player I had pegged as probably holding the QQ or AA bets, and the rest of us call. River is a blank (where is that case 9 when I need it?) and again we all call one bet. The bettor shows QQ. Table maniac said he had 22, which would have been a remarkable flop: set over set over set. I later checked PT and saw he only had one two (??) and the remaining two players had KK and Qx, respectively. The final pot size was $59.50 - the biggest I've seen at $1/$2 6-max.

#2:

I hold K5s in one of the blinds. It's not raised and I see a flop with two of my clubs. I call one bet and make my flush on the turn, when all of the sudden the betting gets crazy. Naturally I'm jamming the pot with the nuts (the ace of clubs was on the flop) and the other two players are doing the same. It's capped on the turn and 2-bet on the river. I take the $47 pot. I forget what the other two buffoons have but I will try to remember to check PT when I get home and report back.

This hand was kind of funny, because when I bet out after the turn, I immediately cursed my bad play. I've recently read SSHE which notes that when the third of suit hits the board, players are likely to see the obvious flush possiblities and slow down their betting. I was upset at myself because I thought if I waited until the river to start ramming it would be more deceptive. In the end it didn't matter because they both must have help good hands (or did they? This is Party).

Until next time children.

2005-07-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

It's been another week since my last post - sigh. Is this blog falling by the wayside? It's possible. Thank God I don't have any readers to let down. My poker game is in a funk, actually that's not true. My poker game is fine, but my self-discipline is in a funk. I jump from game to game, between limits, tourneys, SNGs, everything.

Sometimes I don't really feel like playing but I do anyway, and I end up playing poorly in some tournament I should never have entered. Sometimes I play great, and my hope is renewed. Then, the next night I'll lose back what I had won, and more. My bankroll has been in a sloooow slide ever since two weeks after I first started playing. It's like the great Paula Abdul once said "One step forward, two steps back."

A chronology of my online poker life:

I deposited $500 to Party in April and began playing $0.50/$1.00 limit, one table at a time. I was terrified that I would lose my $500 before I could clear the bonus. This proved to be a foolish thought, as after I cleared the bonus my account sat at $950, the highest it has ever been. I pulled out my original $500 so that I would be playing with house money. Maybe I was overthinking things. I started playing two tables at once, then four. I was holding my own, not really going up or down. Then I went on a $10+$1 SNG kick, and I started out hot playing one or two at a time. I quickly jumped to four at once and was routinely striking out - those $44 hits hurt my bankroll and I left SNGs. I played in a few tournaments with buy-ins that were much too high for me and never moneyed. I jumped to $1/$2 limit and got killed at full ring and 6-max. I started playing $25 NL and again started out decently, only to crash and burn shortly thereafter. I dabbled in PLO8, and let's just say the results were somewhat embarassing. I played one session of $100NL, and I was playing maybe the best poker I had ever played, before I made two terrible calls and lost my buy-in, scaring me away. I went back to SNGs, this time $5+$1s, to see if I could just play tight and fold into the money. I couldn't. I played a few nights drunk, which was always catastrophic. I have still consistently won in the home game.

Shortly after I started (probably when things were going very well), I set a goal to have a bankroll of $2,000 by December 31. The $2,000 could come from winnings or bonuses, but that was my number, and at the time it seemed like it would be a piece of cake. Currently I sit at around $225.

I guess the optimistic way of looking at this is to say "I've gotten a few hundred hours of entertainment, and have $225 more than when I started." But I can't help but be greedy, and say to myself that I should already be at $2,000 and setting my sights even higher.

Over my first 1,500 hands at $0.50/$1.00, my BB/100 was over 4.00, from all indications an unsustainable rate. But I was encouraged by this - I didn't think I was getting better cards than usual, when I wasn't playing poker I was reading poker books so that I could hope to improve my game, and I thought I could maintain, if not improve, that 4.00 BB/100.

Anyway, today I try to restart my journey. I came frighteningly close to putting my entire bankroll at risk yesterday, with the attitude that if I lost it all it wouldn't make a huge difference anyway. Eventually better judgment won out and I simply logged off for a few hours.

So here is the new plan. I am holding myself accountable for any wanderings from the path. I am going to play only $1/$2 6-max limit for the time being. Four tables at a time. If four tables start to seem like too much to the point where it's affecting my results, I will go to three, then two, then one. If I can't maintain at one table I will reevaluate. I'm not planning on bonus-whoring, because I only want to play at Party, and I need my bankroll to be on the site. If I forsee a week or so when I will not be playing, maybe I will withdrawal my balance until Party offers a reload bonus.

I will stay at $1/$2 6-max for quite a while, until I have enough of a bankroll to move up to $2/$4 6-max. What is it, 300 big blinds or 300 big bets? So either $600 or $1,200 - I know it's a big difference, but that will be research I am happy to do if I ever get to $600.

I'm going to play relatively tight, and when I'm in, I will probably be raising. I want to make good-sized hits whenever possible and see flops cheap with pocket pairs. In limit, my bets will often get called to the end, so I will resist the temptation to bluff except in obvious stealing circumstances, which are few and far between at this level. By playing like this, I should be able to slowly raise my bankroll.

This will not be the most fun way of playing. I will get very bored at times with $1/$2 6-max, and will want to play something else. I will not allow myself to do this. If I don't want to play $1/$2 6-max, I won't play poker at all. I'll read Harrington on Hold 'Em, or something else, or work on the house, or the yard, or play with the dog, or spend time with Sara. There is a lot more to life than poker.

Since I want to be accountable for my behavior, and also my results, I will periodically post my results, as dictated to me through PokerTracker. I have filtered my data to start with yesterday, my rebirth.

Can I stick to the plan? A resounding yes would reassure me, but only time will tell.

2005-07-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

Lack of posts lately. I've been pretty busy with finals at school this week, and work has been nuts for the last few weeks (and will remain nuts until about October 15th). Poker has been sucking the life out of me as well. I have been playing like a real ass, and at NL, that can kill you.

I was getting some ok results at SNGs, I even won a couple, which is rare for me. I had noticed the $10 SNGs on Party were strangely tight lately so I dropped down to the $5, where we would often be in the money by level 3/4. As I said, things were going quite well and then I hit a short dryspell which was enough to turn me off of them again. The backbreaking hand was early in a $5, I was trying to stay out of big pots early. I had Kxs and made my nut flush on the turn (the Ace was on the board). The board was not paired, so myself and two others got it all in. I was happy to have tripled up so early and had to give my attention to another SNG I was involved in. When I went back, I was told I had finished in 9th - one of the callers had his two pair turn into a boat on the river. I was pissed.

Has a rough night towards the end of last week where I went on some serious tilt and was playing PLO8 (which I suck at), $3/$6 limit HE (which I'm too impatient/underbankrolled for), and a $10+$1 3-table SNG (which I realized was limit after I had entered). I lost my money quickly at everything but the SNG, and my bankroll was in bad shape. I wanted to go to bed, but stayed up to finish the SNG and hopefully salvage some of my bankroll. I was chipleader at my table, or close to it, for most of the first hour, and on the last hand before the break I looked down at aces. I was ramming and jamming and had two callers that would not go away. My aces ended up winning unimproved and I had a huge stack, about a quarter of the chips in play with 15 people left. I ended up coming in second for a nice cash, but my bankroll still had scars from my earlier idiocy.

I pretty much had a poker-free weekend due to a little friend of mine named Harry Potter. This morning I had some time so I opened 2 $25 NL 6-max tables. I have had trouble with 6-max in the past but from the looks of it these tables seem to be looser, and they certainly were. In fact, I would go as far as to say the action was pretty maniacal. There were all ins what seemed like every other hand.

My buy-in of $25 was down to $15 early due to overaggression, and I looked down at TT and raised to 4xBB. I was reraised to $3 and pushed. He called and showed KQ. I made trips on the flop and filled up on the turn and my stack was looking good. A little later, I was at $56 and looked at AKs and made my standard raise. Flop had two of my suit and was T-high, and this is where I played like a complete donkey. I was in love with my flush draw and couldn't get away from it. I called an all in from a player who had me covered, figuring I had 15 outs twice (three remaining Aces and Kings, and 9 remaining clubs). It turned out I only had the 9 clubs as outs, and actually less than that because of the full house possibilities - my oponent had TT and had flopped a set. I ended up losing the entire $56, which hurt bad. I should have called the flop all in bet - and just kept my money. In my defense, this was a loose player (they all were) and I didn't think he had made a premium hand like that. If I had won, I'd be writing three paragraphs about what a great read I'd made.

I got up from the computer disgusted and down $30 between the two tables. Incidentally, at the other table I barely got to play a hand. When I stood up, the player to my right had gone from a $25 buy-in to $295 - the most I have ever seen one player have at a $25 table. He was using his stack and raising right in front of me every other hand. In addition, I didn't get many decent cards on that table.

I was discouraged by the fact that I'm a complete moron, but encouraged by the looseness of these tables. I can pretty much play my regular game, at $25 NL the blinds are only .10/.25, so I can wait all day and just pay the cheap blinds. I plan to make this my home for the near future, at least until I get bored in two days.

On top of all this, no home game this weekend which blew.

2005-07-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

I got to play a decent amount of poker yesterday and this morning and had a great time, even though I didn't win any money. I finished the day in the black due to having cleared a bonus.

I played 2 $25 NL tables after dinner last night, as well as 2 $10 SNGs on Party. I hadn't played an SNG in a long time, since becoming quite disillusioned with them after a bad run. But since I am trying to work on my NL play, I believe SNGs are a cheap and fun way to get some table-time in. My strategy for the time being is to play rather conservatively in the early stages and not put my stack at risk unless I'm a mortal lock to win. After that, I loosen up a bit and make people pay to play their draws/crap hands.

In the 2 SNGs, I finished 4th and 7th. 4th is my albatross; when I was playing SNGs before, it seemed like I was getting 4th on half of my attempts. This is obviously a problem with my game and I'll need to work on it. I was generally happy with how I played these two, the seventh-place finish was an unbelievably tight table and when I went I think we were at level 6, so it was push or fold. I chose push and lost. I also won $14 in the NL ring games so my net loss so far was $8.

Later, I fired up 4 more $10 SNGs tables and finished 4th, 4th, 3rd, 5th. Kind of disappointing but I was encouraged that I wasn't going at early in the going. There were some amazingly bad plays I saw in both sessions of SNGs, but this one was my favorite:

***** Hand History for Game 2321630609 *****
cmuswim03 finished in ninth place.
15/30 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL)
(Tournament 13711811) - Wed Jul 06 21:57:04 EDT 2005
Table Table 11853 (Real Money) --
Seat 9 is the button

Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: AA_Cracked (1835)
Seat 3: Pianodude (750)
Seat 4: Buda124 (735)
Seat 5: I_AM_VICTORY (560)
Seat 6: mjb39618 (800)
Seat 7: RaginCajan (1130)
Seat 8: IcUfoo (775)
Seat 9: playsum (1415)

AA_Cracked posts small blind (10)
Pianodude posts big blind (15)

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to mjb39618 [ Th, Td ]
Buda124 calls (15)
I_AM_VICTORY calls (15)
mjb39618 raises (60) to 60
RaginCajan folds.
IcUfoo folds.
playsum folds.
AA_Cracked folds.
Pianodude folds.
Buda124 calls (45)
I_AM_VICTORY calls (45)

** Dealing Flop ** : [ Tc, 5h, Ts ]
Buda124 checks.
I_AM_VICTORY checks.
mjb39618 checks.

** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qh ]
Buda124 checks.
I_AM_VICTORY bets (205)
mjb39618 calls (205)
Buda124 folds.

** Dealing River ** : [ Qc ]
I_AM_VICTORY bets (295) I_AM_VICTORY is all-In.
mjb39618 calls (295)
Creating Main Pot with $1205 with I_AM_VICTORY

** Summary **
Main Pot: 1205
Board: [ Tc 5h Ts Qh Qc ]

AA_Cracked balance 1825, lost 10 (folded)
Pianodude balance 735, lost 15 (folded)
Buda124 balance 675, lost 60 (folded)
I_AM_VICTORY balance 0, lost 560 [ 3d 2s ] [ two pairs, queens and tens -- Qh,Qc,Tc,Ts,5h ]mjb39618 balance 1445, bet 560, collected 1205, net +645 [ Th Td ] [ four of a kind, tens -- Qh,Th,Td,Tc,Ts ]
RaginCajan balance 1130, didn't bet (folded)
IcUfoo balance 775, didn't bet (folded)
playsum balance 1415, didn't bet (folded)

Fantastic.

After the one third place finish, I was down $32 for the night. This morning, I didn't have enough time for SNGs, so I popped up 4 $25 NL tables in order to finish clearing my bonus, which expired tomorrow if I didn't clear it.

I ended up doing pretty well, winning about $27 and almost recouping my losses from the SNGs. I feel a little bit hooked on the SNGs, so I plan to keep playing them unless it becomes apparent that I really suck and have to stop.

2005-07-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in posting - I never did get the second half of that session posted yet. I built a shed this wekeend and it was hard work.

Here's a recap of my last few days of poker...

Friday morning...won $18 at $3/$6 limit and list $100 at $100 NL.

