Poker Poker, It's all skill...

asdf

2010-09-05T18:40:00.001-07:00

asdf

Great First Day of Month

2009-09-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

Just as the title suggests, I couldn't have started the month off on a better note. I played a little 25NL during the day as I didn't want to play any 50NL until I had my coaching with Brendan. I hopped in a few mtt's and actually almost binked a $10 HA tourney. I came in 2nd for $225. I had a few other tourney's running so I had about $200 in profit. I'll take it.

I had my coaching with Brendan and he saw a few things in HEM where I could be improving. We then loaded up some tables and he was sweating me for the rest of the session. Overall I was happy the way I played and was explaining my thought processes pretty well. There were a few spots where I didn't take an optimal line and Brendan didn't just tell me what to do in that spot, he told my why I should do it a different way and what would result of it. He said I was looking pretty solid. I'm gonna try and get a lot of hands in and do a HH review on Thursday. As for results, I made $154.42 over 1018 hands for a 31.8 bb/100. Definitely not sustainable, but getting 23% of my $ goal for this month in the first day is uplifting.

Doing OK on the Insurace simulations. I got passed the Life one, now I have to tackle Accident and Health. I want to pass this stupid test the first time so I dont have to pay for it.

College Football starts tomorrow night so I'm pretty amped for that. This weekend I'm going up to my gf's cabin in the poconos which should be tons of fun. I'm going to get on the tables in a few and see if I can make some more money. Have a good day all.

September Goals

2009-09-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm gonna start posting frequently again. I'm a little bit bitter as I write this since FTP processor is having troubles and my withdrawal just got denied. They said it was going to be put back in my account, and I've yet to receive it. alk;sdjf;lkasjd;fklajsd;lfkajsldfjalsdjf. Anyway onto the goals.

1) Pass my Insurance test
2) Lose 10lbs
3) Play 50k hands
4) Win $1500
5) Maintain a 3 or 4 bi stop loss(set amount tbd)

Right now, #1 is the most important thing to get accomplished. Once I do that poker will become much more easy. I want to get back on track with my life and start making some doe.

I've been getting a little flabby being out of work and sitting on my ass all day. I want to get a regular cardio exercise in and then eventually join a gym and start to get cut again.

My 3rd goal should be reasonable enough. I logged 40k hands this past month only putting in about 2.5 weeks of playing. I really need to spend more time on the tables.

I really want to get back in the swing of things and start winning again. I had a losing month in August and don't want to see it again. It tore me up inside how bad I played. I'm starting the month off getting coaching again. Brendan K will be coaching me and hopefully h'll get me on the right track.

There were a few times last month where I saw myself spew off so much money for no apparent reason what so ever. This has never been a problem for me(br mamagement) but for some reason I kept playing when I was down extreme amounts of money. I don't know wether I want to use a 3 or 4 bi stop loss. Maybe I'll use a combination of the two.

That's all for now, I'll update tomorrow probably after coaching.

September Goals

2009-08-31T18:05:00.000-07:00

I completely sucked in August, and I'm setting myself a few goals for September. Before that I'm going to play basketball. I will have the goals up around midnight ish and get the blog back going

Cash going really well

2009-05-16T22:00:00.001-07:00

I will make a post by the end of this month and get this going again i promise!

aaaaaaaaaaaand still alive

2009-02-17T20:25:00.001-08:00

weeeeee

Hi

2008-09-29T20:57:00.001-07:00

yes im still alive.

$8 Donkament Win!

2008-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

We're on a roll, post to come tomorrow, its too late tonight.

Heads Up is Easy?

2008-04-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

Just decided to play a little bit of heads up. It's tough to keep other donks off the table when you're playing on a 6 max table. I would love to play 25NL, but had to play 50NL. I'm gonna guess and say that it was a good move.

Total Hands: 10
Time Played: 5 minutes
People Felted: 3
Profit: $109

FullTiltPoker Game #6122529819: Table Band (heads up) - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 14:52:34 ET - 2008/04/21
Seat 1: trixter23 ($51.35)
Seat 2: conwayc ($9.90)
conwayc posts the small blind of $0.25
trixter23 posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trixter23 [9c Jd]
conwayc calls $0.25
trixter23 checks
*** FLOP *** [9s Tc Jc]
trixter23 bets $1
conwayc calls $1
*** TURN *** [9s Tc Jc] [2s]
trixter23 checks
conwayc bets $0.50
trixter23 raises to $3.50
conwayc raises to $6.50
trixter23 raises to $49.85, and is all in
conwayc calls $1.90, and is all in
trixter23 shows [9c Jd]
conwayc shows [9h Th]
Uncalled bet of $41.45 returned to trixter23
*** RIVER *** [9s Tc Jc 2s] [7h]
trixter23 shows two pair, Jacks and Nines
conwayc shows two pair, Tens and Nines
trixter23 wins the pot ($19.30) with two pair, Jacks and Nines
conwayc is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $19.80 | Rake $0.50
Board: [9s Tc Jc 2s 7h]
Seat 1: trixter23 (big blind) showed [9c Jd] and won ($19.30) with two pair, Jacks and Nines
Seat 2: conwayc (small blind) showed [9h Th] and lost with two pair, Tens and Nines

FullTiltPoker Game #6122547057: Table Band (heads up) - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 14:54:11 ET - 2008/04/21
Seat 1: trixter23 ($59.50)
Seat 2: unofamilia ($21.25)
trixter23 posts the small blind of $0.25
unofamilia posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trixter23 [2s Ts]
trixter23 calls $0.25
unofamilia checks
*** FLOP *** [Qs 8c 6h]
unofamilia checks
trixter23 checks
*** TURN *** [Qs 8c 6h] [Ks]
unofamilia checks
trixter23 bets $0.50
unofamilia raises to $2.50
trixter23 calls $2
*** RIVER *** [Qs 8c 6h Ks] [As]
unofamilia bets $18.25, and is all in
trixter23 calls $18.25
*** SHOW DOWN ***
unofamilia shows [Kd Th] a pair of Kings
trixter23 shows [2s Ts] a flush, Ace high
trixter23 wins the pot ($42) with a flush, Ace high
unofamilia is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $42.50 | Rake $0.50
Board: [Qs 8c 6h Ks As]
Seat 1: trixter23 (small blind) showed [2s Ts] and won ($42) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 2: unofamilia (big blind) showed [Kd Th] and lost with a pair of Kings

FullTiltPoker Game #6122562585: Table Band (heads up) - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 14:55:40 ET - 2008/04/21
Seat 1: trixter23 ($69.90)
Seat 2: mutjinsekkhi ($59.85)
mutjinsekkhi posts the small blind of $0.25
trixter23 posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trixter23 [5c Ah]
mutjinsekkhi raises to $1.50
trixter23 calls $1
*** FLOP *** [As 5h 6h]
trixter23 checks
mutjinsekkhi checks
*** TURN *** [As 5h 6h] [Qd]
trixter23 bets $3
mutjinsekkhi raises to $12
trixter23 has 15 seconds left to act
trixter23 has requested TIME
trixter23 raises to $68.40, and is all in
mutjinsekkhi calls $46.35, and is all in
trixter23 shows [5c Ah]
mutjinsekkhi shows [Ac Kd]
Uncalled bet of $10.05 returned to trixter23
*** RIVER *** [As 5h 6h Qd] [7d]
trixter23 shows two pair, Aces and Fives
mutjinsekkhi shows a pair of Aces
trixter23 wins the pot ($119.20) with two pair, Aces and Fives
mutjinsekkhi is sitting out
mutjinsekkhi stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $119.70 | Rake $0.50
Board: [As 5h 6h Qd 7d]
Seat 1: trixter23 (big blind) showed [5c Ah] and won ($119.20) with two pair, Aces and Fives
Seat 2: mutjinsekkhi (small blind) showed [Ac Kd] and lost with a pair of Aces

and a couple of smaller pots after that.

$2 Donkament Win!

2008-04-17T22:59:00.000-07:00

I've felt like my MTT game has been pretty good as of late. It's been the same old story, getting deep and losing a key race and that being that. Tonight I played pretty well and got lucky in some spots. Which you always have to do win. I got off to a real fast start jumping into the top 5 in chips pretty early. I really didn't have any trouble building my stack.

From 18 on down to the final table my setup was great. I had the 2 absolute tightest players on my left and the chip leader at the time was folding every hand so I was able to steal pretty much whenever I wanted. Towards the last couple of times before the bubble burst they either picked up hands or saw what I was doing and decided to play back and I dropped a little bit. We made it to the Final Table and found ourselves in the middle of the pack or so.

I would say about 4 hands later when I was on the button I made a pretty marginal call.

AT vs QQ

I thought I would be ahead of his range there even though it was for a lot of my stack. Plus the money didn't really make a difference to me. I wanted to accumulate so I could make a run at first. With 9 bb's I think this was an OK call. My stack was now at 62k, good for 2nd in chips at the time. 2 hands later came the big hand of the night for me which gave me a huge stack. The chip leader at the time who was a very tight player, raised utg and I had AK. We were definitely too deep for a flat out shove so I cold called. I'd be able to get away easy if I missed and be able to play a pot in position. I got a gem of a flop. He insta shoves and I probably beat him into the pot and river a flush. So now we're sitting REALLY good.

Huge Pot

A few hands later I pop it up with KQhh. Banini flat calls in the sb. I hit the flop hard(tehe) so we just give him the pile. I thought he was trying to get more money with the other shorties. If he had shoved pre I would have folded. He gets unlucky and we go to 4 handed play.

2 hands later pokrprodgy shoves and I wake up with QQ in the bb, he hits the ole Ace on the river. Which is ok considering how lucky I've gotten.

QQ vs A9

I think I made a pretty tight lay down in a hand a few orbits later. I was raising almost every hand and no one was playing back until pokrprodgy starting shoving on me. I was probably ahead on this hand, but I felt like I had real control over the table and I didn't really need to race for chips.

Tight laydown

I was rewarded the very next hand after this and got it in very good. Notice I raised and left him 1 chippy.

JJ vs TT

2 hands again after that I got it all in with skeez since he had no chips. Won that race to..obv

Another race won weeee

So we entered heads up with about a 225-110 chip lead. I was playing small pots and pretty much outplaying the guy through the first 10-15 hands or so. It was pretty much like this for a while. He started to get angry at me and was open shoving on the button and what not. I let him trap himself after a few times of that and won the tournament here. You know it wasn't a great tournament monetarily, but I think it gives me the boost I need to just get over that hump of running bad. Hopefully I can transition this into some bigger scores in the coming weeks. For those who don't know, you can click the blue links to be directed to the hand history.

Rant

2008-04-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

I've been playing a lot of sngs the last few days and my results are just disgusting. I'm pretty sure this is one of the worst runs I've had in a long time. I really don't like to play cash games with such a weak bankroll because my swings in cash are too big. I'd do anything to have my old bankroll back, things would be so much easier. I just wanted to post some hands on how ridiculous this has been. I mean some of them are really bad, others are just the standard 2-3 outers. Still, it sucks when they all come at the same time.

This first one was how i went out of the $3r tonight. The pf raise was a little excessive, but the way the table was playing, I really just wanted to take it down pf. Then this genius goes and does this..

FullTiltPoker Game #5911405031: $6,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) (44311686), Table 25 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:42:29 ET - 2008/04/04
Seat 1: trixter23 (11,885)
Seat 3: Esoderek (17,245)
Seat 4: hounddog455 (18,640)
Seat 5: Snock Man (9,220)
Seat 6: Dyandin (38,195)
Seat 7: thebaz9 (30,850)
Seat 8: stuNehTevaHI (15,780)
Seat 9: DFSDA (9,012)
trixter23 antes 50
Esoderek antes 50
hounddog455 antes 50
Snock Man antes 50
Dyandin antes 50
thebaz9 antes 50
stuNehTevaHI antes 50
DFSDA antes 50
Esoderek posts the small blind of 200
hounddog455 posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trixter23 [As Kd]
Snock Man folds
Dyandin folds
thebaz9 folds
stuNehTevaHI has 15 seconds left to act
stuNehTevaHI calls 400
DFSDA calls 400
trixter23 raises to 2,600
Esoderek has 15 seconds left to act
Esoderek folds
indychris sits down
indychris adds 22,170
hounddog455 folds
stuNehTevaHI raises to 15,730, and is all in
DFSDA folds
trixter23 calls 9,235, and is all in
stuNehTevaHI shows [Ah Jc]
trixter23 shows [As Kd]
Uncalled bet of 3,895 returned to stuNehTevaHI
*** FLOP *** [7d 2d 8s]
*** TURN *** [7d 2d 8s] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [7d 2d 8s Jd] [7h]
stuNehTevaHI shows two pair, Jacks and Sevens
trixter23 shows a pair of Sevens
stuNehTevaHI wins the pot (25,070) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
trixter23 stands up

These next 2 happened literally 3 seconds apart.

FullTiltPoker Game #5908997297: $6 + $0.50 Madness (Turbo) (44984102), Table 1 - 120/240 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:31:45 ET - 2008/04/04
Seat 3: MAMURA (620)
Seat 4: Tepen69 (4,910)
Seat 5: StringerBell420 (2,630)
Seat 7: Gomizzou1 (3,640)
Seat 8: trixter23 (1,700)
Gomizzou1 posts the small blind of 120
trixter23 posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trixter23 [Ah Ac]
MAMURA folds
Tepen69 raises to 720
StringerBell420 calls 720
Gomizzou1 folds
trixter23 raises to 1,700, and is all in
Tepen69 raises to 4,910, and is all in
StringerBell420 folds
Tepen69 shows [Ts As]
trixter23 shows [Ah Ac]
Uncalled bet of 3,210 returned to Tepen69
*** FLOP *** [Th 2c Td]
*** TURN *** [Th 2c Td] [6h]
*** RIVER *** [Th 2c Td 6h] [7d]
Tepen69 shows three of a kind, Tens
trixter23 shows two pair, Aces and Tens
Tepen69 wins the pot (4,240) with three of a kind, Tens
trixter23 stands up

FullTiltPoker Game #5908998207: $6 + $0.50 Madness (Turbo) (44984208), Table 1 - 120/240 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:31:49 ET - 2008/04/04
Seat 1: trixter23 (1,630)
Seat 2: cynait (6,730)
Seat 6: MAMURA (5,140)
MAMURA posts the small blind of 120
trixter23 posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trixter23 [Ad Kc]
cynait folds
MAMURA calls 120
trixter23 raises to 1,630, and is all in
MAMURA calls 1,390
trixter23 shows [Ad Kc]
MAMURA shows [Qs Jc]
*** FLOP *** [Th As Ks]
*** TURN *** [Th As Ks] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [Th As Ks 2d] [5d]
trixter23 shows two pair, Aces and Kings
MAMURA shows a straight, Ace high
MAMURA wins the pot (3,260) with a straight, Ace high
trixter23 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,260 | Rake 0
Board: [Th As Ks 2d 5d]
Seat 1: trixter23 (big blind) showed [Ad Kc] and lost with two pair, Aces and Kings
Seat 2: cynait (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: MAMURA (small blind) showed [Qs Jc] and won (3,260) with a straight, Ace high

this one was good.

** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trixter23 [2c 2s]
paison15 folds
trixter23 calls 30
Loves2Spooge2 has 15 seconds left to act
Loves2Spooge2 folds
80sed has 15 seconds left to act
80sed calls 30
JohnnyBH calls 30
auntiec calls 30
Samurai Chkn folds
Conny1017 has 15 seconds left to act
Conny1017 calls 15
krusty2 checks
*** FLOP *** [Ad 2h 8h]
Conny1017 checks
krusty2 checks
trixter23 bets 140
80sed folds
JohnnyBH calls 140
auntiec calls 140
Conny1017 folds
krusty2 folds
*** TURN *** [Ad 2h 8h] [Js]
trixter23 checks
JohnnyBH bets 240
auntiec calls 240
trixter23 raises to 1,330, and is all in
Loves2Spooge2 has been disconnected
JohnnyBH has 15 seconds left to act
Loves2Spooge2 has reconnected
JohnnyBH folds
auntiec calls 1,090, and is all in
trixter23 shows [2c 2s]
auntiec shows [Th 7h]
*** RIVER *** [Ad 2h 8h Js] [5h]
trixter23 shows three of a kind, Twos
auntiec shows a flush, Ten high
auntiec wins the pot (3,500) with a flush, Ten high
trixter23 stands up

Hope everyone is running better than i am. Next post will probably be Sunday.

/rant

SNG stats so far

2008-03-31T22:04:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to see what level sng i can start producing at. I really haven't had a hard time playing them. Heres some shots from sharkscope.

Next post will probably be on Thursday, maybe I'll actually start doing topics?

For the boys

2008-03-31T17:21:00.001-07:00

6:00 pm....

9:00 pm....

Off Day

2008-03-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

Had to work all day today, so I didn't play at all. I get done a little early tomorrow, so I'll probably be playing before the college ball games go on.

Lets Get it Started

2008-03-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

First off, I'd just like to remind everyone that my New York Football Giants won the Super Bowl this year. I had to rub that in a little bit. Well where to begin? As most of you guys know my bankroll was depleted due to being used to pay bills. I have a new job now and everything is good. I have a nice stable income so I'm able to build my roll once again. I put $50 back on FT around 3.5 weeks ago and I've run it up to $440. I've been playing within my bankroll and actually playing all three types of poker online(cash, sngs, mtt). I started playing $2 turbos and doubled my roll pretty quickly. Then I switched over to playing a bunch of PLO Cash. I've been doing extremely well there. Nothing really spectacular considering I don't have a big sample yet.

My MTT game is starting to come into shape. I've been getting deep in a lot of tournaments and making a final table here and there. I did have a nice showing last night in one of the Knockout Sit-n-Go's. I took 2nd in a 10+1 for $140.40 and I had 5 knockouts which bumped it up to $150.40. That was a nice bankroll booster. Anyway I'm excited to start posting again and talkin to the rest of the bloggers. Hopefully I'll be able to jump in some of those tournaments that they run also.

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

Ahh, its good to be back. Hope everyone has a great Sunday, and I'll have a post up later today

Blog on Hiatus until January 1st

2007-11-20T21:07:00.000-08:00

If i didn't find time in October and November to post, no chance I get to in December. The blog will re-launch in January. A new league will be forming in the home game that I'll be keeping track off. For now everyone have a safe and happy holiday season.

Lack of Updates

2007-11-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

Yea I havent been posting much. My new job started and I just haven't found the time. Hopefully a nice update this weekend.

Nice Little Update

2007-10-14T18:56:00.000-07:00

If I remember everything that went on the last few days, we're going to have a nice little long update here. Included in this update will be how cash is going, a couple of deep finishes in tournaments, football (obv), absolute poker scandal, and maybe some more football.

I'm over half way done with the 20k cash hand goal for the month. With the half way point in October coming up in the next few days, I'm happy where I am. What's been helping me get my hands in this month; has been the Iron Man program on FT. I haven't decided what is better to do yet, the Freeroll, or the medals--but for now I chose the medals. I'm on pace to get Gold status through 100 points a day.

One of the biggest losing plays for me has been playing the short stacks too much. I havent figured out a real good way to play hands like AK against them. Take this hand for instance...

Seat 3: Villain ($10.70)
Seat 1: trixter23 ($26.95)

Dealt to trixter23 [Ah Kh]

Villain raises to $0.85

Villain is in 2nd position here. He has less than a half stack. So whats your play with AK here?

trixter23 raises to $2.95

I decided to make a healthy 3 bet.

Villain calls $2.10

*** FLOP *** [Jd 6h Ts]

Ok well now what. We completely missed the flop, but have a gutshot, 2 overs, and backdoor flush draw. Are we going to miss value by not 3 betting pre flop? I think you are. If you cold call, check/fold the flop, I think thats just too weak. Back to the flop. We're in kind of a pickel. There is a chance we bet this flop and take it down there. What if we get raised all in? There is 6 bucks in the pot, combined with our c-bet; there will be too much money in the pot to fold. What do you do here?

trixter23 bets $3
Villain raises to $7.75, and is all-in
trixter23 calls $4.75

Villain shows [9s 9h]
trixter23 shows [Ah Kh]

So as you can see, we put the c-bet out there and had to call his all-in. Granted a competent player is probably folding 9's here, remember we're playing 25NL against someone who doesnt buy in for the max; less half a stack.

*** TURN *** [Jd 6h Ts] [Th]
*** RIVER *** [Jd 6h Ts Th] [5d]

As you can see, we had a substantial amount of outs and didnt hit. I'm a firm believer in aggression in poker, and I stick with it. I try not to be results oriented, but after this happens numerous times, you start to 2nd guess yourself. Especially considering when you look at my stats for AK. So far this month I've had AKs 28 times for a 60% win ratio and -$37.70 overall. I'm not sure whether this is a leak or what. I'm interested to see how others play these types of hands, not just AK.

While cash hasn't been going great this month, I've been able to stay afloat thanks to tournaments. I haven't been playing that many but have been getting some good results. I played the daily double on Saturday Night. In the A tournament I went out 263rd, with 216 cashing, but in the B tournament I made it deep for 15th and a $135 dollar cash. Today on PokerStars they had the WBCOOP(World Bloggers Championship of Online Poker). I decided to look at the structure expecting to see the standard $1500 chip 15 min level tournament. Surprisingly it was the Sunday Million structure with 10k in chips.

There were some really good prizes being offered. First being a PCA package worth $12k, 2nd being a 50" plasma tv and so on. You can see the other prizes through the link above. I was running pretty good while not getting dealt too much. My puff on PXF for the tourney was 26. It wasn't too tough to accumulate chips as players were playing with their cards face up for the most part. Here's a shot of me getting my squeeze on late in the tournament.

I misplayed a hand quite bad and found myself with 92k at 5k/10k level. It was our favorite time in the tournament, that being push/fold poker. I shoved KJ from the hijack and got insta called by AT and I didnt get there. The tournament paid out through the 81st spot and I did get paid. Unfortunately it was the worst payout. I'll be receiving the Elusive PokerStars duffle bag and Plastic Cards(Which I'm sure the home game nuts will be happy about). I couldn't hold off another 9 spots to get an Ipod though could I Lee?

College Football this week was of course another Upset Saturday. Both #1 and #2 teams losing for the first time in a while. I'd love to see everytime lose and leave us with about 10 teams all with 1 loss so the BCS fails miserably. In a clash of unbeatens in the NFL, New England stuck it to the Cowboys. The Patriots just play freakishly well. If they beat the Colts, I wouldnt be surprised if they 1) stayed healthy and 2) didnt rest people at the end of the season. The GGGGGGGGGGG-Men play tomorrow night in the Dirty Dirty aka Atlanta. I'm tired of people saying this is a trap game for the Giants. Ok, for one you have to be a good team to have trap games. While I believe we are a decent team, we aren't 5-1. Also you have to have a big game coming up. Considering we play the 49ers next week, we don't have that going for us. Now if we run the table and go 6-2 going into the bye week, we'll be in good shape.

The last thing I wanted to speak about is the supposed Absolute Poker Scandal that is being talked about on Pocket 5's and 2+2. To save yourselves some time. For a while it was thought that a certain group of players could see everyone's hole cards. TheWacoKidd(Jared Hamby) got a hold of the HH from the tournament which AP gave him. It was a full excell file with ip's and ALL whole cards exposed. Some pretty solid and concrete evidence has been brought forth proving what everyone has thought all along. I strongly urge everyone to read one of those threads and immediately withdraw all your funds from there.

I think thats about it for now, see ya at the tables.

WBCOOP

2007-10-11T10:52:00.001-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2824834

Couple of Things

2007-10-10T00:20:00.000-07:00

This month so far is going pretty crappy. I've logged a little over 5600 hands at 25NL and 400'ish at 50NL. While I'm roughly 35% done with the goal of 20k hands for the month, I'm down $22 dollars so far, which is god awful. I'm actually playing way better at 50NL than 25NL. Granted I did tilt off a few buy ins at 25NL one night, I still shouldn't be in the hole.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1571140
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1571141

Those are 2 hands that I played today. The 1st one is a no brainer, the 2nd one I actually put him on AK, the pre flop call was EXTREMELY close, as I think I was right where I needed to be for odds purposes. The board just kept getting better and better for him, what can ya do?

I took all the money I had on Absolute off a couple weeks ago. I was changing my password and noticed my rakeback got put into my account. For some reason I decided to play the $1 rebuy at 3am. What a friggin mistake that was. I made my 2nd final table out of 4 tourneys and took 3rd. I went out after I got it all in on a flop of TT9 with 77 and the guy called with K5 after he cold called my pf raise. lol donkaments.

It was such a waste of time though. I didn't get to bed till around 7:30am, and I only made $50. God only knows what I was thinking entering this thing.

The GGGGGGGG-Men reeled off another victory against the Jets this past Sunday. It's the 3rd in a row for the Giants, and everything is on the up and up going into Atlanta on Monday Night Football. Antonio Pierce did an amazing job getting the defense set up in gaps and positioning players around the field. I don't know how many times he knew exactly where the ball was going. I was wondering why rookie Aaron Ross wasn't starting, but it was later said he was on a 1 half suspension by coach Tom Coughlin. He sure made his presence known in the 2nd half though.

*photo courtesy of giants.com

Probably the game of the year so far was played in Buffalo Monday Night. No matter how hard the Cowboys tried giving the Bills the win, they just let it slip away. I put the entire blame on Dick Jauron and the Defensive Coordinator. There is 13 seconds left, and they have 0 timeouts, where do you think they are going with the ball? I mean, I would have put a wall up on each sideline and kept a few in the middle. They wont have enough time to get the fg team in. Instead they give the wr's an 8 yard cushion and let them run a 6 yard out. Well those 6 yards cost you the game fellas. It's gettin late, I'll get ya another update some time this week.

Lets Go Giants!!!

2007-10-07T00:23:00.000-07:00

I didn't mean to turn this into a football blog, but that's kind of what happened. I've been playing quite a bit and haven't really had too much time to post. Hopefully I'll start up again this week. Hey G-Men, can we make it 3 in a row?

GGGGGGGGG-Men!

2007-10-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

My oh my. What a dominating defensive performance last night by the Giants. Forget Strahan, Forget Osi, the player of the game was Filfadelphia's left tackle Winston Justice. He was getting totally blown off the ball every play. I mean it was to the point where Osi was off the ball and past him before he even got out of his stance! And if it's one thing you know about the NFL this year...is you just dont know anything. Bears 1-3. Chargers 1-3. Lions, dare I say, 3-1???? After the first quarter of the season, it looks like we're going to have a fun one. Here's a pic of the tailgate just after we got it setup. We had 2 off the camera, and about 6 stragglers who got there late.

Goal for this month will be 20k cash hands played maintaining a 5 PTBB/100. This should be possible. I'm not really a heavy volume player. I will be starting training for a new job at the end of the month so I need to get them in early. Hopefully I will update and keep on this goal, unlike all the ones in the past.

AC Report and Cash Game Hand

2007-09-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

We were only going to be down in AC for a day, and not a full one at that, so we really had to maximize our time for playing. We all played the $65 Showboat tourney, which is a bigger minefield than any online tourney. That day it wasn't much different. The structure is really accelerated to the point where you're only playing 2 levels before you start to get under 15bb's. You get T10,000 chips to start with, but the blinds start at 50/100. Unfortunately, we started 11 handed, which is absolutely ridiculous. I played 0, count em, 0 hands the first level. I was just pretty much card dead, and I wasn't in the mood to try and outplay these people, cuz they are just not going to fold. The 3rd hand into the 2nd level, I pick up KK utg and raise it up to 600. I get 4 callers and we see a flop of.

Jd Tc 3h

This is as good as I can get a flop for having 4 callers. I fire in a little over 2/3 the pot which was 17 or 1800 i forget and get 1 caller.

As

Comes on the turn. I thought if he was cold calling with a Jack here, he might let go of his hand to a 2 barrel. If not, I have 4 outs to a straight, and 2 more to a King if he isn't on a straight draw. I bet 2000, and he calls again.