Nothing too exciting at the $3/$6 table but I played like a real ass at the NL. I was actually playing great, up about $30 after 20-30 minutes. Then I looked at A9s and saw the flop cheap - it was 985 rainbow. There was some decent action on the flop, and I re-raised $20. My opponent then put his entire stack in. A call would leave me with about $25. I felt that he had to have better than TPTK to make a bet like that, and I was cursing myself for that $20 re-raise. I could be drawing practically dead if he had flopped a straight. My better judgment lost out to compulsiveness and I called. He showed 67 for the straight I had feared. Down to $25, I was able to double that up when I flopped a set of aces and some idiot called my all in with Aces up (there were two aces on board). Then, determined to get back to $100, I looked at 88. The flop came seven high and I called another player's all in. He showed 99 and I was done.

I learned some valuable lessons from this session:

1. Don't call all ins unless you have a monster. I felt the second call was better than the first; I at least had an overpair to the board.

2. I suck. No, seriously, I would love to get better at NL...I think it's more fun and better players have a large advantage.

Saturday evening I played 4 tables of $25 NL (I'm back on Party now). I turned a nice $30 profit in an short, uneventful session.

Then two friends and I were jonesing, so we decided to play 3-handed. I was up about $15 in NL, when I got bored and suggested we play stud (a game none of us has experience in). I got somewhat rocked trying to bluff in stud and lost the $15 profit from earlier. Bored of stud after 5 minutes, I suggested we play dealer's choice, but only games that are spread in casinos (no baseball, follow the queen, etc.), which quickly degenerated into us just palying crazy pineapple every hand. When I explained the rules of crazy pineapple, my two buddies groaned, but there were quickly hooked.

On the third or fourth hand, I made my gutshot on the turn. Gimpy went all in, and Andy thought for awhile and folded. There were three spades on board, so after some deliberation I folded too. Andy said he had flopped a set, and Gimpy did indeed show his flush. Later, I made the nut flush on the turn, and Andy and I went at it. Eventually he showed QJs for a slightly lower flush. There were three four of a kinds in two hours. Overall, it was like Omaha, where anything but the nuts is highly vulnerable. We loved it and were acting crazy. We weren't even drinking, but Andy had a Pepsi that he was convinced was a "red balls," some drink with cocaine in it. Good times had by all. I lost $20.

Sunday night I hosted the home game. We had four players: myself, Andy, Gimpy, and Adam.

As a reminder for player profiles if you missed the last home game post, or if I haven't mentioned Andy before...

Adam: Maniac
Gimpy: Solid but loves to bluff'n'show.
Andy: Solid, TIGHT, never shows if he doesn't have to.

The game was uneventful at first. I was playing super tight and didn't take a pot until about the thirtieth hand. I got some favorable flops and built my stack to about $45 of the $80 on the table. And then I hand that I will probably never forget occurred:

I look down at two beautiful black aces on the button. Gimpy raises $1 UTG and I smooth call. Adam calls as well and I am loving the action. Andy raises $3 more and Gimpy calls. Now I'm really loving the action. I push all in, content to just take the pot right there.

Adam calls.
Andy calls.
Gimpy calls.

Each of them had about $15 in chips at the start of the hand. I show my aces, Adam shows 24s(!), Andy has pocket queens, and Gimpy shows J9s.

Andy's play is defensible, but I probably would have tried to get away from queens in this situation, especially with two all ins in front. It's hard to let go of the $4 he already had in, but sometimes you just have to know when you're beat. In addition, I NEVER go all in pre-flop, Gimpy even asked if I had aces right before I flipped them.

Adam's play is horrible. When I went all in, he had only put $1.25 in the pot. He later said that his girlfriend was pushing him to leave. I think he would have made the call regardless; he's a big "caught up in the moment" type of guy.

Gimpy's play might be the best of the three. He only had J9s, but had to put in about $8 more into a pot of about $35 (his share, anyway). He said he had to call because of the pot odds and I agree. Whenever you have a chance to quadruple up with a decent hand you take it. He's a dangerous player - he even said he was hoping both of his cards were live. That's pretty high-order poker thinking on his part.

Anyway, the flop came KJT rainbow. Andy would make a straight if I got a third ace, I would make a straight if Andy got a third queen. Gimpy had 5 outs to two pair, and Adam was in trouble. The turn was 2, no flush draws, and the outs were as follows...

Adam: three 4's and two 2's (5)
Andy: two A's and three 9's (5)
Gimpy: two J's (2)

Now that I have calculated them, I was in much better shape than I thought. I was terrified that there were so many cards that could beat me on the river. The river was 7 and I took EVERY CHIP ON THE TABLE.

I had actually done this once before, a night when I won an unprecedented $100, but knocking three players out at once was more dramatic. It was awesome. Plus, I won $60.

I just used Cardplayer's odds calculator and saw that I was 51.6% to win the pot pre-flop. This is better than I would have guesses, which was about 40% to win the pot. Gimpy was 18.6%, Adam was 15.2%, and surprisingly, Andy was in the worst position at 14.9%.

After the flop, I was 59.5% to win, Andy was 18.4%, Gimpy was 16.2%, and Adam was 6.0%.
After the turn, I was 70.0%, Andy and Adam were each 12.5%, and Gimpy was 5.0%. A very interesting hand.

Monday night I 4-tabled $25 NL at Party and lost $2 in one of the more boring sessions I have ever experienced.

Hopefully I will finish last week's post of a session at some point when I am home.

2005-07-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm gonna try and post a decent session at $3/$6 for posterity's sake.

Here we go - I buy in with $60...

1: 105o in the BB. Check and see the flop of 862 and fold to a bet.

2: AQo in the SB. One limper and I call the BB. Flop is 952 and myself and the other player call one bet. Turn is 4 and it checks around. River is 3 giving me the straight, I bet and it's folded to me. Chips at $69.

3: A4o. Fold.

4: J5s. Fold.

5: JJ. I raise it up and get two callers. Flop is TT5, I bet and get one caller. Turn is 7, I bet and take it down. Chips at $83.

6: 74o. Fold.

7: 43o. Fold.

8: Q6o. Fold.

9: J40. Fold.

10: AQo UTG. I raise it and get two callers. Flop is AJ5, and I bet and get one caller. Turn is 3, I bet and take it down. Chips at $98.

11: 96o in the BB. Fold.

12: 93o in the SB. Fold.

13: Q9o. Fold.

14: 77. I call and four see the flop of T96. It's checked around to me and I bet and get one caller. Turn is A and it checks around. River is 3, opponent bets and I call. He shows A8. Chips at $82. Bad play by me on this hand.

15: J9s. Fold.

16: 84o. Fold.

17: T5o. Fold.

18: J4o. Fold.

19: K2o. Fold.

20: Q2o in the BB. Folded to a raise in front.

21: T2o in the SB. Fold.

22: K4o. Fold.

23: 93o. Fold.

24: A9o. Fold.

25: Q3o. Fold.

26: AKo UTG. I raise and get three callers. Flop is JJT, I bet and get two callers. Turn is 3, I bet and get two callers. River is K, BB bets and I call. He shows Q9 for a rivered straight. Tough break for me. Chips at $57.

27: 86o in the BB. Folded to a raise in front.

28: ATo in the SB. I raise it and get two callers. Flop is J52 and I call a bet. Turn is 8, and my opponent bets his last $5. I call since he is all in and the river is 2. He shows J2 to take it. Chips at $40.

29: QQ. I raise and get three callers. Flop is AA4 and I call one bet. Turn is A and it's bet in front of me. I raise it and he calls. River is 9, I bet and he folds. Chips at $72.

30: K8o. Fold.

31: 22. I call, flop comes J97, I fold to a bet.

32: JTo. Folded to a raise in front of me..

33: AJo. I call and it's raised behind me. I call this bet and five see the flop of 873. We all call one bet and the turn is 6. I fold to a bet.

34: 84o. Fold.

35: T7o in the BB. I call a raise and the flop is T99. It checks around. Turn is J, I bet and get called. River is A and it checks around. He shows J2 and takes it. Chips at $48.

36: T8s in the SB. I complete and the BB raises. I call and four see the flop is AT4. I fold to a bet and two callers in front.

I've gotta run, I will finish this session later.

2005-06-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've analyzed my play that was posted this morning (see below) a few times by now. I don't think I played too poorly. Two of the three decent pots I won were river suckouts; I probably shouldn't have been involved in those pots at that point regardless. I did get outkicked twice, which always hurts: AK against AQ and AQ against AT. Also in 43 hands, my only pairs were 55 and 44. Other than that, I didn't get too many playable hands. I did get a bunch of the sort of hands that get me in trouble: A-medium and unsuited blackjack twenties.

I'm moving back to this fish tank that is Party. I hope they offer a reload bonus sometime in the next 24 hours so I can take advantage. I plan to play $3/$6 at Party once I get my funds in there, so we'll see how it goes.

2005-06-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

Finally I'm at home with some time to blog - I've wanted to post some sessions in their entirety in order to analyze them myself. I will try to post a good session and a bad session today...

Here is this morning's short session at Stars $3/$6 6-max...

Original buy-in - $60

1: T7o in the BB. Two callers and the flop is T55. I bet and get one caller. Turn is a 4, I bet and take it down.

2: Q4o in the SB. Fold.

3: T9o on the button. Fold.

4: 76o. Fold.

5: JTo. Raised pre-flop, two callers. Flop is A97, all diamonds (my T is a diamond). I call one bet and the other player drops. Turn is 5s, I call one again, hoping for a diamond or an eight. River is Tc, making my life difficult. I make the crying call and bad guy shows pocket sevens for a set. Down to $48.

6: 64o. Fold.

7: A8o in the BB. Two limpers, I check. Flop is KT4. I fold to a flop bet.

8: 44 in the SB. One limper and I call the BB. Flop is J99, I bet and take it down. Chips at $51.

9: T6o. Fold.

10: J9o. Fold.

11: J6o. Fold.

12: AQs in the BB. Two raises before me pre-flop; I don't like that but I have to call. Flop is J94I call one bet, as does the other player. Turn is A, I call one bet as does the other player. River is 7, I call one bet as does the other player. One shows KJ, the other shows AK - ouch. That was a $70 pot and I'm down to $27 and in bad shape.

13: A8s in the SB. Two limpers before me and I call the BB. Flop is J62 and it's checked around. Turn is Q, I bet out, one caller. River is a sweet, sweet A, I bet and he calls. I take the pot of $35. Hand history shows bad guy had KQ so I got lucky here on the river. Chips at $47.

14: A9o. It's raised in front and I fold.

15: Q6o. Fold.

16: K8o. Fold.

17: K6s UTG. Fold.

18: J9o in the BB. It's folded around to me.

19: 87s in the SB. Three limpers in front and I call, hoping to hit the flop. Flop is KQQ and those dreams are shattered. I fold to a flop bet.

20: 95o. Fold.

21: 52o. Fold.

22: KTo UTG. I raise, hoping the others will respect it and get out. I get one caller. Flop is Q77, bad guy bets, I raise (not sure why I did this), he calls. Turn is 3, he checks and I bet, he calls. River is a handsome K, I bet and he calls. I take the $47 pot. Hand history shows he had Q3, so again the river saved me. Chips at $68.

23: 32o in the BB. Folded to a raise.

24: A4o in the SB. Folded to a raise.

25: A9o. Folded to a raise.

26: A9s. Folded to a raise (I'm sensing a pattern).

27: Q8s. I raise and it's reraised. Myself and one other player call the extra bet. Flop is J53 with one of my suit. I call one bet hoping for the Q, turn is 7 of my suit. I call one bet hoping now for a heart or a queen. River is 9s and I fold. Chips at $46.

28: J5s. Fold.

29: A7o in the BB. Two limpers and I check. Flop is J96 and I fold to a bet.

30: 87o in the SB. Fold.

31: 82o. Fold.

32: QTo. I call and four see the flop, which is T64. It's bet in front of me and I raise. The two others fold and the original bettor reraises. I call, now scared that I'm outkicked again. Turn is A, he bets, I call. River is 8 putting three hearts on board. I call one bet and he shows T9 so I take it due to the kicker. Pot was $42, my chips are at $64.

33: AJo and I raise and get one caller. Flop is Q83, I bet out and he calls. Turn is K. I check, he bets, I fold.

34: ATo UTG. I raise and it's foded to me. Chips at $59.

35: To in the BB. I fold to a raise.

36: QJs in the SB. I call and 4 see the flop of AA7. I fold to a bet.

37: KQ0. Two limpers, I raise and both call. Flop is AT5, I call one bet, as does the other player. Turn is 5, I call one bet as does the other player. River is K, I call one bet as does the other player. One guy shows A7, the other A4 and they split. My chips are at $32.

38: 52o. Fold.

39: T8s. Fold.

40: J9s. Fold.

41: KJs in the BB. It's raised in front, I call and three see the flop of KQ4. I call one bet. Turn is 8 and it's checked around. I was hoping to check-raise here and I was not happy when it checked around. River is A, I call one bet and the other player check-raises. I fold and he shows JT for a straight. My chips are at $17.

42: 55 in the SB. I call and three see the flop of JT8. It's checked around and I bet the turn of 3. Folded to me. Chips at $23.