9h

Is the river card. In my estimation this was a brick, because if he had KQ I would have saw a raise on the turn w/out a doubt. I check over to him, not wanting to get raised. He throws a single 1k chip in the middle. With so much money in the pot I looked him up and he flips over..

AQhh

Love it. The very next hand UTG raises to 800 pre flop and gets 4 callers. I look down at KK once again. For some reason instead of just shoving the rest of my 5k or so chips in the middle, I make it 4k lol. UTG calls, and one of the limpers calls. With over 15k in the pot the flop comes down. I was all in before or after the flop I forget how it went, but I wasn't folding at any time obv.Qd Jd 3dUTG checks, and the other guy puts him all in. He says he had Kings, and folded. I flip over my Kings and the table is agasp that we had the same hand, except I have the diamond. The limper flips JJ for a set of jacks, weeeeeeeee. I didn't get there and I was out after playing 2 hands.

We went down to Taj to play a little cash. Barry and I coincidentally got seated right next to each other. Our jaws would hit the table after every hand to see how bad these people were playing. Nothing really new from your typical B&M 1-2 game. It was just an extra loose one. You really couldn't play a hand unless you got someone heads up or limp called and caught a monster. The only real hand that I made money on was this one..

There were 4 limpers ahead..lol. I look down at QQ and raise to $20. I get 2 callers and the flop comes 9s 5c 5s. It's checked to me and I make it $20 again. One guy folds, and the other calls. The turn comes Jd. He leads into me for $15 and I just shove for my remaining $106 hahahah. He calls and flips over...J7 of spades weeeeee. He bricks on the river and I double up. We left shortly after that.

Yesterday I was watching the FT of the WCOOP Event #4. It had been running since 4:30 the day BEFORE. Talk about tons of play. Anyway, I had cash going on the side when this interesting hand came up. As a background, I had a lot of hands on my opponent and how he plays. Combined with the table dynamics, of the rest of them playing extremely tight. We had been staying away from each other for the most part. He was opening a lot of pots and this time I thought I'd take advantage of him. I had a playable hand with AT. No I don't 3 bet with it often, but this time I did.

Me ($37.65)
Villain ($51.45)

Dealt (As Th)
Villain raises $.50 to $.75
I raise $2 to $2.75 from the button.

[Jc 8s 4s]

The flop comes with just a flush draw, other than that and we're ok here for a C bet. Sometimes I check behind flops like this in fear of getting c/r out of the pot. It's a good thing I did here.

Villain checks
I check

[Jc 8s 4s][Tc]

Alright so we hit a ten here. We get led into for $4.25. Well what kind of hand are we up against here. Was he opting to check/raise us on the flop with something like AQss or another hand like that, does he have a set of Jacks thinking I will just shove with an over pair here? I''m not really sure at this point, but I decide to call.

Villain bets $4.25
I call $4.25

[Jc 8s 4s][Tc][Ad]

Now the Ace comes on the river(weeeeee) giving us two pair. But is it good? I can get him to lay down QQ KK here on a big river bet now. If he has AKss im beat, but if it's off suit I'm still good. I'm worried about a set of jacks and AKss. Those are what I was putting him on. Does the river warrant a bet? I'm not sure, and this is the point of the hand I think I messed up on because most of the time I'm actually beat here.

Villain checks
I bet $6
Villain raises $38.45 to $44.45 and is all-in

Wow, now at this point I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit. I have to be beat here right? The problem was I had a little over half my stack in the middle. I was getting pretty good odds to call here and pick off his missed draw. And that's exactly what we do.

I call $16.65

*Showdown*
Villain shows Ts 7s (a pair of tens)
I show...the winning hand obv.

I pick up the pot and before ya know it, the verbal spew age begins from him.."OH how can you 3 bet with AT, wow why did you do that"? All I say in response is, you CALLED my 3 bet with T7 which is not only a GARBAGE hand to play oop, but one that you were dominated with, so GFY AND SMD. And that was that.

What a Disaster

2007-09-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

Well we didn't do so hot in College this week. I thought the games were going to be much closer, so I took the points in most cases. In the NFL we did ok.

College: 2-8
College Overall: 14-16
College Lock: 1-2

NFL: 5-4-1
NFL Overall: 10-9-1
NFL Lock: 1-1

Picks for the Week

2007-09-15T01:22:00.000-07:00

I was going to make a little post on AC and interesting hands. The home game ran late tonight so I'm just going to post the selections for now.

College

1) Pitt @ Michigan St -9.5

Pick: Michigan St

2) Virginia @ North Carolina -3.5

Pick: North Carolina

3) Miss State @ Auburn -13.5

Pick: Miss St

4) Iowa @ Iowa St +15.5

Pick: Iowa

5) Ohio St @ Washington +3.5

Pick: Washington

6) Notre Dame @ Michigan -9.5

Pick: Notre Dame

7) Tennessee @ Florida -8.5

Pick: Tennessee

8) Boston College @ Georgia Tech -6.5

Pick: BC

9) USC @ Nebraska +9.5

Pick: Nebraska

10) Arkansas @ Alabama -3.5

Pick: Arkansas

Lock of the Week

Texas Tech @ Rice +28

Pick: Texas Tech

NFL

1) Houston @ Carolina -6.5

Pick: Texans

2) Colts @ Titans +7.5

Pick: Titans

3) Packers @ Giants PK

Pick: Packers

4) Saints @ Bucs +3.5

Pick: Saints

5) Bengals @ Browns +6.5

Pick: Bengals

6) Bills @ Steelers +9.5

Pick: Bills

7) 49ers @ Rams -3

Pick: 49ers

8) Jets @ Ravens -10

Pick: Ravens

9) Vikings @ Lions -3

Pick: Lions

10) Chargers @ New England -3

Pick: Patriots

Lock of the Week

Dallas @ Miami +3.5

Pick: Dallas

Ugh

2007-09-12T03:57:00.000-07:00

Injuries again. Same story as last year that crippled my G-Men early in the season. Eli looked fantastic...until he got injured. It's lookin to be a long year. As far as picks go, I'm happy to break even for the week. And if you want a sure winner, just pick the opposite team I pick for lock of the week. I'll be headin down to AC in an hour or two, so there will be a trip report up when I come back or tomorrow.

College Picks: 5-5
College Overall: 12-8
College Locks: 0-2

NFL Picks: 5-5
NFL Overall: 5-5
NFL Locks: 0-1

Picks for the Week

2007-09-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

This is going to be one tough week. There are so many games that I could go either way on. I'm going to say I'm not too confident in this weeks games. I usually stay away from betting NFL games the first 2 weeks, just because you really don't know how teams are going to play. College is a little bit different since the big name schools schedule cupcakes the first couple of weeks. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this will be one of hte toughest weeks of the year.

College

1) Nebraska @ Wake Forest +7.5

Easy pick here with Nebraska. Wake's starting quarterback got hurt in the game against Boston College last week. The black shirts are going to eat up sophomore Brett Hodges

Pick: Nebraska

2) Miami @ Oklahoma -10.5

This is one of those games I was talking about earlier. I like Oklahoma here to win, but I think it's going to be a closer game than most people think. Miami's passing attack is horrific. Freeman passed for a meager 87 yards last week against Marshall. I'm going to rely on Miami's defense and running game to keep this matchup close. Sam Bradford is unproven to date, so Randy Shannon is going to need to send the house all day.

Pick: Miami

3) Alabama @ Vanderbilt +4.5

I like Bama here. If the spread was higher than 7, I think I would have went vandy. True freshman Terry Grant needs to have another great game to Roooooolllllllllll up the score for me.

Pick: Alabama

4) Rice @ Baylor -6.5

No comment.

Pick: Rice

5) NC State @ Boston College -16.5

Look for Matt Ryan to have another monster day. Ex BC coach Tom O'Brien goes back to BC for the first time since leaving the team. Think it will help? I don't.

Pick: Boston College

6) Oregon @ Michigan -6.5

Ugh. How can I pick against my Ducks here? With Dixon running the spread formation, it could drive the wolverines into fits. One of the big questions is how the fans will react coming back to the scene of the crime last week. I think they have too much to avenge and will take care of the Ducks...and their uniforms.

Pick: Michigan

7) S. Carolina @ Georgia -6.5

Quarterback Blake Mitchell comes back from suspension to start for the Ol' ball coach. It still won't be enough to overcome the bulldogs.

Pick: Georgia

8) Notre Dame @ Penn St -14.5

Points, points and more points. I don't think it could get much worse than last week for the Irish. I think Weiss, compounded his losses by switchings qb's every quarter last week. It's not going to get much easier for Clausen when he travels to Happy Valley and runs into a white out.

Pick: Penn St

9) BYU @ UCLA -7.5

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Bruins

Pick: UCLA

10) Virginia Tech @ LSU -8.5

I just cant get over last week when VT only put up 17 on ECU. You would think everything that was going on they would just come out and pound it down the pirates' throats. Just like LSU did in their game against Miss St when they owned 45-0.

Pick: LSU

*Pick of the Week*

Hawaii @ Louisiana Tech +28

Colt Brennan threw up 5 td's and over 400 yards last week....in the first half

Pick: Hawaii

NFL

1) Steelers @ Browns +3.5

Charlie Frye = ......? (enter your own adjective)

Pick: Steelers

2) Titans @ Jaguars -5.5

All Vince does is win. Unfortunately he's going to have to do even more than last year now that he has NO wide receivers. Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew will take tons of pressure off David Garrard and the Jags will get the win.

Pick: Jaguars

3) Eagles @ Packers +2.5

The line should be hire in this game. I don't see how the eagles arent a bigger favorite. As much as I would love to see the Eagles lose their opener, it just isnt going to happen.

Pick: Eagles

4) Dolphins @ Redskins -3.5

This game is a tossup. Jason Campbell can be a breakout player this year, if he gets some protection and their WR's stay healthy. On the other hand the Dolphins offense has tons of question marks also. I'm gonna play it safe here and just take the points

Pick: Dolphins

5) Patriots @ Jets +5.5

This is a tough one. Patriots will get the win, but it's a divisional game and the Jets always play them tough. If I could flip flop on a game it would be this one.

Pick: Patriots

6) Falcons @ Vikings +3.5

Joey Harrington vs Tavaris Jackson

Pick: Falcons

7) Chargers @ Bears +6.5

I don't think Rex is going to be able to keep up with the scoring of San Diego

Pick: San Diego

8) Chiefs @ Texans -3

This is one of 2 BLAH games of the week. I'm going to go with the home team since Matt Schaub is a stud

Pick: Texans

9) Lions @ Raiders -2.5

The 2nd of hte BLAH games this week. I'm going to go with the defensive force of the RRRRRRRRRaiders.

Pick: Raiders

10) New York Giants @ Dallas Cowboys -6.5

Cmon, do you really think I'm gonna go against my team here? In my upset special this week, the GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG-Men over the boys, outright. You heard it here first.

Pick: Giants

*Pick of the Week*

Denver @ Buffalo +3

Pick: Denver

2007 NFL Preview

2007-09-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

The 2007 season is finally upon us. Is this the year the NFC reclaims the Lombardi Trophy? Fat chance says many if not all the experts. The AFC is as deep as it ever was. The NFL is still in its AFC swing as it was during the late 80's early 90's when the NFC was dominant. But I mean really the Bills were the bulk of those losses. Can the Chargers get over that hump and finally win a playoff game for the first time since what 1995? How will the Vick-less Falcons do? Will they have more players on the field than butts in the seat? Only time will tell. We'll start over in the AFC.

AFC East

1 - New England Patriots (12-4)
2 - New York Jets (9-7)
3 - Buffalo Bills (8-8)
4 - Miami Dolphins (6-10)

AFC North

1 - Baltimore Ravens (11-5)
2 - Cincinnati Bengals (10-6)
3 - Pittsburgh Steelers (8-8)
4 - Cleveland Browns (3-13)

AFC South

1 - Indianapolis Colts (11-5)
2 - Jackonville Jaguars (9-7)
3 - Houston Texans (6-10)
4 - Tennessee Titans (5-11)

AFC West

1 - San Diego Chargers (13-3)
2 - Denver Broncos (10-6)
3 - Oakland Raiders (5-11)
4 - Kansas City Chiefs (4-12)

NFC East

1 - Dallas Cowboys (10-6)
2 - Philadelphia Eagles (9-7)
3 - Washington Redskins (8-8)
4 - New York Giants (6-10)

NFC North

1 - Chicago Bears (11-5)
2 - Detroit Lions (6-10)
3 - Green Bay Packers (6-10)
4 - Minnesota Vikings (3-13)

NFC South

1 - New Orleans Saints (12-4)
2 - Carolina Panthers (8-8)
3 - Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-11)
4 - Atlanta Falcons (2-14)

NFC West

1 - St. Louis Rams (10-6)
2 - San Francisco 49ers (9-7)
3 - Seattle Seahawks (9-7)
4 - Arizona Cardinals (5-11)

Playoffs

AFC Playoffs

Wild Card Weekend

Cincinnati at Baltimore
Denver at Indianapolis

Divisional Weekend

Cincinnati at San Diego
Indianapolis at New England

AFC Championship

Indianapolis at San Diego

AFC Champion - San Diego Chargers

NFC Playoffs

Wild Card Weekend

Philadelphia at Dallas
San Francisco at St. Louis

Divisional Weekend

Dallas at Chicago
St. Louis at New Orleans

NFC Championship

Dallas at New Orleans

NFC Champion - New Orleans Saints

Super Bowl

San Diego Chargers at New Orleans Saints

Super Bowl Champions

San Diego Chargers

Coach of the Year - Norv Turner

Offensive Player of the Year - LaDainian Tomlinson
Defensive Player of the Year - Brian Urlacher
Offensive Rookie of the Year - Adrian Peterson
Defensive Rookie of the Year - Jon Beason

So there you have it. That is how I see it for this year. I could have been boring and pick the Patriots like everyone else, but that wouldnt be fun. My surprise team is going to be the 49ers, who are going to make the playoffs due to a sweep of the Seahawks. I really think whoever comes out of the AFC with the least amount of injuries is going to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. I mean how fun would a LDT(yea thats right hes not THE LT aka Lawrence Taylor) vs Reggie matchup be? It's going to be fun to look back at this come February and laugh at myself on how wrong I was on some of these teams.