43: AJo on the button. Raised in front and I call as do two others. Flop is AT9 and I call one bet - other 2 players fold. Turn is 3, I call one bet. River is 7, I call one bet and am all in. Bad guy shows AQ and that's all she wrote.

I'm out of time. I will try to post a good session later.

2005-06-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

Slowly, I'm climbing back on the horse and taming it...

Although I generally played like shit this morning, I ended up making $15, which given my recent results, seems like about $1 million.

The small win came in a short-ish session this morning, a little less than an hour. Things started off poorly; I elected to post the big blind out of position since I was eager to get started. Some bad shit went down and I found myself down $21 after folding to a river bet with a flush draw that didn't come through.

After that I actually played pretty well (contrary to what I wrote above), picking my spots and getting out of pots that I obviously wasn't going to win. I'm a big believer in the "raise to gain information" strategy - for example, when I miss the flop. If I'm heads up, there's a good chance that the bad guy also missed the flop - especially if the flop paired, and I feel it's worth one small bet to find out. I like to be the agressor, at least until the bet size doubles on the turn, when I re-evaluate.

This morning I held AJo and raised pre-flop. The flop missed me, I believe QQx, and I bet out. My opponent raised me. Usually, this would tell me that I'm beat and I can bail on the pot. Rashly, I re-raised and the bad guy mucked. The re-raise was probably not a great idea, or at least I though at first. But the more I think about it, he probably re-raised in the hope that I would think he had a Q, but then when I re-raised and he didn't hold the Q, it left no choice but for him to believe I had made the set. At $3/$6, I'm not sure how effective this could be. The players are not of the caliber that they will respect a three bet on a paired board like that. I was lucky that this particular player did put me on the set and folded. At higher limits this might be a valuable strategy.

Best/scariest/somewhat disappointing hand of the morning:

I look at ATo (for the third time in about ten hands) and raise. A few callers and the flop brings AQQ. The flop is three-bet and the turn is a K. I'm worried about a Q or AK, but the pot at this point is too big to get away from. The river is a handsome J, giving me a straight - thank God for luck. I ended up splitting when my opponent showed QT - whew! Still, half of a $94 pot is very nice, especially when I would have had $1 if I had lost that pot.

2005-06-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

I'm in the midst of a tough run at the tables. Granted, it's only a few sessions, but since I'm playing over my head at $3/$6, it's eaten a third of my bankroll.

Thursday afternoon I got home from work a few hours early and decided to play a little before Sara got home. Well, I got murdered. I lost my $60 buy-in quickly, switched tables, and proceeded to drop another $30. The aggressive style I play gets killed when I never showdown anything good. Later that night, I played again to try and get some of it back. I built my $60 up to $130, and I decided that if I hit $150, and thereby erased my earlier losses that I would stop. A short time later I was sitting at $40 and not happy. The $110 loss on the day was my biggest ever.

I didn't get another chance to play until Sunday afternoon. As soon as I opened the table, Sara said she wanted to go get dinner. I went to close out just as Stars posted my big blind for me. I looked at A2o and when the flop came A2x, visions of a quick hit-and-run were dancing in my head. The pot got huge, with three of us going to the river and many raises. By the time it was three-bet on the turn, I figured things weren't looking too good for me, but at that point the pot was too big to drop out. The pot was more than $120, and the eventual winner showed pocket twos for a flopped set. Damn. Luckily, I got it back a few hands later when my JTs made two pair on the river and was able to cash out up $3 - this was the high point of the day.

This morning I woke up at 6 to take the dog for a walk with Sara. She leaves for work at 6:30 and I don't leave until 8:30, so I opened up another table. I quickly went up $20, but my aggression was not getting the respect it deserved (at least that's how I saw it; my opponents were probably just happy some boob was doing their betting for them). Within 20 minutes, I dropped the $60 buy in.

One frustrating hand from this morning: I look down at AQs, it's raised in front of me, and four see the flop of AQx. There is a lot of betting on the flop, and the turn is a K. I don't love this because now AK beats me, but again there is a lot of action, including one player who PT says only has a VP$IP of 5% (albeit in only a few dozen hands). Betting, river blank, betting, and the tight player shows JTs for a turned straight. It just was that kind of session; my good hands lost to very good hands, and my crap hands lost to slightly less crappy hands.

In another instance, I look at 77 and limp pre-flop. Flop is Kxx, no sevens. I'm heads up against a relatively short stack with about $25, so I bet out hoping he'll drop it. He takes a while and calls. Turn is a blank, I bet, he thinks again and calls. River another blank, I bet, he thinks, and thinks. Then he types, "nh" in the chat box and calls for his last $1.50 before showing pocket queens and taking it. He later explained that he was sure I had a K and had him beat. The bitch part of this is that I think if he had any sort of a stack left on the river, he would have let it go. He only called because it was just $1.50. DAMN.

Oddly, this losing has made me more eager to get back on the horse and play again. I don't feel that I have been playing that horribly, just too aggressive at the wrong times. I do like playing aggressively, however. I find that I am in control of the table a lot of the time. If someone makes top pair, they will only call my bet instead of raising.

Let me tell you, I am gonna fuck those Stars $3/$6 tables up tonight. I also am considering dipping my feet in the Party $3/$6 action. I like the semi-solid, predictable play of Stars, put Party I'm sure is fishier, and therefore more profitable if played correctly.

2005-06-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Hot diggity dog, I'm hot! Well, by my standards anyway.

I played about 90 minutes of $3/$6 last night at Stars (I decided to stay there since Party doesn't currently have any reload bonus offers) and won $58. I was actually up a little more than $100, but got TT and JJ, which didn't hold up and cost me some dough. There were a few notable hands however:

I had Axo and I think it was folded around to me in LP, so I raised. A few callers come along for the flop, which is two spades (my ace was a spade) and all low. I bet out (thanks SSHE!) and everyone folded but one guy. Turn is another spade and I call bad guy's bet to try and make my nut flush on the river. Glory be, the ten of spades shows its beautiful face on the river. He bets, I raise, he calls for his last $4.50 or something. I'm already adding the pot to my stack when it gets pushed to him - what? There were no pairs on board! Then I saw it, he had made a straight flush on the turn - JESUS. I actually was pretty lucky on this one, because if he hadn't been shortstacked, I would have lost another $13.50 when the betting was inevitably capped on the river. Plus, I still had a good session so I wasn't that pissed. Scooping an $80 pot will do that to you.

Another hand was crazy with action; I had folded pre-flop and therefore was not paying too much attention, but the pot ended up at $111, the largest I have seen at $3/$6. The winning hand was pocket nines that made a set on the turn; I meant to check out what the others who went to showdown had using PT, but forgot. I will possibly look into this tonight.

Have you noticed my affinity for the semi-colon? Even though I probably use it incorrectly, I feel it gives my writing an air of professionalism.

La dee da, I'm not sure how much poker I will be able to play this week. I probably will have ample opportunity because with Sara adjusting to the schedule of her new job she should be in bed early most nights. Maybe I'll be able to get a nice session in tonight...if I feel like that is. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood.

2005-06-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

Had a nice session last night at the Stars 3/$6 tables. With Sara out of town, I had been looking forward to a nice, uninterrupted session. I opened up Stars and took a gander at the tables. At Stars, the average $3/$6 table has about 3 players to every flop, but last night one table had 59% seeing the flop, and an average pot size that was almost double that of the other tables. Needless to say, this was my table. After a few minutes on the waitlist, I got my seat and bought in.

I ended up playing for about an hour, and won $88. I got some nice cards, including KK twice, QQ, and JJ, and they all held up. The more aggressive style I picked up from SSHE is something that I am really loving right now. I wasn't sure how it would translate to Stars' $3/$6, since they are generally pretty tight tables, but it worked great on the loose table I was at. There were three maniacs with VP$IP over 50%, basically just giving money away. When I sat down and starting reraising them, they had no idea how to react. I was getting a ton of respect at the table; the first four pots I won never even went to showdown.

I was telling a friend about the session, and how great it is when you get great hole cards and an opponent gets slightly worse hole cards. One of the times I had KK, there was a lot of action, and at shbowdown my opponent held an unimproved JJ - big pot for me. Another instance I had AJo and again there was a lot of action. A jack flopped and at showdown the bad guy showed KJo. Somehow winning my the slightest kicker margin is extremely satisfying.
All in all, I had some nice luck last night, and I feel that I played very well. I finally cleared my Stars bonus and am ready to whore at Party; I will have to check out Bonus Whores to see if there are currently any reload bonii.

2005-06-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back...

Vacation was fantastic; the weather was gorgeous and it was great to just kick back and relax. It was a little difficult to be without my precious Internet for an entire week, but at the same time it was nice to get away from everything.

I got home Saturday and managed to catch up on Iggy and the Poker Nerd, among others. Now I'm back on the horse, ready to read Pauly's live WSOP coverage. Only one problem: I'm out at a client this week for work. Two things suck about this - I have to wear a suit, which means I had to go buy a suit. I hope the client doesn't mind seeing the same suit all week. Hopefully my three different ties will confuse them into submission. In addition, being at the client means no Internet access from work. So I'll have to wait until I get home to see what's new in the ol' blogosphere. Oh well.

The bright side is that being at a client gives me large chunks of downtime, where I can type up superb blog entries such as the one you're reading right now. I hope to put out longer entries, poker-related or not, a few times this week.

I didn't play any poker while I was on vacation last week. Last Sunday I headed to the Tropicana with two friends with the intention of playing. As soon as I stepped into the poker room, however, I lost all desire. I have come to realize that I hate pretty much everyone in these poker rooms. I don't find it enjoyable to sit with nine strangers and not have any social interaction. I know I'm overreacting and sitting live can be a great time, but between the people and the tipping and the slow pace of live play, it didn't appeal to me. Even though I'm fairly confident I could have won money playing poker that day, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
So what did I do? The smart thing would have been to not gamble at all if I wasn't going to play poker. Instead, I sat down with my friends at blackjack (a game I absolutely HATE). I dropped $40 in a snoozefest there and lost another $60 at craps across the aisle. At least craps was fun though.

I did get to watch some poker on TV this week, something I haven't been able to do since Sara and I moved to the new house and gave up cable. Even though it was just some 2004 WSOP episodes I had seen 32 times, it was very entertaining. When 2005 coverage starts on ESPN in September, I plan to be at a friend's house for each new episode.

I also hosted the home game last night. Sara is out of town for orientation at her new job until Tuesday night, so I used the opportunity. One other thing I forgot to mention: Sara got me a poker table for my birthday. She is the greatest woman in the world. Actually, let me give the backstory on it.

We're finishing our basement and when we started the project, Sara suggested that I get a real hold 'em table, the oval kind with a padded rail and all that. I have a cruddy octagon tabletop which we don't even use; it's easier to play on the dining room table. So I was waffling on getting a hold 'em table and Sara kept pushing it - once again, the greatest woman in the world. Finally I got on board with it and was fired up. When we completed the basement, I would get nice poker table, and I was pumped.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. We are drywalling, and the basement is inching closer to completion. Suddenly, Sara mentions that she doesn't think I should get a poker table anymore. We're not going to use it enough, poker is a fad that will pass, all that. I, not wanting to get in an argument, just kind of nodded. Inside I was pretty pissed, since it was Sara who got me all excited in the first place for the table. I kind of forgot about it, and then BAM, Sara gives me a gorgeous table for my birthday. Eight seats, padded rail, cup- and chip-holders. It's really nice and says "ESPN Poker Club" in the center of the felt. Retail on it was $299, and Sara got it on clearance for $99 - what a deal! I love the table.

Anyway, the home game...we had six players, which is two more than usual. In addition, I've decided to give the players names for easier reading and writing. Kevin, my brother, is a solid player. If he bets, he's generally got something, and he usually wins. Adam is the maniac mentioned in many previous posts. He usually loses, but sometimes bullies his way to big wins. Gimpy is another solid player who can mix it up with stone cold bluffs. Dennis hadn't played in three months before last night, but is pretty good. Sometimes he will put another player on a bluff and go a little crazy with re-raising - that gets costly real quick. John is a horrible player who comes and donates money to the rest of us. Sometimes I actually feel bad for him, that is until I'm scooping a big pot that he contributed to.

I've been reading Small Stakes Hold 'Em and was eager to try out the more aggressive style of play that the book recommends. Generally, it worked well and I finished the session up $35. At the beginning, I was being too aggressive and lost half of my chips fairly quickly. As the game progressed, I adjusted and picked my spots better. For example, Adam raises a lot to try and steal (by a lot I mean two out of three pots). However, when Adam bets and is re-raised, he goes into his shell and will often fold right there. I used this to my great advantage last night; Adam was on my left, which was great because often eh would do my betting for me. Twice he went all in for not many chips when I was planning to raise, and I think I played it well both times.

The first time I looked down at AQo, Adam went all in for about $5. Since there were more players to act behind me, I raised his all in another $5. I wanted to isolate myself against Adam. I thought I had the best hand, and wanted to reduce the chances of another straggler drawing out on me. Dennis, who was on my right, agonized for a while and folded. Dennis is super-tight, so I knew that if he was agonizing over it as much as he did that he probably had me beat. I was glad that I had re-raised. The others all folded, and Adam showed JTs - not a terrible hand, but inferior to my holding. Unfortunately, Adam hit a straight on the river to win the pot. Still, I was glad that I got heads up pre-flop, rather than risk putting more money in the pot. It turned out Dennis folded pocket nines, which looked worse when a nine hit the flop and made a boat on the river. Even though I lost this pot, things could have been a lot worse.
The second time I looked down at AKo, another nice hand. Adam again went all in for about $4, I again raised another $5 to drive everyone else out, which worked. Adam showed Q7s, and I was looking good. He rivered a flush to beat me. I didn't really feel to bad about either of these suckouts, because there wasn't much money involved, and I had the best of it when the money went into the pot. Naturally, Adam ended up busting out so we all got his money in the end.
So to sum up, the new table was great, the game was fun, and I won money. What more could you ask for?

Remember earlier when I said that Dennis can get a little bit crazy when he thinks someone is trying to bluff him? Here's a story from earlier this year, which was, not coincidentally, the last time he played with us before last night.

The short version: I look down at Axo and the flop brings two more aces. The betting was pretty heavy, and the case ace came on the turn. It gets to the river and the betting is still heavy. I bet out, and Dennis thought for a while. At first, it looked like he would fold and I was pretty bummed out. I don't know what I did, but he must have picked up on something and all of the sudden it looked like he was thinking about a raise. This is one of the most difficult spots while playing live poker; when your opponent is in the tank, staring you down, and you have to act like it's no big deal. Dennis ended up raising $20, which put me all in, and I got to call and show my four aces. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy.

Last night he played super tight and was the big winner, so hopefully he'll be back next week.
Phillies: big series coming up against the struggling Mets. Please take this series. We need the momentum going into the series against Boston.

That is all.

2005-06-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Lookee here, poker content!

Last night Sara went to bed at 10:00, and I decided to hit up Poker Stars. I registered for two $1+0 NL MTTs (both the greatest and worst things of all time) and while I was waiting opened a $3/$6 game. The results, one at a time now...

On the first MTT I busted before the first break. Even though I was out rather quickly, I still finished about 400th out of 800. It was a good time for a dollar. I don't really remember many details, thanks to the second MTT, which might still be going on for all I know.

Segue - in the second MTT I was in the zone. Well, not really, but I played solidly and didn't get caught in any crazy hands where I was second-best. I passed the first break, then the second, and the field was being whittled away more slowly now. Things were hitting on all cylinders; I was bluffing at the right times and getting respect, as well as hitting just enough hands to keep me comfortably ahead of the blinds. I must say the playing on Poker Stars with a reasonable blinds structure is infinitely more enjoyable than Party, where the only thing they seem concerned with is getting the tourney over with. The third break came and went, I had coasted into the money.

Top 63 places paid since there were 679 entrants. We got down to about 40 when I decided to look at the payout structure (I thought it would jinx me if I looked earlier). Basically, I had to reach the final table to get $10 - woohoo! Top prize was $170, which would have been nice, although I would prefer not to use all my MTT karma in one night for a $170 win.

It was after 2:00 and I was slipping quickly. I just wanted the bastard to end. Worse, everyone had tightened up like a choir girl. No one was going out. I don't remember the exact details of the hand, but I ended up pushing on a semi-bluff (possibly a total bluff) and got called by top pair, and that was that. I finished 19th for a nice cash of $4.03. I was somewhat peeved since 18th paid $7.47, but then I reminded myself that it was only a difference of $3.44.

Overall I loved how I played. I was reasonably tight pre-flop, but was not afraid to take a stab at the pot when it looked orphan-like. I peaked at around 50,000T, which put me in the top five at the time (about 80-100 players remaining).

So with that chapter closed, how did I do in the $3/$6 game? Splendidly (is that a word?). I bought in for $60, won an early pot, and never dipped below my original buy-in. I also had two maniacs at the table, one who was the maniacest maniac who ever maniac'd. His VP$IP was about 45%, and PFR% was about 35%. He used a hot run of cards early to net about $50, and then it all fell apart. He ended up losing his $125 buy-in and leaving. I was sad to see him go, but at least I was the one who got to bust him. Details:

Abridged version: I look at QQ, raise throughout the hand when no A or K shows, he either re-raises or calls throughout, and shows bottom pair. Posthoc, I will never forget you.

Here is a tough hand I had with him earlier in the session, right after I had pegged him as a nut.
I look at AA and raise. He pops it, I cap. Flop is all low and it's capped again. Turn is another low, giving four to a straight. This worried me because he could have anything, but I bet anyway and he called. The goddamn river makes a straight on the board, and we each check and split. He showed KK - that river cost me about $40.

My anger didn't last as I took a few big pots off of him right after that.

I doubled my original buy-in and then one of my buddies sat down at the table with $100. This is the guy who convinced me to play $3/$6 and said he was beating it. Not killing it, but he claimed to be taking $200 a month out of the game just playing occasionally. Unfortunately, the cards were a bitch to him and his $100 lasted only about 30 minutes. He made some questionable plays, but overall didn't play too badly. He was surprised when I rattled off his VP$IP and PFR% (which was 0) after a while, and asked what program I was using. I pimped Poker Tracker and he said he might look at it.

One funny and surprising moment was when he went to showdown with someone and the guy mucked after he saw my friends cards. I typed (in AIM) "hold on, I will go see what he had." The response was something along these lines:

what?

how??

Another great thing I have found in switching from Party to Stars is that the hand histories that Stars sends reveal the cards of everyone who went to showdown, whether they mucked without showing or not. I have found this to be a valuable source of information. It requires some extra work (actually going into PT and finding the hand history), but I can get inside an opponents' head much better. I think my friend was appalled by it though.

I built my original $60 up to $197, and if I got to $200 I was closing the table. Unfortunately, I never got there - I ended up cashing out $142 for a nice $82 profit. I couldn't have helped but think it should have been more. It was a really fun night playing poker, especially when my friend was there.

I leave for vacation tomorrow morning and there won't be any posts until Monday the 20th at the earliest. I am scheduled at a client that week so I may not get the opportunity to post at all. In the meantime check out Guinness and Poker for a guide to all the trip reports being written out there right now.

Wish me luck in Atlantic City. I have only sat live poker three times, and lost all three. Twice I didn't win a hand. Yeesh.

2005-06-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

Thanks to This is not a Poker Blog for the link!

I'd like to explain my skimpy blogroll to the right. I put up links to three sites I visit everyday. I have no idea how to add more. Before you try to help, I would like to add that I really have no desire to learn how to add more. I'm lazy.

2005-06-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

It's bloggy time!

Definite lack of poker this week so far. Last night, I actually had the opportunity to play (Sara usually goes to bed at around 10:30), but decided on just hitting the sack myself. I just didn't really feel like playing last night. I leave for vacation Saturday morning, so I won't be able to play online for a week. However, Atlantic City is only 35 miles from Wildwood, and there are one, possibly two, trips in the offing. I've heard good things about the new poker room at the Tropicana, so that shall be my target. Plus, a mandatory stop at the greatest restaurant on Earth, the Irish Pub.

Oh, I do have some poker-related content after all - on Tuesday night I ponied up the $24.95 for Small Stakes Hold Em. Damn those Sklansky books are expensive. I haven't had a chance to start it yet, but I should be able to dive in at some point during class tonight. On the other hand, trying to read Sklansky in any environment without complete silence can be extremely frustrating.

The maniac from my home game just started playing at Full Tilt. This alone may be enough to get me to play at Full Tilt. But seriously, this is probably not good. Out of all of my gambling-obsessed buddies, maniac is probably the most addicted to poker. For example, last SUnday I was going to a graduation party for a friend, and maniac said he wasn't going because he didn't like some of the people who were going to be there. Since Sunday is our usual day for the home game, I mentioned that a game might pop up at the party. Needless to say, maniac shows up at the party right after I did, salivating for a game. So let's sum this one up: he only came to the party because there was a chance that a game might start. In addition, he had to buy a gift for the graduate. Whatever.

Segue: I just had to sit here for ten seconds trying to figure out the word for "a person that is graduating." Of course, the proper word is "graduate," but that didn't stop me gtom mentally running through such possibilities as "graduee," "graduater," and "graduatee." I'm on top of my game right now.

Work is somewhat of a drag lately. After every April 15, I feel that I'm entitled to some decompression time. The problem comes to "recompressing" afterwards. I just can't do it. Most of the firm kind of floats through the first two weeks after tax day, and then reactivates. Here I sit, almost eight weeks after tax day, and I'm still in a lull. I have a major project sitting on my desk that I just can't bring myself to concentrate on for more than a few minutes.

Tomorrow is my last day of work for eleven days, so I had better get some shit done. Oh well. I have been slogging into work late this week, capped by a 9:35 arrival today. This is not good - even I know that.

I don't want to develop a reputation as a poor employee (to be honest I'm a long way from doing that). I don't really hate my job specifically. I hate working in general. I miss the excitement of my retail jobs in high school, when there was always action and I was working with my friends. Those were the days. Retail is not a viable option now, because I just can't earn the money I can here. Plus, if I ever do a career change, I'm not going anywhere with a busy season.

I'm being whiny today. I have a great job that many would kill for. I make what I consider to be an obscene amount of money to sit in a cube, do some tax returns, and surf the Internet. Sara starts work on the 20th, and it should make things easier when we are both working.
Time to eat my ham sandwich and try to accomplish something this afternoon. Wish me luck.

I was just proofreading this entry and noticed I had used the phrase "in the offing." What the fuck?

2005-06-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

I forgot to thank 92offsuit for linking to me. Every link is appreciated!

2005-06-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

I'm back. Although not from Vegas, but from lunch.

I have been wildly unproductive today, constantly refreshing all of the Vegas blogs for some shred of an update or trip report. The bloggers are bring uncooperative, either not updating at all or slapping up an "I'm back/it was fun/more later." I want trip reports dammit! Of course, I completely understand if the bloggers are fatigued, but throw us a bone - we didn't even get to go to Vegas.

I was disappointed to read in one of Pauly's updates that no bloggers made it to day two of WSOP Event #2. I was especially bummed when he wrote that the Poker Nerd couldn't even register in time. PN is a top-notch blogger who helped me kill two weeks of work while I read his entire archives. Anyway, the consensus is that everyone had a great time, which I guess is the most important thing...

I am enjoying having my money over at Poker Stars. In addition to having a pleasant-looking lobby that doesn't give me headaches from all of the flourescent colors, there is just so much more that I can do with my money. My current soup du jour is that when I sit down, I decide if I want to play to win money or just dick around for fun. If I'm all about dicking around, I love the $1+.20 5-table SNGs. Sure, the play is absolutely atrocious and some of them are nothing more than all-in fests, but I get an hour of play for one dollar. These are perfect for me sometimes, because often I will sit down to play, but not really want to play, just waste some time.

When I am in the mood to deplete/build my bankroll I have been playing full-ring $3/$6. I began this on the advice of a friend who said he is having success just playing tight, and I don't consider this friend to be a better player than I am. The first session wasn't so hot, as I lost $33 by getting a little bit frisky once I won a few pots. I have to say, there was a major adjustment period during that first session. The big bets of $6 were equal to medium-sized pots at $0.50/$1.00, and it took a while to mentally adapt to $90 pots. The second session contained less nerves, and I won $45. It should have been more; I was up about $65 when I decided to call it quits and play until my blinds. UTG I look down at ATo, and limp. A beautiful A falls on the flop and I bet out - one caller. The turn is a blank and I bet again, bad guy calls again. I hate these smooth-calling players because it is impossible to put them on something. It seems like when I try to call their bullshit they have the goods, and when their calls scare me into checking the river I win the hand, but don't get that extra bet out of them.

Anyway, river is a blank, I bet he calls and shows AJo - outkicked! Like I said, I still ended the session up, but it finished on a sour note.

I also played a $10 SNG and got ninth out of nine - not good. Then I played a $5 SNG and finished fifth - better, but still no money.

For the weekend, I think I ended up down $1.12 or some other tiny amount. I was reasonably encouraged by $3/$6 not being a train wreck and plan to try again soon.

I also hosted the home game yesterday (I really don't play as much as it sounds like; usually my online ring sessions are about a half-hour) and won a sweet $4. A few notable hands:

Early in the goings, resident maniac has already bled his $20 in starting chips down to $14. I look down at KK and make it $1 pre-flop, maniac calls. Flop is all undercards, I think 843 rainbow, and maniac bets $0.75 - I push all in. Then, maniac says "Well, I feel like starting over anyway," and calls with JTo - no pair, no draw, jack high? Whatever - he doesn't improve and I take a nice pot while he rebuys. I love this guy.

Unfortunately I managed to bleed away most of my chips in small increments. One hand that hurt a lot was when I held A7o and flopped an A. Once again, it was me and the maniac. I didn't think he held anything too strong and follishly kept trying to push him off his hand, mostly because I didn't like my kicker. At showdown I was pissed when he flipped his A8 to take the pot.