Say it Ain't So..

2007-09-04T21:25:00.000-07:00

I mean can you get any greater of a start to the College Football season then we got? I'm sure everyone knows by now, and if you don't then where were you hiding all weekend? Appalachian St pulls off the shocker of them all by defeating Michigan 34-32 at the Big House. Good Game Lloyd Carr. So we didn't get off to a bad start despite our Pick of the Week. USC decided to play like little girls and play at a lesser speed then they even practice! I should have just used my picks from the pool I'm in. Overall I went 12-3 there and 7-3 here. Virginia Tech had a lackluster opening. I think they thought ECU was just going to roll over for them with all they had going on. ECU had a lot of momentum and if it wasn't for a pick thrown by the QB that was returned for a TD, the Hokies might also be singing sorry sorry night next to the Wolverines. If it wasn't for the spread I would only have lost 1 game, bah.

Georgia Tech 33 vs ND 3 - Win
Washington State 21 vs Wisonsin 42 - Win
Wake Forest 28 vs Boston College 38 - Win
East Carolina 7 vs Virginia Tech 17 - Loss
Oklahoma St 14 vs Georgia 35 - Win
Missouri 40 vs Illinois 34 - Win
Kansas St 13 vs Auburn 23 - Loss
Houston 21 vs Oregon 45 - Win
Florida St 18 vs Clemson 24 - Loss
Tennessee 31 vs Cal 45 - Win

Overall: 7-3

Pick of the Week

Idaho 10 vs USC 38 - Loss

Overall: 0-1

Tomorrow I should have my NFL season preview and picks for the week up. College picks should be up Thursday or Friday..and oh yeah up a little under 1k for the week in poker.

It's Football Time!!!!

2007-08-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

College Football kicked off last night in a not so dramatic form. I'll tell you what though, the one thing that makes college sports what it is, is the the atmosphere. The only type of atmosphere that even comes close to a college game is an NFL playoff game...or if your watching Golden State in the playoffs. Even then I don't think they can match it. There are going to be tons of great games this year. September alone is a monster month filled with exciting matchups. And with that comes a little bit of Gambling. I'm in an pool with a bunch of the guys around the town, probably around 60-70 in all. It's very fun. I thought I'd take it a step further and pick 10 College Football and 10 Pro Games here on the blog and pick some winners. With that I'll keep track of Wins and Losses all season long. Considering there are no Pro Games until Thursday, a couple of college games will have to do.

Here's the format I'm going to use..

Philadelphia @ New York Giants + 3.5

Ok, so Philadelphia is at NY, the Giants are the home team. The home team is always going to dictate the spread. So here the Giants are getting 3.5 points. If it was -3.5, they would be giving those points. I think I'm also going to do 1 "Lock Game" for each college and NFL. These will be 2 games that are sure winners. On to this weeks picks..

1) Georgia Tech @ Notre Dame -2.5

I'm gonna go with Georgia Tech here. There are just too many questions regarding the ND offense. I'm not even sure of Charlie Weiss knows who he wants to start at QB.

Pick: Georgia Tech

2) Washington St @ Wisconsin -14.5

P.J. Hill is just too good for Washington St to handle. Coming off a 1500 yard 15 TD season as a Freshman, all signs point to another big year for this spectacular running back.

Pick: Wisconsin

3) Wake Forest @ Boston College -6.5

I think BC is going to have a great year. They are returning their star QB, Matt Ryan, who led one of the best passing offenses in the Nation last year. With the loss of Brian Toal, the defense is going to need some fresh faces to step up and be leaders. I see BC getting the nod here.

Pick: Boston College

4) East Carolina @ Virginia Tech -24.5

There is just too much to overcome here for Carolina. The emotion is going to be unreal as the Hokes storm onto the field in Blacksburg. The hokies just need to worry about covering the spread here for me.

Pick: Virginia Tech

5) Oklahoma St @ Georgia -6.5

Georgia has underachieved the last few years, putting up sub par records. Matt Stafford returns with a bunch of weapons on offense with Kregg Lumpkin and Mohammed Massoqui to name a few. They have some questions on Defense, but I think they will be alright.

Pick: Georgia

6) Missouri @ Illinois +5.5

All I'm going to say is Ron Zook.

Pick: Missouri

7) Kansas St @ Auburn -13.5

The Wildcats aren't going to know what hits them when they walk into Jordan-Hare stadium on Saturday. Even though he didn't start last year, Auburn returns Brad Lester who had a team high 9 rushing td's and 4.9 yards per carry. Auburn in a blowout.

Pick: Auburn

8) Houston @ Oregon -14.5

Derek Dixon and James Stewart come out in the Pistol formation, Dixon steps back and they run the option. Dixon cuts, pitches back to Stewart and hes at the 30...20...10...5...TD

Pick: Oregon

9) Florida State @ Clemson +3

It's another edition of the Bowden Bowl! It was bad enough that my Seminoles had to open with Miami, and since they didn't renew the contract, they are scheduling different opponents. Now, you would think Bobby Bowden would learn and open with a cupcake team, but that's certainly not the case here. However, he did finally shake up his coaching staff with the boldest moving firing his offensive coordinator(his son). FSU and Clemson both return pretty much everybody, so why is anything going to be different this year? I'm going to give my Noles' some credit since they are coming into the season after a Bowl victory last year, and the Tigers dropping 4 of their last 5 including a bowl loss to...Kentucky? OOOOOOOOOO oooo OOOOOO oooooo OOOOO dun dun dun dun dun dun

Pick: Florida State

10) Tennessee @ California -5.5

The most anticipated game of the first week of the season is no doubt the Vols vs the Bears. After getting absolutely destroyed last year at Tennessee, Cal has been licking their chops all summer long to get another crack at Phil Fulmer's squad. Speaking of Fulmer, he is 14-1 in season openers. How is Tennessee going to get plays into the game when Cal is planning to distribute 50,000 megaphones before the game to its fans. Are we kidding? I think this game is really a tossup with the spread. It could end up playing out like last year with Cal getting the quick start on Tennessee since they're are at home. I'm going to go with a 28-20 win for Cal when Nate Longshore throws a fade to DeSean Jackson to put the Bears up for good.

Pick: Cal

*Pick of the Week*

Idaho @ USC -49

Oh that's right my friends. The only thing that would have saved Idaho is Pete Carroll was buddies with Idaho's D-Coordinator. They might have eased off the pedal...if he was still there. He is now with Carroll's staff so there is no holding back. The only thing funnier about a 7 TD spread is that they are actually going to cover...easily

Pick: USC

So that does it for this week. I tried to pick some games that were going to be competitive for my regular picks. Being the first week of the season it's kind of hard to find some. Check back next week where I have my NFL Season Preview, complete with your Superbowl winner.

SNG Comedy

2007-08-29T23:26:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple of hands from tonight's session. These are why sngs are a very easy way to build a bankroll.

1)

Seat 1: trixter23 (990)
Seat 7: dmiles1032 (4,000)

trixter23 posts the small blind of 40
montana3303 posts the big blind of 80
Dealt to trixter23 [Ah Ks]

dmiles1032 calls 80
trixter23 raises to 990, and is all in
dmiles1032 shows [5s 3s]
*** FLOP *** [8d 5c Jh]
*** TURN *** [8d 5c Jh] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [8d 5c Jh 9h] [7d]
dmiles1032 wins the pot (2,060) with a pair of Fives
trixter23 stands up

2)

Seat 1: Badstew (3,965)
Seat 6: trixter23 (1,930)

Badstew posts the small blind of 30
Big Daddy J Dub posts the big blind of 60

Dealt to trixter23 [Ad Ah]
trixter23 raises to 180
Badstew calls 150

*** FLOP *** [2d Qs 4h]
Badstew checks
trixter23 bets 300
Badstew raises to 600
trixter23 raises to 1,750, and is all in
Badstew calls 1,150

Badstew shows [Qd Ac]
*** TURN *** [2d Qs 4h] [8s]
*** RIVER *** [2d Qs 4h 8s] [2c]
trixter23 wins the pot (3,920) with two pair, Aces and Twos

3) THE VERY NEXT HAND!

Seat 1: Badstew (2,035)
Seat 2: Big Daddy J Dub (3,830)
Seat 6: trixter23 (3,920)

Dealt to trixter23 [Ah Ac]
trixter23 raises to 180
Badstew calls 180
Big Daddy J Dub calls 150

*** FLOP *** [Kc 8d 2d]

Big Daddy J Dub checks
trixter23 bets 3,740, and is all in
Badstew calls 1,855, and is all in
Big Daddy J Dub folds

Badstew shows [Jc Kh]

*** TURN *** [Kc 8d 2d] [9s]
*** RIVER *** [Kc 8d 2d 9s] [Ts]
trixter23 wins the pot (4,310) with a pair of Aces

Doesnt he learn? lololol

4) The last guy guy chips within the first 10 hands of the tournament he knocked 2 players out each with 1500 chips with T5 vs 22 on a T77 board after the flop and 55 vs AK aipf.

Seat 1: derny (5,615)
Seat 5: trixter23 (1,395)

MaxStirner posts the small blind of 20
FRAKINNUTS posts the big blind of 40

Dealt to trixter23 [Ad Ac]
derny raises to 120
trixter23 raises to 500
derny raises to 1,320
trixter23 raises to 1,395, and is all in
derny calls 75

trixter23 shows [Ad Ac]
derny shows [8d Kd]

*** FLOP *** [8c Kh 4d]
*** TURN *** [8c Kh 4d] [Tc]
LosBorrachos: bastardo!
*** RIVER *** [8c Kh 4d Tc] [9s]
trixter23 stands up

Nostradamus Who? - Just Ship It!

2007-08-26T03:11:00.000-07:00

This Pot Limit Omaha tournament on Full Tilt has been absolutely haunting me. I have 3 cashes in my last 4 try's in it, so when I found myself with a decent stack in the final 18 I was chipping up very nicely for the final table. I had just lost a coinflip, yes after the turn it was exactly 50/50 going into the river. I had an open-ended straight draw, with the nut flush draw vs 2 pair and a gutshot straight draw. I didn't get there so I only had a few chippies left. I did indeed finally make it to the final table on Friday.

Unfortunately, I had probably the worst position on the table. With the 200k stack(lol) 2 to my left, 3rd in chips directly to my left, and 2nd in chips 2 to my right. I really wasn't going to be able to get any chips unless I got lucky. I gambled a little bit when there was a ton of chips in the middle pre flop and I went all in with A567 double suited but didn't catch anything. I headed to the rail in 8th for a couple bucks. Also in case you were wondering, no that guy with 200k didn't win the tournament.

I finally took the leap of faith and signed up for Absolute Poker. I've wanted to do it for the longest time, because it's one of ...if not the only site I can get rakeback on. Since AP decided to spruce up its software this week, I decided to give it a go and see what happens. I got everything all signed up through my rakeback site, and got money deposited JUST in time for a $5 donkament. Now when I mean just in time, I mean during late registration. I'm oh so very grateful it was easy to get money on the site. I had to take out of stars, go to epassporte, then into AP. In the post gambling act age, this is incredible. Let me tell you though, AP SURE knows how to welcome a new player!

At first I thought I was playing on PokerStars. The chip styles, and sounds are exactly the same. There are 2 things that I disliked after I found out about them. First off I raised in LP with the tourist(A7) and the bb was disconnected, he timed out but they declared him all in and played his hand out to the river. I had won the pot when his monster 52 didn't hit. But I think his hand should just be declared dead since I had raised pre. Also, when you're in the blinds when it's 200/400 for example, and you want to raise to 1200..then you have to hit raise 800 to get to 1200. It's not like other sites where if you want it to be 1200 you just hit 1200. This got me a few times. Back to the tournament though.

I was playing my usual game and was just picking up hand after hand. I would love to say I outplayed people, but that just wasn't the case. This was probably one of my easiest wins to date. We'll pick up the action from the Final Table.

I had really good position coming in. The big stack(who hit a set on the river 88 vs 99 AIPF) was directly to my right. I had short stacks to pick on to my left, so everything should be good. I just had to keep playing well and picking good spots. Here is the hand where I got all my chips
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1411483 I really didn't know what to do when I saw the utg raise, then a mini raise repop from mid position. It had to be something strong. UTG was a tight player and he wasn't coming into the pot with anything. I decided to go with it and the poker gods held out and we won the hand. Going into the break after a few more hands the stacks looked like this.

I was really able to take a lot of pots from the 2 to my left. After a few hands it was clear to me that they were playing to place a little bit higher to get more money. So I beat on them a little bit. Bocabluff and I each knocked one out and we then went to 3 handed play. I was getting a little beat up at this juncture. They were 3 betting me quite a bit. Once they showed down a hand that they played, I was done folding. They just had no fear. I called a raise in the bb from the sb next to me and got a super flop. He open insta shoved all his chips in my face with a gut shot and somehow didn't hit.

So we were now heads up. I had a little dilemma on my hands. If you notice the avatar that the player has I'm facing, it's Al Pacino from Scarface. I could either A) lose to him so I dont get killed or B) be one of the few players to win their first tournament on a poker site ever. After some pondering I said, "THIS IS SPARTA!" and attacked. He was making ridiculous raises and I was just getting sick of him to be honest. He made the mistake of showing me not once but TWICE what he was shoving with and it was garbage. So I called him the third time and he paid for it.

I found it a little scary I felt a big win was coming up. Monetarily, it isn't the biggest, but it sure does give me an insta-bankroll for AP. I mean really, how many people can say they won their first tournament on a poker site? I took down $525 for 1st in this $5 tournament. Not bad for 5 hours work, I'll take it. It's certainly been a great week. 3 Final Tables, 1 of them being a victory, crushing Sit and Go's, and making decent money at cash games. Maybe I'll take the day off tomorrow...or should I?

*click images to enlarge

Movin On Up

2007-08-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

When I was playing cash games, I just didn't play a very good MTT. I was impatient and trying to bully people out of pots. At the micro limits, you're just not going to do that. So I didn't play them at all. Now that I'm in sng mode once again, my MTT game has gotten back into shape. On Monday I fell short of a FT with a 15th place finish in a PLO tournament. On Tuesday I made the final table of a $5 6 max tournament. I broke the golden rule of micro mtt's when I tried to get cute and shove over a blind raiser with K2 which didn't work out too well when he had 22. It was for his stack and somehow the K2 didn't hold. I went out 3rd for a $147 dollar payday.

That helps the BR on Full Tilt out pretty significantly. I'm 10 bucks short of 30 buyins for the next level of Sit and Go's which is the $10 level. There really isn't that much difference between the two, but I might play 100 $5 sng's considering I'm half way there already. I just got done with another PLO tournament. I bubbled yet again in 13th. I had limped on the button with 20k behind with 9935 after 5 ...yes 5 people limped in front of me. It's an easy situation where I'm looking for a 9 or folding. I got an absolute perfect flop of 9 3 5 rainbow. I bet 5500 into the 6500 pot and got c/r all in by a guy who I had covered by about 400 chips. I insta-call and he flips KKJ3. Of course he gets there on the river with a King and I'm out.

I'll continue to play sng's and mtt's on the side, I'm smelling a big win in the near future.

Full Tilt SNG's = Cakewalk?

2007-08-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

As I said last week, I put $50 onto FT to play some Sit and Go's. Tilts structure compared to Stars' is way better. Players are extremely tight on the bubble which has been very profitable for me so far. I really didn't want to post results on here not because I dont like to share with my few readers, but because everytime I do the pokersite turns on the doomswitch for me. Now keep in mind I could just be on a heater, because you really can't draw any conclusions from just 24 sng's.

$5 Level

# of Tourneys - 24

Buy-In - $132

Amount Won - $250.50

Net Profit - $118.50

ROI% - 89.77

Fin. In the $ - 62.5%

Avg Finish - 3.29

1st Place - 8

2nd Place - 1

3rd Place - 6

There is no way I'll be able to keep up with the 89% ROI. Generally over a long term I believe I can sustain a 30% ROI at this level. Also If you look at the Place finishes, thats exactly how it should look. I can attribute much of my ROI to my heads up play. If I had say 5 firsts and 4 seconds I'm looking at a 20% drop in ROI easy. Within a few more sng's if everything goes according to plan I can start moving up. I'm really focused on sng's right now especially since PXF just started a SNG League that's in the beta form right now. Hopefully things can continue down this path and I'll be updating frequently.

It's Almost Time

2007-08-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

The Countdown is on ladies and gentleman. 6 long months without the greatest sport on the face of the earth has worn down to a mere 3 weeks. Fantasy drafts are now taking place, where diehard fans take the next unknown and turn them into gold. A National holiday is declared for August 14h, 2008, for the release of Madden 08. Yes it's really here. One of the first clear cut signs that Football is once again upon us. There is only one question to be answered, Who Wants It More?

Catch of the Year

2007-08-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

40lb King Salmon - I'm gonna eat good tonight!

Play A Sit-and-Go With Me

2007-08-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

I deposited $50 to see how the SNG's on Full Tilt Poker run. I watched Entourage last night, and played just one after that. This is that SNG. Now before I get into this, let me start by explaining how I play one of these. For those that know normal strategy, that's what i'll be talking about and you can skip right to the hh's. These single table tournaments are a great way to build a bankroll. I believe you have the lowest variance out of the big 3 types of games(Cash, MTT, and SNG). They are very easy to beat, but a lot of people really don't know how to play them properly. Generally speaking, you should be playing an ULTRA tight game. Only really playing premium hands. You can play more than the usual hands if you want, but make sure you play them well or it's really just a waste.

Your first goal should be to make the money. That's all you really want to do. Once you get there, then you can worry about winning. Because anything other than 3rd and your going home with nothing but a waste of time. As long as you make the right decisions there is nothing you can do about the cards not going your way.

There is a lot of great instructional material in this one. It shows me being tight, what happens when you try and outplay people, and the crucial bubble play. I was actually thinking of another sng on Pokerstars to do this with last week, but this one is perfect. Lets get to the SNG.

Level - 15/30.

1) JJ - I picked up JJ in mp and limp. I don't need to raise here at all because most of the time I'll be faced with multiple callers and usually an overcard will flop. Generally with pp's early, I'm looking to flop a set or fold.

Both the sb and bb are in the hand with 1 limper. The flop comes A 4 4, and I fold to a flop bet.

Stack: 1470

2) 77 - Well we get another pp and I limp again. We're faced with a mini raise to 60 and its an easy call. The flop comes AKQ and I fold.

Stack: 1410

3) Kh 8d - Fold
4) 2d 4d(bb) - Fold - Stack 1380
5) 9c 4h(sb) - Fold - Stack 1365

6) Qs Jc - Now here is a great hand to illustrate how tight you have to play. I played this hand as bad as you could. I really dont even need to play this at this point. There were 2 limpers ahead and I had the QJ on the button. I try to pick up the pot pre-flop with a raise to 100 but both limpers and the sb call. We see a flop of..

8 3 5

Now for some reason on such a dry board and into 4 people I bet 120 into the 390 pot. I get 2 callers. We all check the turn which brought a Ten. A 7 comes on the river and they check to me and I fire 325 into the 750 pot. The oringal limper is the only caller and flips over A3 for bottom pair with no draw. This just shows what they are going to call you down with. So instead of 1335 chips, I'm down to 830. Now I really can't limp with hands to try and get a quick double up.

Level - 20/40

7) Js 3h - Fold
8) Js 4c - Fold
9) Ac 4h - Fold
10) 6s 7c - Fold
11) 9c 6d - Fold
12) Kh 8d(bb) - I get a walk - Stack 830
13) 8d 6s(sb) - Fold

14) 4d 9h - The levels were about to go up so I stole the blinds. - Stack 890

Level - 25/50

15) Kh 3s - Fold
16) 3h 7h - Fold
17) 4h Jh - Fold
18) Ac Th(bb) - I get a walk - Stack 935
19) Ad 2d(sb) - Fold - Stack 915
20) Qh Td - Fold
21) Td 9s - Fold

Level - 30/60

22) 4s 6h - Fold
23) 5c 5d - Fold - Raise in front of me and I don't have odds nor the stack to call.
24) 4d 7s - Fold

25) 2d 7d(bb) - Ok utg limps and utg+1 goes all in for 105 total. The sb folds and I have to call 45 with 255 in the pot, which is an easy call. Hopefully I'll catch something or I'll check it down. We did indeed check it down and the board bricked and utg+1 triples up. Stack 810.

26) Ad 3s(sb) - This was an extremely marginal spot. I have 13x the bb and have A3s. If I raise and fold to a shove I would be in push/shove mode. I just decided to shove and pick up the pot here as I only had to get through the bb. Stack 870.

27) 5s 7c - Fold
28) Jc 6s - Fold
29) 2d 4d - Fold
30) 9c 8c - Fold

Level 40/80

Ok, now is where we start need to be making some moves. We have less than 10x the blind and need to be finding spots to shove and pick up some blinds or double up ...or go home. There is no limping, no raising AT ALL. It's all in or fold.

31) 9s 5h(bb) - Fold to a raise. *Reminder* when shoving be the first one into the pot. Unless you have a monster you don't want to be going over top of anyone or calling off your chips. If I was in the sb with this hand and it was folded to me, I would have shoved.

32) 3c 4d(sb) - Fold to a raise - Stack 750
33) 5d Th - Fold

34) Qs Kh - Folded to me and I shove. We get called by ATs and we hit 2 pair to double up. Stack - 1580.

35) 6c 6d - Raise and take the blinds. Stack - 1700

36) 5s 6s - Fold
37) Ad Th(bb) - I get a Walk
38) 2s Tc(sb) - Fold
39) Kh 6h - The bb has 120 chips total and I min raise on the button to put him all in and eliminate him with K6 vs 26. Stack - 1820.

Now we're 5 handed and approaching that bubble. You must know how to play this like the back of your hand.

40) Kd 2h - Fold
41) Ah Ts - Fold
42) 4d 4c - Fold
43) 2c 8s(bb) - Fold
44) Kd Ks(sb) - Raise and take the bb. - Stack - 1820
45) Js 9d - Fold
46) 6h 3d - Fold

Level - 50/100

47) Kh 4c - Fold
48) 2h 7s(bb) - I get a walk - Stack 1870

49) Td 8d(sb) - I try to steal and get 3 bet. I'm still able to try and steal as I have 18 bb's, and am able to fold to a shove. - Stack - 1620

50) 2d 3h - Fold
51) Ts 7d - Fold
52) 2d 7h - Fold

53) Kc 9d(bb) - Ok so here the sb limps and I make it 300. From previous hands, hes done this with a huge range, and I thought I could take it pre-flop. Only he calls. The flop comes

9s 3s Kh

It couldn't be any better of a flop. He leads into me for 400 into the 600 pot. Easy decision to go all in here for 1320 chips. He calls and shows Kd 5c and will need running 5s. He bricks and I double up to 3240.

54) 7c 6h(sb) - Fold
55) 3d Jh - Fold

56) Kh Kd - I raise it up to 300 and get called from the button who I have covered by about 85 chips. The clop comes

6d 5s 4d

This is just an atrocious flop for my hand. I fire out 300 into the 750 pot and he min-raises to 600. I really thought I had run into a set here. Then I changed my mine and thought he was trying to buy a card for the river. I decided to shove all in and he insta-calls with 99. The board bricks and I now have the chip lead with T6445.

Now is where the fun really begins. We are 4 handed and the short stack is to my right with 845 chips. The other 2 guys have 3760 and 2450 respectively. I can now pretty much shove on those 2 guys with any 2 and they HAVE to fold. There are no if's or but's about it. Unless they have AA they gotta muck. The ss wanted to cash really bad and just kept folding and folding and folding. This was great for me as I was able to chip up extremely easily.

Stack - 6445

*BUBBLE*

57) Qc Th - Raise to 350 and steal.
58) Ks 5h(bb) - I get a walk
59) Jh 6c(sb) - Shove on bb who folds.
60) Jh 4h - Shove and take the blinds
61) Qs Qd - Just shove and take the blinds

Level 60/120

62) Ah Ts(bb) - I get a walk
63) 7c Jd(sb) - Shove and take the bb
64) 8s 6h - Shove and take the blinds

65) Qd Jd - I shove and the short stack blinds down to 245 chips before he takes a stand with the monster 10-2. He bricks and we are in the money and with a commanding chip lead.

Stack - 8000

So as you can see I pretty much can do what I please with the other 2 guys while that guy is sitting there with 200 chips. Add to that I picked up 1600 in chips on the bubble. The stacks look like this now

Me - 8k
Player 1 - 3430
Player 2 - 2070

66) Qh 6h(bb) - I get a walk
67) Kh 4h(sb) - Fold - Now that we're in the money we want to play well again.
68) 5d 5c - Raise and take blinds
69) Jd 3d(bb) - I get a walk
70) 9c Th(sb) - I raise and get 3 bet so I fold
71) Kc 3c - Fold
72) Kh Js(bb) - I get a walk
73) 2h 9h(sb) - Raise and take blinds
74) 2c 3c - Fold
75) Ac 2h(bb) - I get a walk
76) 6c 7h(sb) - I raise and get 3 bet so I fold
77) 6d Jd - Fold
78) 2d 9s(bb) - Fold
79) Ah 5h(sb) - I change it up here and limp, he raises and I 3 bet all in and he folds.
80) Qd 3s - Fold
81) Tc Td(bb) - Raise and take blinds
82) 8c 5h(sb) - I raise and get 3 bet so I fold
83) Qs 8h - I raise and get 3 bet so I fold
84) Qh Kh(bb) - I get a walk
85) Kh Jh(sb) - I raise and take the blinds
86) 5d 4c - Fold
87) Kd 3d(bb) - I get a walk
88) Qc Tc(sb) - I raise and take the blidns

Blinds 80/160

89) Ah 6d - I get it all in with the ss and we chop.

90) Kd Th(bb) - After flopping top pair I get it in with the ss and he rivers a straight lol. Stack - 6410

91) 6c Js(sb) - Fold
92) 3c 7s - Fold
93) 2h 9d(bb) - I get a walk
94) 6h Ts(sb) - Fold
95) 4c 9h - Fold
96) 7d 4d(bb) - I get a walk
97) Js 7c(sb) - I raise and take the blinds
98) 5d 6c - I raise and get 3 bet so I fold
99) 7c 7d(bb) I raise and take the sb

100) 2s 8h(sb) - Fold - The ss plays AK the worst you can and busts. We're now heads up.

Stacks

Me - 6330
Villain - 7070

Heads up play is more about playing the man than the cards. I gave away some chips but learned about him as a player at the same time.

101) Qc 3s - He folds.
102) As Th - I raise, he folds
103) As 3d - He raises, I fold
104) Ac 7c - I raise, he folds.
105) Qs Th - He folds.
106) Kh 4c - I raise, he folds

107) http://www.pokerhand.org/?1339310 - Played this one weird, I thought I had the best of it.

Stacks

Villain - 8430
Me - 5070

108) http://www.pokerhand.org/?1339311 - Another bad hand by myself. He did the check/call lead here and I had to fold. If i had 2nd pair I prob would have jammed.

Stacks

Villain - 9550
Me - 3950

109) 9d Tc - He folds
110) Ks 2c - I fold
111) 2d 3h - He folds

Level 100/200

112) Ah Kd - I raise and he folds
113) Ac Kc - He folds
114) 5s 9c - I mis click and re raise, but take it down with a c bet.
115) Ad 7d - I raise, he folds

116) 4s 4d - I raise and he 3 bets to 1800. I jam and he thinks for a little and calls with A2. Somehow I hold and double up.

Stacks

Villain - 3920
Me - 9580

117) 6c 5d - He folds
118) 4h 5c - I fold
119) 3s 3d - He raises, I shove and he folds
120) 7c Th - I raise, he shoves and I fold
121) 4c Th - Very funn hand lol http://www.pokerhand.org/?1339327
122) Qs Qd - I raise to 600 and he cold calls. The flop comes

Tc 2c 4h

I bet 600 again for half the pot and he cold calls

Ks on the turn and he leads for 600, I shove and he flips over 6c 9c for a flush draw. He bricks and I win the tournament. I definitely didn't play perfect, but you dont have to, to win at this level. I hope you all learned something, and I'll see ya at the tables.