Down to about $7 as the game wound down, there were three of us left. I announced to the table that it would be all in or fold for me from here on out, and luckily picked up some decent cards. I went all in three times in ten hands and got no callers. I looked down at AQo in the BB and checked it (I'm not sure why, exactly - maybe I didn't want to go all in). The flop brought a hot little Q and I moved in after my opponent bet $1. He called with some horrible crap like T9s and didn't make his runner-runner flush. This was a nice end to the session as at one point it looked like I would lose $20, so I was pretty pleased.

I capped off the night by busting out 21st out of 45th in one of the above-mentioned $1 SNGs and went to bed. Thank God for central air; it was boiling on our second floor (we have a Cape Cod, so the second floor is like an attic). Neither Sara or I have ever lived in a house with central air before and we were loving it last night. Ah comfort.

2005-06-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Again, no poker last night. I think these few days away from the game are really going to be good for me. When I do get back to playing (I'm not sure when), I will be refreshed and enthused by the thought of putting in a few hours at the table.

I am planning to deposit at Poker Stars tonight. Their reload bonus expires at 11:59pm, so if I forget I will be cursing myself quite a bit. I have class until 9:00pm tonight so there is not much margin for error. I sent myself an email as a reminder to download the software and make the deposit. Yes, I am enough of a loser and buffoon that I need to send myself an email.

I will try to clear the bonus via SNGs, both single-table and multi-table (does Stars even have multi-table SNGs?), and low buy-in MTTs. Clearing the bonus is not really my main goal; I want to play profitably too. I have been playing like shit lately and making excuses like "I was just playing for the entertainment," but the truth is that playing is infinitely more entertaining when you are winning. When I started playing (April 14th), I had a nice steady streak that saw me win $250 while clearing my $150 deposit bonus. Since then, I've cleared more bonuses, but my bankroll of $288 doesn't even equal the bonuses I have cleared of $336 - obviously something went awry.

I had the most success when I was single-tabling, which makes sense since I could pay greater attention to my table environment. Perhaps I will limit myself to two tables at once. Or perhaps not, since that bores me. But seriously, I am going to try and can the four-tabling for the time being. If I can handle two, I will gradually move to three, and then to four again. I'm a smart guy, but when there are four tables open, the action is so fast that most of the pre-flop decisions have to be made just on my hole cards, rather than having the chance to examine position, the other players, etc.

We visited friends of ours last night who had just settled on their first house. The house was absolutely gorgeous, in immaculate condition with a lot of great features. The basement was completely finished, even on the utility side. This was probably the nicest basement I have ever seen in my life. There was a beautiful cedar closet in the attic. I'm not exactly sure of the purpose (I'm told it's to keep moths out), but it smelled great and was very cool. As a bonus, there is a great bar in the basement also. Naturally, I went back to my dumpy little house and put another sheet of drywall up in the basement.

This hasn't been much of a poker blog lately, but that's the way the proverbial cookie has crumbled. On a positive note, this blog is now appearing on searches through Yahoo (I'm not typing the ! - damn I just did...) and Google. So watch the hits climb like the space shuttle. We may even pass one hundred soon - and only fifty will have been me!

2005-06-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

There was no hot poker action last night. In fact, I'm not really sure where the night went at all. I skipped class and got home around 6:15, ate dinner with Sara, and then we put two sheets of drywall up in the basement (our goal is to put up at least two each night until it is finished). Then we walked Nova (the dog) over to my dad's and hung out for a little bit. We wrapped up our thrilling evening by going to Target to get some housewarming gifts for friends that settle on their first house today. Suddenly, it was 10pm and time to wind down for bed.

I love and hate nights like last night at the same time; it's basically all leisure time, but the hours fly by and BAM it's back to the real world. The weather has been so gorgeous here lately, it is hard to get out of bed. I would rather just lie around in the sunlight.

I withdrew my Party balance in order to redeposit it. I have not decided on whether it will be Party's 20% UK bonus or Stars 20% reload bonus. I'm leaning toward Stars because I am dying to try some their ultra-low boy-in tourneys that run each night. I figure I can play in the $3 nightly and get a few hours of entertainment out of it at very little cost. Of course, I'll probably get bored and start playing ring games on the side. Oh well.

In other news, I have employed the powers of goal-setting in order to try and improve my game long-term. My target is $2,000 by December 31, 2005. It can have been earned through either bonuses or winnings, as long as it is profit. Right now I am at $388, of which $100 is "principal," for lack of a better term. So I need to make $1,712 over the next seven months. I think it's doable, but we'll see.

My play has been pretty stagnant lately, and that's a favorable word for it. My play has been a toilet into which I have been flushing money. I am jumping around between limit and NL, different games, different limits, playing tourneys, all at the same time. Bad news.
June is my favorite month of the year, always has been. I'm dying for my vacation - we leave in ten days! I also have my yearly evaluation here at work this afternoon. I expect it to go smoothly.

2005-05-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

Sara and I are finishing the basement of our house, so there has been little time for poker lately. But I strive to update whenever possible, for my faithful reader(s?). Actually, it's 45 minutes until quitting time and I don't feel like starting a new project today. Here goes...

Played a little Friday night, which was bad. Bad because I was a little tipsy and therefore not great with decision-making. I busted out of two $0.50/$1.00 limit tables ($25 each) and lost $20 on another. At the same time, I placed fifth in a 2-table $10+$1 SNG to bubble out, and fourth in a 3-table $5+$0.50 SNG, which paid $22.50. So I lost about $65 on the night, which pissed me off because I probably shouldn't have been playing while lacking some of my facilities. The session was a good, fun release however, and I guess that's what really matters. Not that I would have minded a good, fun release where I won $100.

Hosted the home game yesterday, which was kind of a train wreck. It took us forever to find a fourth player, and as soon as we started one of the other players announced he had to leave in an hour. Add to that the fact that I was dog tired from having hosted a barbecue that afternoon, and I've had better times.

Basically, I played my usual tight-aggressive style and was up $5 when the player mentioned above left. I had been seeing extremely shitty cards and happily looked down at KTo from the big blind. I raised $1.50 pre-flop and got two callers, and a beautiful flop of KTx rainbow. I decided to try and milk this one and checked; sure enough, my brother (who is a solid player and doesn't bluff) went all in for about $11. I quickly called, already counting "my" pot after he showed his KJo. That was until he rivered a straight and I was down to about $12 in chips. I couldn't be mad because top pair decent kicker is not the worst hand to go all in with, at least in our game.

A few hands later I looked at my old nemesis, KJo. I raised $1.50 pre-flop and got one caller. The flop came all low so I bet $5 - the player I was heads up with had a propensity to fold to aggression if he didn't hit the flop. I was hoping that he also had two overcards and I could steal this one. Naturally, he called. The turn was another low card and I pushed all in. Bad guy calls and shows his 56s for a turned straight. In my head, my inner monologue looked something like Q-Bert's after he jumps off the edge of the pyramid. Then, I asked myself, WHAT KIND OF A PERSON CALLS A $5 BET INTO A $4 POT WITH AN INSIDE STRAIGHT DRAW? I know everyone experiences hands like this, and I don't type this to make it seem like I am the only one. I just find it helps sometimes to release some of the pent-up rage that forms from beats like this. Another consolation is that this player will be paying for that pot many times over in the future, now that I know he has an affinity for shitty draws.

Ah yes, a hand from earlier in the session that stood out. The player that had to leave early is a maniac. He will se 80% of flops, and bet 80% of the ones he sees, regardless of whether or not he hits anything. This works well for him in our game, especially yesterday, because the other three of us are moderately tight. He was able to double his buy-in in the hour he was there before cashing out, thereby leaving the remaining three of us to fight over less chips. I remember two hands where I was in against this player, one of which I played right according to "The Fundamental Theorem of Poker," and both of which I played correctly based on the final result of the hand.

Hand 1: I look down at QQ and raise to $1.50 pre-flop. Two callers. Flop misses me, and an ace falls. Short-stacked player, my brother (tight-solid) goes all in for about $10 and maniac calls. I figure one of them must have the ace and fold. My brother shows 55, a reasonable play since he was short-stacked and was looking to double up. Maniac shows...K9s? He had completely missed the flop but called an all in anyway, even with an ace on the board. I was pissed until a King fell on the turn, at which point it was my brother that was pissed (and busted). This was monumentally bad play by the maniac, but he still won $15 on the hand.

Hand 2: Later in the hour, I see Q8o in the BB. Maniac limps and I check. Flop misses me and it checks around. Turn misses me and maniac bets $0.75 - I call (there was some reasoning here, but it's a little fuzzy now. Maybe I got a read that he was full of shit, maybe my Q was the overcard at the time. I had some justification for calling here, you'll just have to believe me). River is another blank and maniac bets $1.75. Alarm bells were going off, maybe it was my internal bullshit detector. The $1.75 was an amount that this player had never raised as long as I could remember, and I thought he wanted me to fold. $1.75 was too big to call with nothing (which I had), but small enough that if the maniac's bluff didn't work out and I re-raised, he wouldn't be crippled. I called with my crappy-ass queen high, and the maniac flipped an unimproved 32o. Three-two-offsuit. Not only did I win the pot, my queen crushed his hand (the board). That was a high point in an otherwise bad session.

This weekend was the most gorgeous weather-wise we could have asked for here in the Philadelphia area, 70-75 degrees and sunny. It baffles me when the local weather personalities gripe that we have only hit 80 degrees twice so far this year; I say good! 75 is just about the perfect temperature. You can comfortably sit outside, and utility bills are way down because the heater and air conditioning are shut off. Our gas and electric bill for May was 30% of what it was for January, all due to the temperate weather.

Last summer was fantastic. We had no major heat waves where the temperature was above 100 degrees eight days in a row. July and August plateaued at about 85 degrees, which is hot but not killer hot. And people complained! Mild temperatures are the way to go baby; not too hot, not too cold. Whatever.

2005-05-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

I got a little bit of play in last night. I opened four $0.50/$1.00 tables and quickly decided that this was not what I wanted to do (grinding). I only had an hour to play and I wanted to have fun. So I closed those four tables (silly since i had posted the BB, but I didn't feel like playing them) and opened four $25 6-max NL tables. At first I wasn't sure whether to open 6-max or full tables. In the end I decided that 6-max would make it less likely that I would get sucked out on the river (I'm not really sure why I thought this).

I had only limited experience playing NL ring game in the past, which had gone OK. My biggest problem is that I get impatient, even with four tables open at once, and if I think I have the best hand I want to push all in. This turns out not to be a good thing when I do not in fact have the best hand. These NL ring games can be frustrating, because sometimes it seems like when you have a hand that you are sure is best, you can never get paid off. I'm sure it's all in my head, but when I flop a flush I want to be able to bet substantially and get called. Instead, I know everyone else will fold to any big bet so I am betting $1, $2, etc. and taking down small pots.
Anywho, I busted out of one table when I made a bad read and pushed all in with KK on a paired board when the bad guy had trips. On the others I won a few bucks each, enough to offset my small losses at limit from the blinds and end the night down a little over $20.

I would like to refine my NL skills. I think the key to the game is to sit on your monsters and let others do the betting for you, while being hyper-aggressive with lesser hands that you think are the best (TPTK, etc). In any case, patience is where it's at. While the players at these 6-max games are not good by any means (not that I am), rarely did I see an all in bet get called, only to discover that the original bettor was bluffing. I am sure to keep this in mind next time I play.
I'm waiting for seven days to expire since my last deposit so that I get the one thousand Party points (why do I care? I'm not sure). Then I will withdrawal and redeposit with the UK bonus code if it is still working at that time. We'll see. After I clear that bonus I plan to put $100 into PokerStars in order to play their low buy-in tourneys. They run $3+0 Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:30pm. This would probably work for me. I usually try to get to bed by midnight, which I would sometimes if I played in these. And, if I had to stay up later, that would mean I was still alive, which wouldn't be a bad thing either.

I'm REALLY looking forward to the long weekend. Being in public accounting, I haven't had a holiday since New Year's. I took a day and a half off in January for settlement/moving into the new house, a day three weeks ago to decompress from busy season, and this Monday because I was feeling lazy, and to work on the basement. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to my vacation in scenic Wildwood (Jersey shore) during the second week of June.

I also want to wish the "real" poker bloggers a great time in Vegas. I know it's making me extremely jealous and to wish I was going too. How great would it be to have two bloggers on ESPN going heads-up for the bracelet in event #1? The answer: very great.

2005-05-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Damn you Party, and your tempting blurbs in the chat box! Last night I was an idiot once again - I was four-tabling $0.50/$1.00 when I saw that a $30,000 guaranteed $20+$2 NL tourney started in five minutes. So naturally, I registered. I also looked through the list of players and saw that the Poker Nerd was also playing, which was cool.

I know I wrote yesterday that $20 is too high of an entry fee for me, but that didn't stop me. For some reason, seeing $30,000 guaranteed nudged be toward joining the MTT. Of course, since this was Party, the tourney capped out at 2,000 entrants, making the $30,000 guarantee moot (since the prizepool was $40,000). Are there ever overlays on Party tournaments? Probably not at the lower levels.