Another First Time Winner

2007-08-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

Coming into the Final Table, Mike was hovering around the average stack even maybe a little below it. He picked spots well and managed to triple his stack and put himself in a dominant position 5 hands into that FT. It was clear sailing to the Final 3 where he called an all in with 36..suiiiiiiiiited. He got rivered, but it was a risk worth taking. After hitting his flush to knock out Utter, he eliminated myself when he rivered a straight against me. Congrats on the first "official" win as far as being recorded on the blog.

Saturday night seemed like the deck and Mac slept together 2 hours before the tournament started. I've never seen an improbable run of boats quite like he was getting. I can't blame it on him rigging the deck because he cant shuffle as it is lol. After going into heads up play with a commanding 225k to 55k chip lead against myself, I wittled him down without being all in one time. Thus denying him of his first bracelet. We even chopped after Barry was about to pass out dealing. Nice try Mac, maybe next time.

PXF Subscriber Tournament Final Table

2007-07-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

So since I'm busto from taking my BR out to pay bills(BLAH), I haven't played in roughly 2 1/2 weeks except for the occasional MTT or SNG. Thus the reason why there has been no posting. I didn't have a reason for you to visit. Until tonight when I played in this tournament. I was cruising along playing a fundamental TAG style. That is until these two gentleman joined me.

In all actuality, they didn't really affect me at all, nor did I play any pots with them. I would have loved to, but the situation just didn't present itself. For those that don't know the 2 people I am referring to are Seat 1 and Seat 5. In Seat 1 is sheets(Eric Haber), who is a sng expert and co-trainer/owner on the site. He's just a great poker player overall and you may have seen him on this years broadcast of the USPC. In Seat 5 is BeL0WaB0Ve aka Kevin Saul who you WILL see on TV. Kevin is one of the most dominant MTT players on the net. He recently just took down the Bellagio Cup III for a little over 1.3 million. They got moved and I started turn on the boom switch.

I doubled up, tried to abuse a $4 money bubble lol, then stole some and found myself 2nd in chips when a ss shoved 4s into my Kings. That really didn't lost too long though because of the short stacks shoving and me not having hands to call them with. So I just kept playing patiently. I was re-stealing once every 2-3 orbits to slowly move my stack up. On the FT bubble, I caught a ss trying to steal with T7. I had AJ and held to move my stack up to 55k or so. There was a lot of people using the stop and go maneuver and it got hold. Usually I call with just A high in my spots. This one really beat me up though. We were 10 handed, next one out bubbles the FT and I had raised to 9k with A9. Blinds were 1500/3000, with a 150 ante. The guy had an M of under 5 so I knew he would be pushing probably with a lesser than made hand. Here he cold calls...sigh we know where this is going. With a flop of 6 8 9 and 20k in the pot he shoves for 13k more. This was an easy call and he flips over 56o. The turn brings him a lovely 6 and I am knocked down to 33k or so. I maintained my chip stack for a good 3 orbits or so and I moved to the Final Table with the same amount.

The first hand was the one in the screenshot, and it was an easy shove. That's all I really could afford to do. I was shoving in position whenever I could and was building back up very slowly. I didn't seem to really get called when I had a hand. I may have missed a spot or two to shove, but I thought I had to get through too many people at the time. The blinds went to 2k/4k 200 ante and I shoved over a maniac who would later take 3rd with AK. I flopped 4 to the flush and I was free rolling against his AK also. Lee didn't hook me and we split the blinds and antes.

I was constantly forced to shove because of the blinds and I eventually got caught running the monster 24 into Redd's AQ. Oh well. I'll shove almost any time there with all the dead money in the pot. I went out 7th for $69.30. For now, I believe I'm going to be starting the SNG grind to get the BR bigger. I played a $5 regular sng the other day and crushed it for first. The only problem was that it lasted an hour and a half. Not a good $/hr rate. Anyway, hopefully I'll have more to post about soon.

Records - Records - Records

2007-07-18T14:27:00.001-07:00

Thats what Phil Hellmuth preaches and just like Phil this year, Nick captures another title. Number 7 to be exact!

Another update coming later this evening.

Absolutely Hilarious!!!

2007-07-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

Oh my lord, I'm doubled over in my chair right now.

$3r - The Biggest Tournament Ever - Home Game

2007-07-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

I think it was Thursday that I played the $3r. I havent been playing this tournament at all recently. I have no idea why because it's one of my favorite tourneys on the internet. I had a great table during the rebuy period and managed to get a stack of 17k at the first break. Now I would be able to play a super tight aggressive game till the antes kicked in and the blinds got bigger. I just wanted to really maintain my stack more than anything else. Depending on my opponents stack size, I didnt really want to get in any big confrontations early.

The first big hand that came after the break, a guy opened for a min-raise to 400 with blinds 100/200. I popped to 1200 with KK, he re-min raised me to 2000 and I just shoved for his last 2k. He flipped QQ and I held. With 23k and blinds 150/300 Ante 25, we come to our next big hand. A player utg who was really bad, limped and it went around to me holding Q4. I check my option and we see a flop of Qs Qc Js. I lead out for 600 into the 1125 pot and utg flat calls. On the turn comes a 5, I lead out for 1200 into the 2325 pot and find myself getting raised to 3000. I really don't know what he has at this point. I kind of thought he might have hit a set of 5s for a boat on the turn. Or really seeing if i have a queen or what. I call the raise and see what hes going to do on the river. It was a 6 of clubs. I think this case was one of those where if I was ahead I was really ahead, and if i wasnt then I'm obv beat. I was planning on calling a bet here on the river, but when I checked he shoved his entire 8500 chip stack into the 8300 chip pot. Once I saw that I knew I had him. He flips over A2 of clubs for no pair no draw. Now we're sitting really nice with 35k at the 150/300 level.

I played 2-3 orbits just sitting back and maintaining my chip stack. Picking up no real big hands in the process. Our next big hand came at the 300/600 level. Starting with UTG and going for the next 4 positions all limped. In the small blind with 53o getting over 10-1, I flick in the 300 chips. We get an awesome K 5 3 flop with 2 clubs. I overbet the pot for 5000 into the 4050 pot. Figuring I'm only going to get played back at with a King. If they have a set of 5's or 3's then so be it. I get a really scary flat call from a guy with 18k. I wasn't paying attention to how he was playing at all. I didn't think the 2d turn helped him at all so I bet pot again which was 14k. This had him covered by 10 chips and he called and flipped over KQ. The river bricks and we now have a monster stack of 54,515. After that hand blinds went up to 400/800 and I had 68 bb's.

We were on the money bubble so I tried to apply some pressure to the rest of the table. What I got was the complete opposite. Almost everyone was using their entire timebanks to stall. I started to get extremely frustrated. To add on to that, people were limping when they started to see what I was doing. By this time it was the 500/1k level, in which you just dont limp! I was just on complete tilt at this point because we were getting maybe 10 hands in a level. It just wasn't fun at all. It was the same guy doing it over and over and over. Here these people are trying to work their way up the pay ladder by $3 each 150 or so entrants. I'm trying to win this thing not make $3.

With blinds at 600/1200, I raised in LP with KJ(new nuts) and got re-shoved by a shorty who had a static stack of 8 bb's. His range could be so big and I was gettin the right price so I called and he flipped KQ. He holds and I'm down to 44k. The same guy limps for 1600 utg now and I have 77 in lp. I raise it up and he re-shoves yet again. I hate calling with small pp's late in tourneys but I did yet again. Plus the fact that he was utg doesnt sit well with me. But to my surprise he flips JT......Sigh we know where this is going. He flops a Ten and we're down to 22k. I steal a little bit and we're up to 32k. Now at 36k, it's folded to the sb who shoves with 8 bb's and I snap call with 99, he flips up 55. Awesome I'm thinking, until the board pairs twice and we chop the pot. With 7 bb's i shoved 33 into 88 and that was that. I think I got like 150 something out of 2700 people. Not where I want to be.

Pokerstars added 2 new tournaments to the Sunday schedule. A $10k heads up tourney which stevesbets won, and a $10 100k guaranteed lottery. I say lottery, cuz thats pretty much what it was. All week stars was running 70 fpp, $1.10 and $2.20 satty's to this thing. Altogether they hit the max of 15,000 people. But hey, I'll give it a shot because most likely these people are pretty bad. The structure was the usual stars one. They gave us 3k in chips but only 10 minute levels. Which means that there was going to be no play after the first couple rounds or so and it would turn into a giant sng.

I doubled up 30 hands in when I turned a straight with 88. The river put a straight on the board with 34567 and I just shoved. The guy had a 3k stack so I took it all. I was up to 6232 after this hand. With blinds 50-100 and still the same 6k stack I limped utg with KK. It folded around to the bb who raised 400. I decided to just flat call in pos. The flop was 89T. Not the best of flops in the world for my hand. He led out for 600 and I just shipped it in. He flipped over AJ for a couple outs and hit his Queen on the rivshow. I doubled up a few hands later with JT when I had an oesd and flush draw. Surprisingly I hit and was up to 8530 in chips. Up to 9k now at the 75/150 level I open to 450 with AK. The bb cold calls and we see a A 8 2 flop with 2 clubs. I lead for 1k into the 1k pot and he re-raises to 2550 leaving behind 1300 or so. I shove and he flips AQ. And hits his Queen on the river. Sigh we didn't need 14k or anything. I went out a lil while later when I had to shove from the button with T3.

In the home game world, Citro's buddy Justin took it down Saturday Night. He must have went on the biggest heater I have ever seen. At one stretch he got 6 pp's in a row and flopped a straight another time within the matter of 25 minutes or so. He played well otherwise and won fairly easily. Nice job man.

Best of Luck

2007-07-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

To lucko in the Main Event. Good Luck buddy, we're pullin for ya!

The Main Event in a nutshell

2007-07-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

Level 3 Blinds 200/400

With two limpers in front of him, Amarillo Slim pushed all-in for 20,000 with A-K and was called by an opponent holding pocket tens. Slim didn't improve by the river and was eliminated.

PLO and July 4th Winnings

2007-07-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

I've been up early enough to play the $8.80 3k chips Pot Limit Omaha tournament. The last 2 times I've played it, I was top 10 in chips after the first break. The first time I donked off my stack. The 2nd time I got a real nice one going and we hit the bubble. I was taken back when I saw all the big stacks sit out during this period. I'm like wtf are they doing? My table was playing 3 handed half the time because of this. This guy kept playing me in position and position is like HUGE in PLO. Although I dropped down to about 10k trying to abuse the other 2 people on the bubble but they had nothin of it. I doubled back up to 8k after it burst and the next hand I had a wrap and some guy had less than me with a wrap that was 1 card better, and obv it hit. I expect a FT in that tournament soon.

On the 3rd I watched the FT of the $10k PLO tourney at the posw(backwards). Antonius is just a friggin genius. For 73 Doyle is still up there with the best of them with his analytical play. Robert Mizrachi played lights out tho to take the bracelet. European pro, Marc Goodwin seemed to know what he was doing, as he was one of the other commentators. I really can't stand the regular 2 guys.

I did play a little bit last night after the 4th of July festivities. I got paid off on pretty much all of my hands thanks to some poor play on my opponents part. I think I have been suffering from "fancy play syndrome". I know what people have and I try to make plays on them thinking they are good enough to fold. You just can't do that though. It's like playin against a bunch of Shawn's. He's calling you whether he has anything or not. Here are some of the hands and the graph from last night.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1235981 - Not the best way to play Aces.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1236005 - Not the best way to play AK either haha.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1236009 - Well, I mean you shouldn't be calling pf with J7 lol.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1236016 - Only way I really get paid on this hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1236019 - Weeee

And the graph..

Something Different

2007-07-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to do 2 hour sessions today, take a half hour break or so, and post my results on here each session. And I'm going to do that Phil Hellmuth style...starting now..

2:00pm - Ok so I got up this morning feeling great, I went for a run, meditated for a little bit, then started my session up for the day. I'll tell you what I started out on fire. I was up a 1.5 buyin's within 250 hands and feeling spectacular. My parents flew in to watch me play on the internet and they are over there(points over to couch). They always give me inspiration while I'm playing. Then things started to go down hill. These people think they can mess with me and try to bluff the best holdem player in the world. Who are they kidding? They kept getting it in bad and sucking out. What can I do though? Within 15 hands I was down $60. Great to some spectacular play by my counterparts(snickers, yea right). 2 hours of play all for nothing. We're back to where we started. Here are the big hands so far with descriptions.

1 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227242 - I mean I have been aggressive the entire time, but this was the first 4 bet by anyone on this table(do i go in the record books for that) and the guy shoves on me with 2 Jacks. 2 Jacks are you kidding me? And of course it comes right in the door those mother fuckers.

2 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227244 - Then this donkey comes to the table and is playing like a maniac. With our previous history with the guy next to me he doesn't fold anyway, So why not try to win a big pot. I get it in with the best again and this guy who can't even spell poker hits a 3rd 8 on the turn. I mean can I play any better?

3 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227249 - We come to this hand. Now this guy utg has been limping every time, and every time he did that and this guy was in the sb, he would raise big. I was tired of this and said to myself, this guy can't isolate every time he limps. So i go ahead and re-raise him since im the best player in the world and he cold calls. I fire out a c-bet and he insta-calls. I thought he was weak still though. He shoves and thats the end of that. Figures the time i try and pick him off the deck bails him out.

4 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227254 - This was the crazy guy. He 3 bet me with KQ. I said, "dont you know who i am, I'm an 11 time world champion." Of course I flop my straight and It didnt take any skill to win this.

5 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227256 - The table was extremely passive and I was taking advantage of it. Of course the time I get two kings, and theres only 2 aces in the deck since they both have the same hand, one flops. That's great, ya know if i just had some average luck I'd win every pot.

6 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227262 - Just such an above the rim play by me. I totally outclassed this guy with my super reading abilities.

7 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227264 - Ya know this shows how I run at 25NL. First the guy makes a horrible call pre flop with 64dd oop. Then he calls 4.5x his bet with a gutshot and flush draw. Of course he hits cuz I run so bad. I don't like the way he played it at all, I thought I had the Jd but I misread the card through my sunglasses(btw I really did think I had it).

So yea, as you can see things would have been much better if I ran decent. The only hand I regret is the JJ one on the end. Here is the graph for the first 2 hours, hopefully I can get some hands to hold. Cya in a bit.

5:00 pm - Wow, it just keeps getting grosser and grosser. I'm not gonna talk like Phil this time. I played ok, but it just never fails. I keep running into people who play 70 percent of their hands and don't miss a flop. Or i have them dominated and they hit their off card. I got set over set in a non limped pot which I was going to lose money on either way. Heres the hands.

1 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227836 - new player to the table i gave him credit for an ace but not two pair.

2 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227841 - was bound to go broke

3 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227846 - sigh, i thought he was weaker than he really was. I think my line on this hand is ok. I tried to represent a big hand, but he called anyway. weee

4 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227851 - surprised he didnt hit a j or 6.

5 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1227857 - me over playing AK

There were other smaller hands but it's just not worth it. I'm gonna have some dinner and be back at it around 6-630. Later

Yea I pussed out. I didn't feel like playing at all after this.

Fun Cash Game on Saturday

2007-07-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

Shawn, Barry, Nick and I traveled up to Pottsville, Pennsylvania this past Saturday night. Naturally going to a place in the middle of no where you get lost, as we did...twice. A simple hour or so ride, turned into a hefty 2 hours. Fortunately for us, we got to see all of the locals in action while the sun was still shining. I'm not sure we would have found the place at night. There was 8 of us playing all variations of games. Ranging from your typical No Limit Hold Em to No Limit "Jerk the Jack" with the Queen of Spades washing the hand out. As the night went on we got crazier and crazier.

No matter what I did, I kept getting fucked over in the stud variation games. I would have a flush on 5th street, and have the Qs coming on the board and declaring the hand dead. Then I would run into Shawn's never ending streak of boats or 4 of a kinds. That happened maybe 3 or 4 times. Then, while we were playing Omaha on a 6 T J 6 8 board while it was checked through, I held the AK88. No aggression at all during the hand, and hep leads out on the river for $6, I re-raise to $18 and Toth(who was first to act) flat calls and shows tens full. ALKSDJFLA;SKDL;F. Oh no, we didnt stop there. While we were playing NL towards the end of the night, I flopped a baby flush with 34s on a A 5 9 board. I get c/r for $4 more dollars from a short stacked Ernesto only to have him flip over the nuts. It was just one of those nights I guess. I was down about $19 which is ok since I was down about $60 close to the end of the night.

After a solid 8 hours of playing, in which I had been up for 24 hours straight, we headed home. We stopped at Coney Island burger at like 5 am. I really felt like we were going to get murdered in this god damn town. It just had an eerie feeling about it lol. The food was pretty gross, but what can you expect that late..or early in the day. It was a fairly uneventful ride home as we were able to find our way out of the town pretty easily. I got home around 7 am and passed out till 8pm the same night. I got up, checked my phone and saw that everyone was playing ball. I felt like shit and said...biedrins..got something to eat and crashed again at about 11:30. I slept through till about 7 am'ish this morning. I hope to get a good start on the day and want to play around 6 hours. I want to get around 25k hands in this month and see what happens. Maybe I'll have such a great day I'll post again tonight, wouldn't that be great?

We Run Good For A Change?

2007-06-29T01:51:00.000-07:00

Well we ran decent. I was amped for the draft to come on, then POOF I fell asleep. I woke up around midnight staggering in my room trying to see who the Bulls drafted. I was whispering to myself "no noah, no noah, no noah...FUCK." Yea I don't like Joakim Noah and his Shawn Marion type jumpshot at ALL. Then the Bulls made me hate them even more by taking Aaron "the ogre" Gray in the 2nd Round. Are they trying to make me hate them? I would have rather been the Pacers and not have any picks.

So I started playing as one of greater blunders in the Giants history was playing in the background. The 2002 wildcard game against the 49ers. The G-Men were playing the best football in the league during the end stretch of the season and into the playoffs. I really think they would have made it to the Super Bowl and possibly won if they didn't blow it. Anyway, after making a few bluffs that didn't work(obv) I started to get in a groove. I was knockin em dead left and right and I soon found myself rooooobuuustoooo!!! I had closed my 2 tables out until I realized I should pull a lucko and ss my tables. The other two looked like the same with one having $98 and the other having $82.

The end of the H.O.R.S.E event is in progress right now with 3 players left. I really haven't mentioned The worlds biggest poker event(cant use that 4 letter word) because of their disgusting restrictions. Anyway we have cash home game this Saturday at Hep's which should be fun. Adios.

*Edit - Freddy Deeb took the horse event down

Lack of Updates

2007-06-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting as much. I really haven't had too much to talk about lately and I'm also pretty busy these last couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to update in the near future.

It's About Time

2007-06-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

For the first official time since recording our home game on the blog, Nick Cale breaks the record books and books his first win! Although, unofficially he has won many more times than that. Nick seemed to play well from the get go and jumping out to a quick start. He changed gears when he needed to and played exceptionally well. With 4k in the pot and the board you see in the picture, he called a bet worth half my stack with just A4 of clubs. I thought for sure I could get him off the hand, but he made yet another "above the rim" call. It was one of many he made tonight. Hopefully for him he can keep the great play up when he tries to go back to back in tomorrow's tournament. Check back to see if he did. Also I'm going to have an update about myself for a change tomorrow.

Ace On The River

2007-06-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

AC trip report is on hold for a little bit. I don't feel like typing it all up. The more I put it off, the less I'm going to remember. I had about 2k fpp's left on stars after I played all the Sunday Million Sats, so I decided to get Barry Greenstein's book Ace On The River. I Ordered it on Thursday the 14th and it arrived today(19th). Pretty darn good turnaround. I'm not much of a reader, but I found this book quite good so far. I just got to Chapter 5 and came to an interesting test.

"How you handle issues in your life mirrors how you play poker", Barry states. " If you read all the poker books and become a technical expert on which hands to play and how to play them, you are still likely to end up broke. You must learn how to make money and how to hold on to it. Most people do not have the appropriate character qualities to become good players. Take this personality assessment test and see how you fare."

I'm going to put the questions down and write my responses to them. These are answers that I said back to myself before I looked at the next page. I'll have the answers at the end here, but go through each question and see what you would have said.

1) When a car swerves into your lane, do you yell at the other driver?

All the time. Unless I'm in an extremely good mood for some reason and that doesn't happen very often.

2) Do you try tin win every argument?

No. Some people just don't see it your way sometimes.

3) Are you a go-getter, not wasting any time?

Not really. I usually waste tons of time and am a huge procrastinator

4) While playing sports or other games, do you release tension by banging your first, throwing equipment, or shouting?

No, I'm not a violent person. Never was the type of person who threw my fist through the wall after an argument etc etc..

5) Do you only gamble with the odds in your favor?

No. Every time I step foot in a casino and play a table game, I'm gambling with bad odds. Even if I think I'm making a good play in poker and I'm really not because of a bad read I classify that as gambling with bad odds.

6) Are you always willing to give money to a friend so he can get into a game when he is broke?

No. I haven't really ran into this one yet. It's not like I run into T.J. Cloutier on the street corner and he asks to stake him in a tournament.

7) Do you accept all challenges that come your way?

No. I know my limitations.

8) Do you know the value of a dollar?

Yes, obv

9) Do you work on the "due theory," that is, the theory that you want to play now because you have been losing and are due for a win?

No.

10) Are you reliable enough to arrive at the agreed-upon time to a schedule poker game, even if you are very tired?

Yes and No. I hate being late to places. If the game was to be juicy you can count me definitely in. If I was tired and saw that Phil Ivey, Chip Reese, and Doyle Brunson wanted to play me just 4 handed I wouldn't be there after a long night.

11) Do you make sure you are properly funded for any game you sit down in?

I try to. You cant live because of obvious reasons being the casino needs to make money. Online I do try to stick within my bankroll tho for obv busto reasons.

12) Do you find that drugs or alcohol loosen you up a little and help you play better?

No. Drugs I don't do and alcohol is on rare occasions, surprisingly.

Those were my responses and I flip the page. Barry tells me "If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may need some adjustments if you intend to become a professional poker player." The ones I said yes to I went back and thought about his responses. Question 1, I remember on 2 different occasions during the home game when there was dealer screw ups that would have won me lots of chips, but had to be re-done because of the mistakes. There are also times where I made a mistake, so it evens out. It just depends on how you specifically react to it happening. I've grown to take it in stride when it happens and not to harp on it.

The other one I said yes to was #8. Do I know the value of a dollar. This is one of the first things that you should learn when starting poker. You can't think of money as something you can physically possess. Money should be just chips to you and nothing else. That's why when you go to the casino you aren't betting with real money. Those chips have no meaning to you. When you have a losing session of say $300, you can't think to yourself, "Wow there goes my car payment."

Here were Barry's responses to the questions.

1) Incidents such as car cutting you off should be handled as if they were obstacle in a video game. Just maneuver and avoid them. Dealer errors, bad rulings, and others' bad plays may cause you to lose pots. You will have to keep your composure and play on.

2) You should try to win money and let the losers win the arguments. If someone questions why you played a certain hand or attacks the way you played it, you shouldn't care. People who have weak egos try to win all the arguments they get into. A confident person doesn't need to prove he is right, especially to his opponents. If you always to to win arguments with your friends or loved ones, you should ask yourself why you need to prove you are smarter than they are. If you do it for competitive reasons, you should channel your competitiveness into more useful situations.

3) You should rest your brain before playing poker. Take care of issues that are cluttering your mind. Take steps to simplify your life. If you do a lot of intense brain work before you play poker, you will probably wear yourself out. If you operate with many things on your mind, you are going to play on autopilot and not be aware of all the information your opponents are giving you.

4) Throwing clubs, slamming the ball to the ground, or shouting in disgust are inefficient uses of energy. An effective competitor spends time thinking about adjustments. Some famous sports figures who competed effectively and efficiently were Jack Nicklaus, Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, and Joe DiMaggio.

5) If your dealings with people are always one-sided in your favor, they may be hesitant to do business with you. People will enjoy playing with you if you give them some loose action in isolated spots. If someone suggests making a small bet on a sporting event that is being shown where you play poker, you should be willing to flip a coin to determine which side you get, but you shouldn't give action where you don't get action.

6) You shouldn't lend money to someone who you don't believe would return the favor if you needed a loan. Also, if you keep a losing player in action, you may become codependent on his or her gambling problem. There are many players walking around poker rooms who talk about what good financial shape they would be in if the people who owed them money would pay them back.

7) You don't need to fight every battle. Don't be afraid to back down if you don't like the lineup in a game. You should pass up a situation with a small advantage if you can find one with a larger advantage. You don't need to prove you are the best. To make money, you just need to find some people who play worse than you do.

8) Knowing the value of money is negatively correlated to being a good poker player. I have never heard anyone say, "He is not afraid to bluff for his last dollar, but he is a careful shopper."

9) If you continue to lose, you should find an easier game, or you may need to alter the way you are playing. If you can't find an easier game you might take some time off to get your head straightened out. You shouldn't think you are due for a win because it is your turn to be lucky.

10) If you are tired, go back to sleep and don't show up until you are rested. If you are a player in a game with an agreed-upon starting time, you should get on a sleep schedule that allows you to show up on time, rested and ready to play. If you are too tired to play well, call and inform the host that you cannot make it, if that is an appropriate thing to do. If a late arrival is not frowned upon, as in a casino, you may arrive when only the losers are still playing and you will have easy pickings. Also, if the game goes overnight you will still be sharp when others are tired.

11) If a game is extremely good, get in it if you have a buy-in. There is nothing wrong with putting yourself in situations where you can win a lot more than you can lose. Don't play too tight and predictably because you are on short money. Play your game. You might go broke quickly, but if you double up, you may be on your way to a big win.

12) Although some players may play better after drinking a small amount of alcohol or using drugs, it generally gets out of hand, especially when they are losing.

* Note this was all from Ace On The River, by Barry Greenstein

Off to AC

2007-06-14T04:20:00.001-07:00

Trip report to come Saturday

T-Minus 2 hours 57 minutes..tick tock

2007-06-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

Until the final episode of The Sopranos airs. Over the years I never watched the show. I have netflix and knowing the show was going off the air soon, started from the pilot and worked my way up to the current episodes. The first 2 seasons were definitely the best. The writing wasn't all that great for 3 4 and 5. This last season has been pretty uneventful until the last few episodes. Last week was the best episode of the series in my opinion. It all comes to a head tonight.

On the poker front, believe it or not I haven't played any online at all. I just havent been motivated to do so. I've been doing very well live in AC and in the home game. We're all goin down Thursday to spew some money. I did play some FPP sats to win some million seats today. I woke up uncontrollably around 9:30 and decided to give it a shot. I wanted to play a lot more aggressively then I usually do in these. I amassed a nice chip lead in the first one. We came to the bubble and I had room to work with. I could have easily sat back and waited for one of these guys to knock each other out, but thats way to easy. To this hand we go...

Seat 2: trixter23 (6340 in chips)
Seat 5: BluStarZ16 (1795 in chips)
Seat 7: DBo Fo Sho (1585 in chips)
Seat 8: slainew (3585 in chips)
Seat 9: Marton (1695 in chips)

Marton: posts small blind 200
trixter23: posts big blind 400

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to trixter23 [4c 5h]

BluStarZ16: folds
DBo Fo Sho: folds
slainew: raises 800 to 1200
Marton: folds
trixter23: raises 5115 to 6315 and is all-in
slainew: calls 2360 and is all-in

*** FLOP *** [Jh Jc 9s]

*** TURN *** [Jh Jc 9s] [Js]

*** RIVER *** [Jh Jc 9s Js] [2c]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

trixter23: shows [4c 5h] (three of a kind, Jacks)
slainew: shows [Ks Qs] (three of a kind, Jacks - King kicker)

I could be wrong, but I dont think that's a good call at all. In fact I think thats a completely horrible call. The sng gurus can run it through pokerstove or what have you and check it out for me. I picked up Aces 2 hands later and eliminated one of the shortstacks. I then played another 5400 fpp and my AQ<25.