Anyway, I closed one of the $0.50/$1.00 tables so that I could open the tourney table. I mostly folded early on, and after about forty-five minutes I had busted two players and had T2800. I was feeling good, and then it all fell apart. With blinds at 25/50, I looked down at KK and raised to T200 UTG. I got one caller in LP. Flop fell Q82, looked ok for me, so I bet T200 and again was called. Looking back, I probably should have made a stronger bet here. Of course, I say that knowing what the bad guy's cards were and that he probably would have folded. Turn was another 8, river a blank. I bet T200 on the turn (and was called), and went all in on the river (I had my opponent covered). As soon as the bad guy called my all in I knew I was cooked; he showed T8o. If I had pushed on the flop maybe he would have let it go. By the way, what was he doing calling my 3BB raise pre-flop with T8o? I shouldn't complain because these are the players I love to see at my table.

I went into the break at the one-hour mark with T1080, barely half of the average stack. On the bright side, I had outlasted over half of the original field. My happiness did not last as in the third hand after the break I looked down at AKo and pushed all in (I had about 10x the BB). I got one caller who showed pocket kings, no help came, and that was it. I finished 969 out of 2000.

I shouldn't have played in the first place, but I wasn't altogether unhappy with my play. If I had taken that big hand when I had KK I would have been looking pretty good for an extended run. It was amazing to me how quickly the players were dropping. We lost half the field in the first hour, and it was down to about five hundred after another thirty minutes. When I went to bed, Poker Nerd was still alive and kicking, with a slightly-above-average stack. I will have to log on when I get home to see how he did.

As for my ring game play last night, I cleared my $86 bonus and won about $8 for my efforts. I am going to withdrawal my balance and attempt to get the UK-only bonus that apparently works for non-UK players as well. We'll see.

Back to the big NL MTT and how quickly players were dropping, I figure that any player who can play patiently and outlast half of the field regularly is going to come out ahead in these things long-term. For now, I am going to try and stay away from any buy-ins above $5. We'll see about that too.

Segue: at the end of Iggy's most recent post he linked to "Simon Ng's last post" - this kid had a Xanga blog and his post stated that his sister's ex-boyfriend had just showed up. It ended up that the ex murdered Simon and his sister and the police were able to arrest the killer based on the blog entry. Number one, the post itself is chilling in its aloofness and innocence, when you think about the fact that moments later, the author was tied up and stabbed to death. Second, it just serves to remind how fragile life is, something that has been reinforced for me by various experiences on the Internet in the last few years.

2005-05-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay between posts; I had a busy weekend which unexpectedly extended into yesterday after a spur-of-the-moment sick day decision.

My fiance and I began the main phase of finishing our basement on Saturday. Sara and I headed over to Home Depot in order to get the necessary materials. We had borrowed her brother's hatchback so that we would be able to haul the studs and whatnot. So, we were loading our cart with various things, which we mostly didn't have any idea how to use. Out of the blue, Sara's friend showed up (with his pickup truck) and helped us along. Then, he proceeded to show us how to stud out the basement for nine hours, until midnight, along with letting us use all of his tools.

Sunday we worked some more (without her friend) and when I woke up Monday I just didn't feel like going into work. I called in sick and we worked all day yesterday too. Now, the entire basement is studded out, except for a tricky closet that will hopefully get done tonight. I ran the electrical for the outlets and light switch around the room, and today while I am at work Sara and my brother are going to start putting the insulation in. To be honest, this project is moving really fast, almost scary fast. On Saturday morning, we had done nothing except seal the basement walls. Three days later, the entire room is studded out, the electrical has been installed, and we're putting insulation in. I know putting the drywall up is going to be a total bitch, but it feels great to look around at the wall frames that I put up. I am not handy by any stretch of the imagination; any skills I might possess I have learned in the past four months since we bought the house.

Also today, the dishwasher is finally supposed to be installed. Actually, it's pretty much in right now except for the water line. I can't wait to eat off of real dishes as opposed to paper plates.
Back to poker, I got some nice sessions in this weekend. Friday night I was home alone, so I four-tabled $0.50/$1.00 at Party for about 90 minutes. The end result was that I lost about $5, but I cleared a big chunk of my reload bonus. I should release the bonus either tonight or tomorrow, which will be sweet. I also hosted the home game Sunday afternoon (I don't know why I even bother to type 'hosted' since it is always at my house) and won $20. I thought I played pretty well again - there were only four of us. I didn't get many playable hands but then I did I made the most out of them. It also helped that I would guess that 50% of my pocket pairs made sets on the flop - it was unreal.

I did make one tweak to my game that I think brought in some extra winnings: usually if I hold the best hand and I have been betting throughout the hand, I will push a large bet on the river. Sometimes I get paid off, but usually I don't. On Sunday in the same situation, I would only bet $2, and I got paid off every single time. In our game, $2 is probably the dividing line between "big bet" and "small bet" when the pot has been built up. In future sessions, I will probably use a mixture of pushing all in and medium-sized bets when I know I have it on the river, depending on opponents and situations.

There was one hand that absolutely killed me after the fact, although I did my best to hide it from the other players. I looked down at QQ and raised $1.50 pre-flop. The flop came all low, 732 rainbow. I bet out on the flop and was raised all in by a solid player (about $17). If I called and lost, I would be down to about $10. I thought about it for a looooong time and came this close to calling, but threw it away. The other player showed Q7o - I had him dominated. If I had called, I would have booked a much bigger win than $20.

I'd like to take a minute to write about my hopes and intentions for this blog. I am an accountant who enjoys poker as a hobby. If I can make some money off of it, then all the better. I consider myself a decent player, good enough to win consistently in games with poor competition, but probably not good enough to even hold my own at any sort of game with good opponents. I want to use this blog as a venue to post notable hands from recent sessions, as well as thoughts and notes on my game in general. In addition, I'll post tidbits about what's going on in my life.

One of the main uses of this blog, for me at least, is to be honest with myself about my play. If I jump to a limit where I know I shouldn't be, I want to chronicle that and get pissed off at myself about it. A lot of poker bloggers that I have encountered post prolifically when things are going well, and disappear if things take a turn for the worse. I want to be up front regarding all of my play.

To sum up, I probably don't have too much to add strategy-wise to the poker universe. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of poker bloggers and writers out there who can do that a hell of a lot better than I can. This is kind of a personal journal, more for my use than anyone else's. If others want to read it, feel free. I think I have a smooth writing style and a somewhat interesting life, as well as being a pretty good guy.

On that note, I would like to thank Iggy at Guinness and Poker for linking to me in his most recent pimping of the blogs. It means a lot, especially since I didn't email him asking for a link. That means he went through his sitemeter referrals and found my site like that. Thanks Iggy.

Now, about that honest-and-up-front things I was talking about earlier...

Last week, I wanted to play in a tournament one night. I looked at Party's horrid schedule and noticed a $15+$1 NL tourney that had started one minute before, but the info screen showed that late registration was allowed. Gleeful, I registered. Or so I thought. For some reason the system never registered me, and by the time I realized (about a minute later), registration was closed. I was pissed; the tourney had over 1,500 entrants and I had hours to kill playing an MTT. So what did I do? (Never mind the fact that a $15 buy-in MTT is higher than I should really be playing, but Party doesn't offer the $1 and $3 tourneys that Stars does). I played in the next tournament that was starting, a $20+$2 speed limit hold 'em thang with over 600 entrants. Here is where the "I'm a retard" part comes in: I thought "Speed" meant that players only had 5 seconds to act and that there was no time bank. Apparently, it meant that the blind levels were only 3 minutes long. I folded all but two hands.

In the first, I got pocket aces, which was great since I was down to about 3x the BB. I limped pre-flop and the flop fell AAx, giving me quads. I checked the flop, as did everyone else. On the turn, I bet out and it was folded to me - damn! It would have been nice to get some action there.

In the second hand, I was on the button and had A3o, once again with about 3x BB. It was folded around to me and I pegged this as my best chance to stay alive. I raised and the SB re-raised, which was only my last T90. He flipped K5 and the flop came Axx. I was riding high until the turn 5 and the river K knocked me out. If I had taken that hand I would still have been short-stacked, but at least I still would have been alive. As it was, I finished about 180th out of 620. Not bad for only having played two hands, but I should never have played a tourney where 1) the entry fee was higher than I can afford and 2) I didn't know the rules. I would have never entered a crapshoot where the blinds increased every three minutes.

That's enough rambling for today. Let's try and do it again tomorrow.

2005-05-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Two things converged last night that made me withdrawal my FullTilt account balance with plans to put it back into Party:

1 - I realized playing on FullTilt wasn't fun

2 - Party is offering a reload bonus

I opened up FT to see if I could clear some more bonus, and as usual, there were only four full hold 'em tables at my level. I joined the waitlist for all four and began to wait. Then I realized: this sucks. I play poker for enjoyment. Sure, it's nice to win, but I want to have fun too.

Frankly, I don't have the confidence to think I am a good enough player to beat the competition at FT. Hell, I have enough of a problem with $0.50/$1.00 at Party. However, at Party I have been a winner, however marginal, while at FT I had one terrible night. I didn't want to risk losing my whole bankroll in order to clear a tiny part of the FT bonus.

I don't claim to be a great poker player. I regularly beat my home game, but given the competition that's not saying much. I can hold my own on Party if I don't try to get too fancy. I am just looking to kill an hour or so a night without the chance that I will blow up my bankroll. So I'm going to deposit my remaining $432 back in Party, clear the $86 bonus, and keep doing what I want - playing for enjoyment and profit.

So after leaving $994 in bonuses on the table over the past week, I have decided my strategy will be as follows:

--Clear the Party bonus and keep playing there, where the pickins are easy.--Keep my eyes peeled for a Stars bonus, because I would like to have a stake there in order to play some of their low-buy-in MTTs.--Continue to love poker, rather than trying to play 15,000 raked hands at FT over the next ninety days.

In other parts of the world, Arrested Development has been renewed for another season by FOX. Rumors were swirling that two seasons would be ordered, but currently it looks like just one for now. Arrested Development is my favorite show on TV by a mile right now, so this news thrilled me. The show looked to be in mortal danger after FOX cut the episode order from twenty-two to eighteen earlier this year, but the show has been saved!

Here is a glimpse into what I watch each week on TV (most only when there are new episodes):

Always watch:

Arrested Development

The Apprentice

Family Guy

Sometimes watch:

Re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond

Re-runs of The King of Queens

Between working, going to class two nights a week, and having a new house, I don't find as much time as I used to to watch the boob tube. But I'm ok with this; when I am working on the house I listen to the Phils on the radio and just enjoy the nice weather, or I'll take the dog for a walk.

Life is good.

2005-05-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Last night I decided to step up and make a deposit at FullTilt in order to take advantage of their 100% bonus. I calculated that it will take me approximately 16,466 raked hands in order to release my entire bonus of $494, which is kind of overwhelming.

Add that to the fact that there is a scarcity of players on FullTilt, usually making it impossible to four-table, and the higher skill level of the players when compared to Party, and I might hang up the spikes here already.

I played about one hundred raked hands last night and lost $60 at $0.50/$1.00, so maybe my discouraging start is part of the reason. There seemed to be a few super-bad beats; if I had only won two of these (there were about four), I would have only lost $30. Here is the worst one:
I look down at 44 and limp pre-flop. The blinds limp. Flop of AJ4 rainbow gives me my set and I decide to let the BB do my betting for me. I limp on the flop and turn, we are heads-up going into the river, which is another A, giving me the boat. BB bets, I raise, yada yada yada we cap. Bad guy turns over AJ for the higher boat. He had a four-outer going into the river and took the $17 pot.

I don't know what I am going to do. I will probably continue to grind away at FullTilt until Party offers a reload bonus (hopefully next week). Then I'll pull the funds out and head back to the aquarium. The bonus at FullTilt is awesome, the software is top-notch, and they have a ton of novel ideas, like their "Pieces of the Pros" tournaments.

ATTENTION POOR PLAYERS: please sign up at FullTilt. They offer a 100% bonus! What more can you ask for?

Another thing that bugs me is that last night I was unable to get a $0.50/$1.00 O8 game going. The only ones going were PL, and that is a little too variance-rich for my blood.

In other parts of the world, I will be going to Citizens Bank Park to watch the train wreck that is
the Phillies tonight. The reasons for attendance are two-fold, as follows:

1) Hot dogs are $1.00 tonight
2) I love hot dogs

I will also be going to the game Thursday afternoon for a function with work, so I will surely be getting my fill of the Phillies this week.

My list - Top 5 hot dogs:
1) Yocco's, Trexlertown, PA; a great treat when I am driving to the Poconos.
2) Wawa, everywhere; You can't go wrong with the all-beef or the spicy sausage.
3) Any baseball stadium, various; Something about how they taste at a ballgame.
4) Grilled at home; I like 'em a little burnt.
5) All other hot dogs; I love all hot dogs, like God loves all his creations.

2005-05-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

This past weekend contained precious little poker; I attended a cousin's wedding in Island Heights, NJ. The wedding was very nice and made me more excited for my own next year, but man I was itching for some poker by the time we got back. Thank god for the home game. My fiance is more supportive of the home game than online play, since I usually win. Of course, three losses in a row going into yesterday put the home game on some pretty shaky ground too.
Even though I wasn't feeling great, thanks to the previous night's wedding, I thought I played great. But first, a quick tangent:

I used to think there were two types of sessions: those where the deck is hitting you in the face and you are being dealt great cards, and those where the deck is cold and you are being dealt crummy cards. Of course, there are varying degrees of these two types, but either you're getting cards or you aren't.

As I attempt to mature as a poker player, I am realizing that what might be more important is whether or not you are being forced to make tough decisions in key spots. For example, I consider my style in the home game to be pretty much ABC poker; I fold a lot, limp a little, and raise my premium hands pre-flop. If I hit the flop, I bet. If I don't, I likely check-fold. Occasionally I'll put one of the bad guys on a hand and play my gut. I only slowplay true monsters, when I am extremely unlikely to get sucked out on.

If the other players in the home game would take notice of these things, they would force me to adjust my game. Some take marginal notice, but don't pay close enough attention. If I check-raise, I have you beat. I probably have won 95% of hands where I check-raised in the home game.

I'm getting sidetracked....anyway, what I mean by tough decisions especially applies to NL. Credit to the Poker Nerd here - my goal is to keep pots from getting out of control unless I hold a sure winner. For example, if I hold JJ and raise $1.50 pre-flop, and the player behind me re-raises to $5, I am faced with a tough decision. I can be stubborn and call the re-raise, or I can examine the bad guy and try to guess what he might have.

Yesterday I faced one tough decision very early in the game. Keep in mind that I have dropped $100 over the last three sessions and was feeling some pressure to do well for the session. On one of the first ten hands, I look down at QQ UTG (we only have 5 players, so UTG is not so bad). I raise $1.50, and the player behind me calls. The button pushes all in for about $20 - he had me covered. The blinds folded and I really wanted to call. At the same time, there was another player behind me who had already called a raise (who might call the all in), and the all in player is very solid. Actually, the two other players left were both solid.

I by no means consider myself to be a good enough player to muck QQ pre-flop, but the convergence of all of these observations was like the perfect storm. I put the all in player on either AK, AA, or KK; two of these would have me dominated, and up against AK I would be in a coin flip, so I mucked. I was not willing to put all of my chips at risk this early on what, at best, would be a coin flip.

The player behind me called and flipped 99, and the all in player showed AK. Strangely, I was more relieved that I wasn't involved in this chaos and that I had made a correct read than frustrated that I had missed an opportunity to double up. I was treating the beginning of the game like the early stages of a SNG; play solid, don't risk all your chips unless you are sure you're taking the pot down. It helped be to not be frustrated when an A fell on the flop, and a K on the turn.

I ended up winning $65 and as the game broke up I could not have been more pleased with my play.

To sum things up, there are a couple different ways to think about sessions. They appear in levels, and each one is deeper (and more important) than the last.

Level One:Either you're getting cards or you're not - pretty self-explanatory.

Level Two:Either the flops are hitting you or they're not - with my style of play (aggressive pre-flop), a lot of the variance in my game can be explained by how the flops are hitting me. Since I am putting a decent amount of chips in pre-flop, if I am forced to check-fold after the flop it takes a bite out of my stack. Over time (and missed flops), those bites add up.

Level Three:Either you're faced with tough decisions, or you're not - Explained above. In a session where I am not faced with tough decisions, I maximize my gains and minimize my losses. When the tough decisions seem to lurk around every corner, one or two beats and I'm hurting.

I am sure there are more levels, but I am pleased with the higher-order thinking that I am beginning to display while playing.

I haven't played online since Thursday night. I four-tabled $0.50/$1.00 and was pretty stagnant. I was up $20 on one table, up $2 on another, and down $20 each on two other tables. In an effort to get back even (and because my patience was waning), I closed the two tables where I was ahead and opened two $0.50/$1.00 O8 tables. My plan was to play only premium hands and try to scoop a few big pots before bailing, and not to chase draws and other riff raff that would cost me a lot of chips. I truly don't remember how I did, but I'm pretty sure between the two tables I booked a small win, but not enough to offset the two bad hold 'em tables. So a small loss for the night.

I got my withdrawal from Noble Poker, which was good. I need that money to pay for school (summer session).

2005-05-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

I played four tables of $0.50/$1.00 limit last night (note: if I don't specify which game I played, I played texas hold 'em - I got sick of typing HE) and acquitted myself quite well, winning $12. Nothing particularly notable happened, but I thought I played solid poker and was pleased with my effort. The bankroll climbed back above $400 which was good to see.

I got an email that my withdrawal request from Noble Poker was declined, based on the fact that I had received a $10 deposit bonus and I had to play twenty raked hands before I could make a withdrawal. I had only played five. So while I was four-tabling I opened up a $0.50/$1.00 limit table and was determined to play exactly fifteen raken hands; no more, no less. By the time I had finally reached fifteen raked hands, I had played 50-60 total hands and won just one, when my pocket twos flopped a set. I got out of there $6 poorer and immediately submitted a withdrawal request for my entire balance. Hopefully this one goes through smoothly and I will never have to think about Noble Poker again.

I would like to start playing some MTTs, whether it be on Party, or somewhere else like Stars. I'm talking low buy-in, like $1-3 with the occasional $10 or so thrown in. The problem is that Party doesn't offer any low buy-in tourneys between 9-12 EST, when I usually play. Another problem (on my end) is that I usually don't have the chance to play 5-6 hours straight, which is what one of these big tournaments consumes. If it was 2AM and I was still in a MTT, I might be worse for wear the next day at work, but I definitely wouldn't stop playing.

Since I missed the last Stars deposit bonus (damn you Noble Poker!) I will probably wait for the next one (hopefully it will be soon). Until then, it's grinding at Party.

Is there any better feeling than limping pre-flop with two high cards, like KQo or ATo, only to flop a broadway straight? I submit that there is not. You've made your hand on the flop, and it's likely to hold up. In addition, the board is full of high cards, which were likely to improve your opponents' hands as well, but hopefully not enough to beat yours. A flopped broadway straight is like manna from heaven, and the pots often build themselves.

I'm a guy likes to check monsters until the turn, when the bet sizes double. If I feel that a limp will keep everybody around, I'll save the check-raise for the river. Most of the time at this level on Party, trickery such as check-raising is not even necessary; as I documented yesterday I can bet all day and still get callers when I have the best hand.

2005-05-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

Last night was a nice "get back on the horse" type of session. I four-tabled $0.50/$1.00 HE for about 40 minutes before dinner, and won a cool $45. I ended up a winner on three of the four tables (good for me, often I will win big on one and lose small on three), and on that fourth table I was ahead until "SmokinJoe" arrived. The game was either heads-up or three-handed for the 10 minutes I sat with SmokinJoe, and I didn't beat him for a pot once. I went from $40 to about $20 before finally admitting defeat. If I had third pair, he had second. If I flopped two pair, he made a set on the turn. He outkicked me a few times; it was thoroughly frustrating.

It was also extremely refreshing to see some of the horrible play you just don't see as often at $10 SNG's. My favorite type of hand generally goes like this:

I'm dealt two high cards and raise pre-flop. I get a few callers.
The flop comes two low cards, and whichever of my cards is lower (for example, if I have AQ, the flop comes Qxx).
I bet the flop and get some callers.
The turn is a blank.
I bet the turn and am down to one or two callers.
The river is a blank.
I bet the river and get called.
I take a nice 10-12BB pot with minimal effort.

These are the type of auto-pilot hands that really made me happy last night.

To be fair, I was getting great cards last night. In roughly 150 total hands, I got AA three times, KK three times, with QQ, JJ, TT, and plenty of other pairs sprinkled in.

So maybe I still am playing shitty, but at least I won last night! Seriously, I think I played well. I can't fault myself for getting good starting hands, I have to play what I get.

I was browsing my Poker Tracker stats and came across something interesting: AA is only my second-most profitable hand, getting whipped by AJo. I don't even remember any huge hands I took with AJo, but after looking at the detail I saw that I had taken some nice-size pots with it during my brief foray into $25 NL tables. And since a big pot at $25 NL is about three times the size of a big pot at $0.50/$1.00, voila! There's your explanation.

2005-05-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

I have been having a rough go of it lately; is there a Blogger jinx? Probably not, but there is probably a shitty play jinx, and that is where I find myself.

Played four $10 NL SNG's last night with no moneys. A ninth, seventh, seventh, and fifth. In the three higher finishes, I had an above-average stack for most of the time I was there, but never really had a stack where I felt comfortable with. The blinds just go up so fast that any raise I put in and the pot gets out of control. I am somewhat fed up with my SNG play right now; I really enjoy playing them but if it's costing me money (down $44 last night), then I need to head back to ring games, where I have had more success.

After the SNG debacle, I opened four $0.50/$1.00 HE tables. By playing tight-agressive (my usual style), even though I didn't hit many flops when I had good hole cards, I managed to book a $5 win in about a half-hour. Surely nothing to write home about, but a win is a win.
My bankroll has fallen by about 25% in the last week, and that doesn't include the $80 I have dropped in the home game. I am not crippled by any means, since my online bankroll is entirely made up of winnings and bonus money, but I would definitely prefer the 'roll to be heading in the other direction.

As I alluded to the other day, I think the fact that my fiance is unsupportive of my poker-playing, both as a hobby or a money-making endeavour, is hurting my play. She doesn't like that I play to begin with, so when she asks me how I did it puts me in an awkward situation when I have lost; I can either lie about it, which I don't do because I think that does more harm than good long-term, or I can tell her how much I lost that night, in which case I'll get an eye-roll and an evening full of comments muttered under her breath about how stupid I am. In some of the other blogs I read, such as Guinness and Poker and Adventures of a Poker Nerd (links above), the authors constantly make a point to thank their respective wives for supporting their hobby, which also happens to make money. I envy them.

If I lose, I get flak. If I win, she says "Well you'd better cash out now before you lose it," or she doesn't believe me. Every time I get on the computer, even if I am just checking my email, she says "Oh I guess you're going to play poker again."

I am not trying to make excuses for my recent losing ways. I just wanted to get this out there and say that I wish I had a significant other who respected my hobby enough to not give me grief about it constantly. Gambling in general still has a stigma attached to it for some, but I am lucky enough to have a hobby that can generate a small amount of income - what could be better?

I am still awaiting my cashout request from Noble Poker to hit my Neteller account; I don't anticipate it becoming a problem. When I do get my money back, I think I will take advantage of a Poker Stars bonus offer I got via email. OK - I just re-read the email and it is a 20% deposit bonus but I have to get the cash in there tonight. Hopefully my withdraw will appear shortly so I can get it done. If not, I will be mildly unhappy, but hopefully PartyPoker will offer a reload bonus towards the end of the month that I can take advantage of.

I may or may not get to play tonight. The fiance is baby-sitting until 10, so I may be able to get a few hours in before she gets home. Sometimes I stay up after she goes to bed and play, but in order to function at work the next day I need to be in bed by one o'clock so that usually doesn't give me a whole lot of time.

2005-05-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

Poker has been exasperating me lately. I am in a "slump" where I am in this thinking-negative rut I can't escape. I just feel mentally drained while I play.

Today in the home game I lost $40 for the second straight week. For the first hour, I was up a little bit, basically treading water. After that, things went downhill rather quickly. I held K4s on the button, and made my flush on the turn. There were two other players in the pot and the betting was rather heavy on the turn. The river paired the board, which I didn't particularly like. I especially didn't like it when the first player bet $2 (a decent sized bet in our game), and the second player made it $7. My read on the original bettor told me that he was going to fold, so I called the $7 with my second nut flush. The raiser showed the boat he had made on the river and that was that.

Shortly after, I had AKo and raised $6 pre-flop (the other players thought I was on tilt from the previous hand, and I wanted to exploit that). I got one caller, the calling station I mentioned last time I wrote about the home game. The flop came J10x, and I checked. The bad guy went all in for his last $3.25, and I called, figuring he was just trying to buy the pot. He flipped his AJo, I got no help, and he took the pot. This beat was admittedly very hard to take; I had him dominated pre-flop and the pot was large enough (around $19) that it made a big difference in my stack. I made some bad decisions after that, and eventually my entire stack was kaput.

Tonight, I tried to play on a site I recently registered with, NoblePoker. They were offering a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. I logged on and sat at 2 $0.50/$1.00 HE tables . 15 minutes later, I had not won a single hand and was down about $9. I hated the interface, I hated the graphics, I pretty much hated everything about the site - so I decided to withdraw my money and go back to Party because the bonus wasn't worth it here. It would have taken me forever to release, and I'm telling you, words can't describe how horrible this site is.

So, as I said, I headed back to Party and fired up 3 $10 NL SNG's. I don't feel I played terribly, but I also didn't feel I did great card-wise. I ended up with a tenth and two fourths, thoroughly frustrated and down $33. I decided to go to bed and say to myself "tomorrow is another day."

I hope it's better than today was, poker-wise.

Coming soon: Why an unsuppotive fiance may be affecting my game.

2005-05-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

Posting is generally going to be sparse here on the weekends. I will get a post in here or there, but it will not be a regular thing - at least for now.

Played 2 $10 NL SNG's this morning, and got a second and a fourth. I thought I played really well in both, except for one stupid decision that knocked me out on the bubble in the fourth-place finish. I had A9o on the button, and raised pre-flop. The BB put me all in, which was only about T850 (blinds were 50/100). I called even though I my spidey-sense was tingling, and he flipped KK, and it's curtains.

In the second place finish I called an all in raise with AJo, the bad guy had 106s. A ten hit the flop and I was out of that one too.

I did feel really good about how I played, even though I only netted $8. I was putting in raises at the appropriate times, and on both tables I executed nice slowplays that brought instant respect. On one table I slowplayed a flopped set of fives that made a full house on the river, and for a few hands after that any raise from me won the pot right there. That was a nice feeling.

Let's have a lok at some selective Poker Tracker stats:

My VP$IP for all NL SNG's is currently 21.85%. This is higher than my ring game VP$IP of 18.00, but that is to be expected given more short-handed play in SNG's. My most profitable hands in terms of T$ are:

A8o
KK
AA
QJo
KTo
K4o
K8o
85s
A6o
A8s

This is largely affected by small sample size; I have only played 25 total SNG's. A lot of those Kx and Ax hands probably has to do with hands I am more likely to play heads up, when the pots are larger. Altogether, I am reasonably happy with this list - there are not too many of what I would consider "outliers" (like 85s).

My worst hands are:

AJo
K2o
J10o
97s
AQo
QJs
A9o
Q4o
A9s
109s
54s

This list contains semi-premium hands that in many cases I was sucked out on (see AJo above). Again, at least I am getting chips in the pot with decent hands. I am generally encouraged by these results.

As a whole my ROI% for SNG's is 13.46%, not bad at all. I'm not trying to retire here, just enjoy my hobby and pick up some extra cash at the same time.

I am considering depositing at Noble Poker, using Iggy's bonus code. The bonus is 100% up to $500, so it's hard to pass something like that up. Additionally, the bonus is released in increments of $10, so I won't feel obligated to earn the entire thing if I don't like the site.

Back-of-the-napkin calculations:

You get 2 "crowns" for each raked hand in which you contribute money via blinds or bets at $0.50/$1.00 HE. This is not as favorable as Party, where and raked hand, whether you put in money or not, counts toward your bonus. I figure I contribute money roughly 30-35% of all hands, of which 75% will be raked, so about 25% of hands will earn me 2 crowns. 125 crowns gets you $10 of your bonus, so I would need to play roughly 250 hands to get $10 of bonus. This adds $.04 per hand to my EV - this makes it a good play. I am going to give it a try and if it doesn't go well, I will simply withdraw whatever money is left.

2005-05-06T06:15:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to update this here site everyday, but since I usually play at night and sometimes I don't feel like writing up a post late at night, it will occasionally come in the morning.

Last night was a pretty lousy night of poker. I opened up four $10 NL SNG's, and promptly busted out of one on the first hand. My AQo flopped two pair, I bet it hard all the way, and the bad guy hit his flush on the river. This was really disappointing because I would have had 2x the chips of anyone else at the table and been well on my way to a cash.

In the other three SNG's, I nabbed an unimpressive seventh, fifth, and third for a net loss of $24. Nothing too remarkable happened in any of them, save the fact that I was controlling the table in two of the cases, one of which I only held a below-average stack. The tactic I used was picked up from Adventures of a Poker Nerd (see above) - check his July 2004 archives for his SNG primer. The Nerd says that when there are 4-6 players left in a SNG, everybody tends to tighten up in order to try and get past the bubble. Here is the tactic: pick on the second- and third- smallest stack and ignore the small stack. The second- and third-smallest stack will be so afraid of busting out on the bubble that you can pretty much run them over with blind steals and the like, whereas the smallest stack might get desperate and call you down. Poker Nerd, I am sure you're not reading this, but thanks a million for that little tip. It has worked like a charm so far, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their SNG game.

Note: I may not be the person to take advice from regarding improving your SNG game, considering last night's results. I have somewhat of a dilemma: my SNG game is definitely weaker when I multi-table, but to just play one seems interminably boring; one of my favorite characteristics of online poker is the pace at which it moves. For now, I am going to continue to try and play four SNG's at once, at least on a trial basis. If I don't see some improvement shortly, I will again cut back to one. I think part of the problem last night was an unwillingness to lay my hands down when I knew I was beat.

After the SNG's I wasn't ready to go to bed, and I didn't feel like playing any more SNG's - this is a bad combination. I essentially played just to play, even though I didn't want to, which is something that I usually don't do. I joined three $25 6-max NL tables, and within a half-hour I had busted out on two of them and was up $17 on the other for a net loss of $33. On one of the bust-outs, a player at the table had gone all in after the flop, and I had pegged this player as a maniac based on all ins every other hand. I had A10s and the flop had come ten high. I called the all in and rejoiced when the bad guy turned over AJs - he had nothing! ... at least until his runner-runner flush hit and it was curtains for me.

The $58 loss was my worst-ever in one day online. I am conservative with the levels that I play at, so my bankroll is still at healthy levels. It also helps that I am playing with none of my own money; my bankroll is made up of deposit bonii and winnings only.

I enjoy playing SNG's the most, and even after last night I am still showing a profit on them. My goal is to money around 50% of the SNG's that I enter - not too difficult considering there can be 3-4 players out within the first orbit. I also enjoy .50/$1.00 ring game hold 'em, which is where I cleared all of my bonii and earned most of my winnings. I am hoping that Party will send out their monthly reload bonus email shortly, so I can pump the roll up a little bit.

Another aside: I was feeling down pretty much all day yesterday, and this morning I was analyzing why. I think I have it pinned down: Over the past week or so, I read the entirety of Lord Geznikor's blog. Basically, LG decided early in his blog-existence to turn pro. Through a mixture of bad bankroll management and questionable casino trips over the following six months, he was broke. The blog was actually quite depressing to read, and I found myself wanting to scream at the computer "What is wrong with you! Obviously you can win consistently online, but not in the casinos, where you are forced to play higher than the $3/$6 limits that your bankroll can comfortably handle." At one point, his bankroll starts to dwindle, and so LG jumps to three-tabling $15/$30 - that experiment ended quickly and badly. Anyway, for some reason reading the depressing end to the blog got me down in the dumps yesterday. I'm not sure why - LG and I have almost nothing in common besides enjoying poker. I am satisfied with my job and would probably never leave it (and the guaranteed stream of income) that comes with it.

Today, I have awoken refreshed and ready to rejoin the world. Here's to a productive day in the ol' cube, followed by some SNG success tonight.

2005-05-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

I had been having some trouble with the PokerTracker tournament statistics screen ever since I registered the program about a month ago. The first SNG I played in uploaded correctly (I manually imported a text file with the hand histories and tournament summary). After that, I would manually upload the tournament summaries and something just seemed not to work. I killed myself for hours with this thing until finally, tonight, salvation!

In fact, it turned out that I am just a Grade-A moron. Under the preferences tab, I had not entered my player name for the program to defualt to, so I was actually looking at the statistics of the first player in my database instead of my own - doh. I fixed this and everything is coming up roses now. Also, tonight I finally set up my POP3 email checking mechanism to automatically upload tourney summaries and whatnot - this should save me some time.

Tuesday night I played five $10 NL SNGs, including four at once in the evening. In the earlier one I finished fifth, and in the batch of four I nabbed a second, a sixth, and two sevenths. Overall, I was disappointed with my play and I think playing four at once may have been a factor. I think my play suffers slightly when I play four ring game tables at once, so it would only make sense for that to hold true with SNGs. However, I enjoy playing four at once a lot more than playing just one, so I plan to keep it up and hopefully I will adjust to it. The one second place I did nab I was this close to first, at one point outchipping my heads up opponent 7600-400 and he was the BB. He doubled up twice in a row and eventually took me out.

Two of the lower finishes from last night sent me out on a rocket; in the first my 55 ran into AA pre-flop, and needless to say when the bad guy made quad aces on the turn it was curtains. The other, just minutes later, saw my 99 go against 1010, again having the tens hit quads on the turn. I'm not complaining about a bad beat, but quads? Couldn't I have been knocked out with some dignity?

So for Tuesday night, I lost $25 on SNGs, and another $0.50 messing around on $1/$2 6-max Omaha Hi/Lo for a couple of minutes.

Tonight I only played one $10 NL SNG, and it was possibly the tightest that I have seen yet (granted I have only played 20 or so). We reached level four with all ten players still in it, unheard of from my experiences. Hell, half the time you don't reach the second hand with all ten palyers remaining. I made what I consider a nice play from the button on the third hand as follows:

I'm dealt A9o and there are three limpers before me. I raise the BB (15 on level one) to 50. The blinds fold, and two of the three limpers call. The flop comes J74, two hearts, and it's checked to me. I bet 100 and get one caller (which I didn't really like - I wanted to take the pot down right there). The turn is another 4 and it's checked to me yet again. I bit my lip and pushed all in, hoping the bad guy was holding high cards. Apparently he was, since he folded. This is exactly the kind of play I realize I need to make more early in SNGs when there are orphan pots, there for the taking. This play got me up to a little over T1200 (1.5x starting stack size) and I was able to ride out a few orbits of bad cards and still have an above average stack.

This thing progressed and I was mostly holding on for dear life, due to combination of missed flops that I had raised and some poor decisions on my part. The key hand for me came with six players left - I was down to T360 and the blinds were 150/300. I was in the cutoff and I knew I had to make a move soon. I was hoping for a pot that would isolate me heads up since I could barely cover the BB and I knew my all in wasn't exactly going to send other players running. I got J9o and it was folded around to me. I figured this was a good spot to get isolated and pushed my meager stack all in. The button folded, and both blinds called. The flop came 10107; the two others check. Turn was a 5, checked around again. The river brings another 7, and I move my cursor to "Leave Table" in preparation for busting out, when a miracle occurs: the pot gets pushed my way! My J kicker with the two pair beats my opponents' stellar hands of 28o and 46s.

From there, I played solid poker and ended up taking first. It was my first true rags-to-riches SNG and it felt great. I decided to take the rest of the night off and enjoy thinking about my $39 win.

2005-05-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

Getting off on the right foot with this thing - 2 posts in one day!

Played a $10 NL SNG, a $10 Omaha Hi/Lo SNG, and 2 $10 NL 2-Table SNG's at Party, netting second place in the single-table NL and third place in one of the 2-tablers. Profit for this evening was $26 - not too bad considering I finished out of the money in the first two and rebounded nicely for the second two.

I'm starting to think that heads up is not a strength for me - I've probably played 15-20 SNG's so far, and I have only finished first once, while finishing second 4-5 times. By the time a SNG goes heads up, the blinds are so large (usually 300/600) that it becomes something of a crapshoot. Still, I don't want to make excuses for myself so hopefully I will net some wins over the next few days.

The 2-table SNG where I finished third took some major luck to get there. We were down to 4, I see A2o. The table has been very tight ever since it was down to 5 players. I raise pre-flop from the button, BB re-raises, I call. The flop came QKx and the BB checked to me. I push, hoping to steal the pot. The BB instantly calls (he had me covered) and shows his set of Kings. However, PRAISE JESUS, the turn and river give me a runner-runner straight for the win. I am going to try and make a point of writing down my suckouts, as well as those against me, so that I don't go insane when the situation is reversed; i.e., I will read this and say "See? You get lucky breaks too!"

Speaking of lucky breaks, the other money finish had a nice one. My QQ ran into KK early in the goings, but I caught a runner-runner flush to take a huge pot. It's hard not to feel bad when you knock someone out in the fashion, but I manage.

2005-05-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

Since I currently don't have any bonuses to clear, I took a semi-off day from Party Poker yesterday; I only played one $10 NL sit-n-go (SNG) and finished second. I played a solid game and at one point had a 2:1 chip lead heads up and we were all in pre-flop, I had A9s and he had undercards. He hit one on the flop to take a 2:1 chip lead himself and I couldn't come back. Even though I won $19, it's always disappointing to finish second; by the time it is heads up, I am guaranteed at least second-place money, and I consider heads up to be playing for the $20 difference between first and second. I felt I was the better player here, if a little bit fold-happy heads up.

Also played the home game and lost $40 (a decent-sized loss in the game - the normal buy-in is $20). I had around $55 after a few hours and looked at pocket queens. Raised $3 (blinds are .10/.25) and got one caller, the game's resident calling station/loose player. Flop came all undercards and I figured he had made a pair, but that my queens were still best. We checked the flop (I was hoping to check-raise all in) and the turn was a blank (I thought). I went all in, he called, and showed 34s for a straight on the turn. Damn.

Two hands later, had KQo, raised pre-flop, same caller. Flop comes KQx two diamonds, I push in, he calls with 27 of diamonds. River brings the flush and I'm busted.

The first hand was the more poorly played; I should have gotten my money in on the flop. Although my opponent has been known to call large bets with gut shot straight draws, up until that point he was stuck $60 for the session and I think he would have laid it down. The second hand I can complain about in the short-term, but long-term I'm happy getting an all in call from a player with a flush draw, especially when I have a few outs to a boat left. Over the duration of the home game I've taken more than that $60 pot off of him in those kind of situations. Yesterday I just had to pay the piper, and hopefully I'll get him next time. The $40 was the most I have ever lost in one session of this game, which says something about my usual results.