I won my next 2700 fpp 20 man and 5400 fpp 10 man for 3 out of 4 seats on the day. $625 profit isn't bad when 25k fpps only give you $285. I'll take it. I'm sure I'll have a post up this week before AC tehn report to follow.

I run so g00t! Back to Back to Back..

2007-06-10T01:09:00.000-07:00

Another victory in the home game tonight. Youve seen my ugly mug more times then you would want to see it.

Friday Night Home Game - The Dynamic Duo!!

2007-06-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

Weeeeeeeeee - another chop...4 am weeeeeeee

AC Trip Report - Another FT and some Cash Games

2007-06-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

My buddy Jay from Connecticut and I went to AC on Friday to play in a tournament or two, then hit the cash games. We decided to play the Hilton $40+$10. This tournament has become one of my favorite small tourneys in AC, compared to the Showboat tourney I usually play. They changed their structure around way too much and I hate it. For 40 bucks you only get 3k in chips but they give you 30 min levels. You don't have to get creative at all, as you'll see, and you're usually looking at 7-800 for first. The first level Jay was chipping up nicely. I was limping a lot, not picking up anything special but trying to hit a hand. There was this old guy in between Jay and I who was the absolute worst player alive. He was calling all ins with 23 and 62 and bottom pair and so on. The problem was he was hitting lol. He sent the first 6 people from our table to the rail. Thank god they kept the table intact though.

Santa(old guy) was making ridiculous pre-flop raises. His high was 50-100 blinds and he made it 2100 to go from utg+1. I was dieing. The first real hand I got into was when Santa made it 800 to go pf with the same blinds and got a cold call from another terrible player. I was in the bb and looked down to see JJ. With 1650 in the pot and most likely had the other 2 players ranges crushed, it was an easy decision to just shove for 2875 total. Santa folded and it was over to the cold caller who went into the tank for like 2 minutes. He finally called off 90% of his stack with A4. My JJ held and I was up to like 6300.

The rest of the time I kind of forget, which means it was pretty uneventful. I do remember a girl shoving for like 1100 with blinds 200/400 and I had Kings which was an easy scoop. Other than that, I just don't remember. Jay and I did make it to the Final Table with only 5 paying. There was only 62 people entered. We both only had in the range of 5-10 bb's so we had some work to do. 2 people went out pretty quick and we were down to 8 players. Jay and I were playing the shove any 2 game when it got around to us. I decided to let myself blind down to a point, which online you certainly cant do because the blinds are so low. In this live situation, it's such a significant portion of some peoples stacks to call off. So you can get away with shoving any 2 a lot easier. There was a 4 way limped pot with 1k-2k blinds and I was in the bb with 35hh. The flop came 4h 7h 9c. I just shoved for my last 4k and got everyone to fold. Jay doubled up before the break to 20k so he was in OK position.

With blinds passing me once by and not being able to shove because of all-ins in front of me, I was down to 4600 or so chips. I shoved utg+1 with K6 and got called blind in the bb which is standard for only 2600 more. He had 10-7 and I held to double up to about 9k. The next hand I had A4dd and shoved for 9600 or so. The same guy called and said he got me this time. He flipped KK and we're off to the races weeeee lol. I spiked an Ace on the river and left the guy crippled. I was disgusted it had to come on the river for him, but I didn't feel bad about winning. It's just a sick game we play. That put me a lil over 21k.

Now we come to 1 of the hands that I would like a comment or two on what you guys would have done. We are now on the money bubble. 6 people left and 5 pay. Jay was in the bb and the guy that I sucked out on had 8500 chips left with 2k-4k blinds with a $500 ante. Here's how the action went

UTG(8500)

MP(25K ish)

Me(22k)

UTG shoves 8500 all in

MP shoves all in for 25k ish

Me - looks down to see AK - What do you do?

This is one of those times where it might be OK to lay this hand down. For some background info UTG was steaming from all the suck outs hes had on him(I only did it once). He should be pushing almost any 2 here. MP is an older, tight player. He knew what he was doing though and played pretty well. If UTG's hand holds and I don't improve against MP then I bubble in 6th. If UTG holds and I beat MP then I'll be sitting at about 30k after I pay off UTG. If I win it altogether, I'm sitting at roughly 60k after blinds and antes and most likely will win the tournament. I decided to call. Hands looked like this when flipped up.

UTG - JT

MP - 99

Me- AK

Neither my hand or UTG were able to hit and MP even made a flush when he didn't need to, to win the hand. So I was out in 5th place for $156. I was surprised to see I was that live. I took a little way to think it through and when I tabled AK everyone gave me an astonished look asking why I took so long. I really didn't want to play for 5 hours and have nothing to show for it, but $780 looks way better than $156 so I made the call. What can I say, I play to win. I could have picked another spot to shove against 2 weak players to my left and chip up. What can you do though. 6 handed I'll take my chances. Jay eventually wound up getting 2nd for about $460. And yep you guessed it, the guy who won the 3 way pot to knock me out won it all.

We grabbed something to eat over at the Trop for some reason then headed over to Borgata to play some cash games and watch the Yanks vs Sox. God only knows why but they didn't have the game on. We got on the list and they opened a new table up. I was surprised to see that Max buy in was $300. Jay and I both bought in for $200 though. There was 3 guys at the table who got into it on the 2nd hand. There was no raise pre flop and 4 players saw a flop of

8c Ad Jc

1st Pos bets $15

2nd Pos folds

3rd Pos calls $15

4th Pos calls $15

Turn 8c Ad Jc [3c]

1st Pos bets $25

3rd Pos raises $50 to $75

4th Pos cold calls $75

1st Pos calls $50

River 8c Ad Jc 3c [7c]

1st Pos shoves all-in for $93

3rd Pos calls $93

4th Pos calls $93

1st Pos shows Ac 9d for the nut flush

3rd Pos shows Kc 5c for the 2nd nut flush

4th Pos shows Ah Qc for the 3rd nut flush

After seeing this hand I was licking my chops to get involved in some pots with these guys. 1st Pos was bad. 3rd Pos, the guy had on a diamond baller watch, I was 2 to his right so I couldn't tell if it was fake or not. I was guessing that he was there with his buddy to just goof around. Later he flopped a boat with 27 in the bb only to get rivered by a bigger boat against a guy who had k2. Live poker is so rigged. I posted this hand to give some background on the next hand I would like to have comments on. I got involved in a hand with the 4th Pos player. Now he hadn't raised any pot in about 40 hands. He was utg and opened to $15. Surprisingly everyone folded over to me and I looked down at QQ. I decided to just call to see what the flop would bring and how he would react. Everyone folded and we went to the flop.

Flop 10s 6s 5s

With $30 dollars in the pot the guy open shoves for $103 and all-in. He was one of those guys who thought poker was about ego and didn't like to get bullied around, but wanted to do the bullying. What range do you put him on here. I doubt he does this with a made flush. He does this with AA KK QQ JJ TT, your broad way cards with a high suited spade such as As k,q,j,. Or even certainly less than that given his previous hand. What do you do in this spot? I gave it a call and the board went

Turn 10s 6s 5s [Kd]

River 10s 6s 5s Kd [9h]

I thought I was toast on the turn, but flipped up my QQ first. He showed his hand to Jay and I knew I was good. He then flipped up Js Jh to the rest of the table, said nh, then left. Against this given player I think a call was OK. Against some other people I could have been in really bad shape. In retrospect, this hand is totally player dependent I believe. I ended the night up $225 in cash. After gas I made out with about $350. This post is long enough already, tomorrow I'll write about the May recap, Saturday's Home game, and some goals for June.

Home Game Winner(s) - Chop!

2007-06-03T01:21:00.000-07:00

Mr Matt Citro on the left and myself on the right. $125 each. 2 Huge posts from AC and May recap to follow. It's 4:30 am now though. And yes I can make fun of myself pretty easily hahaha.

I Run g00t

2007-05-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post about how well I just ran. It's just too bad Barry and I are going to a baseball game so I cant stay and play with these people. They must have an extra day off for memorial day. This was in a half hours time.

Stupid pokerhand forgot to re-register their domain so here it is in plain text.

Dealt to trixter23 [Ts As]
Chase Fedina: folds
kiliclimber: folds
The "M" -22-: folds
Ariesrat18: raises $0.25 to $0.50
trixter23: raises $1.35 to $1.85
La Makinaa: folds
Ariesrat18: calls $1.35
*** FLOP *** [4d 2s Td]
trixter23: bets $3.05
Ariesrat18: calls $3.05
*** TURN *** [4d 2s Td] [5h]
trixter23: checks
Ariesrat18: checks
*** RIVER *** [4d 2s Td 5h] [Tc]
trixter23: bets $5.75
Ariesrat18: calls $5.75
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trixter23: shows [Ts As] (three of a kind, Tens)
Ariesrat18: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $20.50 from pot
Seat 5: Ariesrat18 (button) mucked [Kh Kd] - Played it really bad.

Dealt to trixter23 [Ah Ad]
ryansista: checks
Adriano1969: calls $0.25
Cira196: calls $0.25
Rakkafant: folds
yakshemash: calls $0.15
trixter23: raises $1.55 to $1.80
ryansista: folds
Adriano1969: calls $1.55
Cira196: folds
yakshemash: folds
*** FLOP *** [Ac 9c Ts]
trixter23: bets $3.10
Adriano1969: calls $3.10
*** TURN *** [Ac 9c Ts] [8h]
trixter23: bets $6.60
Adriano1969: calls $6.15 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [Ac 9c Ts 8h] [4c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trixter23: shows [Ah Ad] (three of a kind, Aces)
Adriano1969: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $21.75 from pot
Seat 6: Adriano1969 mucked [As 4d]

Dealt to trixter23 [Th Ac]
trixter23: raises $0.55 to $0.80
Rafichon: folds
pete royal said, "hahah"
premierplayr: raises $0.55 to $1.35
pete royal has returned
trixter23: calls $0.55
*** FLOP *** [5h Js Qc]
premierplayr: checks
spdls1 has returned
trixter23: checks
*** TURN *** [5h Js Qc] [Jc]
premierplayr: checks
trixter23: checks
*** RIVER *** [5h Js Qc Jc] [Ks]
premierplayr: bets $1
trixter23: calls $1
*** SHOW DOWN ***
premierplayr: shows [Ah As] (two pair, Aces and Jacks) - Ummmmm??????????
trixter23: shows [Th Ac] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
trixter23 collected $4.60 from pot

Dealt to trixter23 [5h 4h]
Rafichon: folds
pete royal: raises $0.75 to $1
premierplayr: folds
spdls1: folds
spdls1 is sitting out
trixter23: raises $2.75 to $3.75
pete royal: calls $2.75
*** FLOP *** [6s 6h 7h]
trixter23: bets $4.75
pete royal: calls $4.75
*** TURN *** [6s 6h 7h] [7s]
trixter23: checks
pete royal: bets $16.55 and is all-int
rixter23: calls $16.55
*** RIVER *** [6s 6h 7h 7s] [8d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trixter23: shows [5h 4h] (a straight, Four to Eight)
pete royal: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $48.20 from pot
Seat 4: pete royal mucked [Qh Qc]

Amount Won - $49.30
PTBB/100 - 75.85

It's about time i ran g00t

Some Changes

2007-05-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

Im in the process of making some changes to the blog. I changed the template around a little bit. I think the colors needed a change. On the right hand side I added a section for our weekly home game. Each winner will be posted there. This might escalate into a points based system; where a certain portion of the weekly buyin gets put in escrow for a tournament of champions type deal. Or instead of that idea, having that money go towards a WSOP seat. We really haven't talked about it too much though yet so who knows.

I also added some more blogs in that section. You'll notice links for Paul Wasicka, bel0wab0ve, fruitypro, phil hellmuth, daniel negreanu and zeejustin. I'm hoping to get some playing done tomorrow before ball. In any event, happy holidays!

Home Game Winner - Biedrins!

2007-05-27T22:07:00.001-07:00

Barry comes out of no where after he turned on the "Boomswitch". Early on he flopped quads against my Aces and got paid off. Kind of went into the tank towards the middle of the tourney. Turned up the aggression brilliantly on the bubble, going all in hand after hand. Catches Shawn with his pants down twice in a row to knock him out and proceed to win the tournament when his Kings hold against Nick's oesd.

Disclaimer: Barry doesn't wear headbands to play poker. We were going to play ball but it rained so we played last minute. Hes still the man even if he did though!

Sunday Update

2007-05-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

We'll start with the saturday night home game. After taking 2nd to Mike 2 weeks ago, I finally broke out of my winless streak and took it down. I'm extremely mad at myself. We rigged all the chips, money, and winning cards up WSOP style; unfortunately Barry handed my phone over to me and I just closed it hence it didnt save. ALSDJFA;LKSDJFKL;. So I leave you with a picture of when the Redskins played the Giants this past year. Near where we park there is always a group of maniacs. Whenever these 2 teams play, they roast a pig and hoist the head up on the lamp post next to where they park.

As for FT. Well they officially shut me down 2 days ago. I got everything setup withdrew $75 to see if it would work. Surprisingly it went through. After another good day I tried to withdraw again, and after about 2 hours I got an email saying it was voided. I emailed them back and I got an Insta-email back from support. They saw my multiple accounts and shut it down. It was a reach and I thought I would give it a try.

The 3 days that I did play cash over at FTP were surprisingly different from the playres over at Stars. They play much more passive. As an example, they cc'ed with their big pairs alot and would just check/call with them. At stars, most of the time you're getting 3 bet. For some reason I found myself being more aggressive at FTP. My VPIP was around 25% where at the same level on stars I'm playing at about 21%. The only mtt I played, I actually made the FT of a $2 rebuy. I like tilts structure way better for some reason.

I went out in 8th in ridiculous fashion. Heres the hand..http://www.pokerhand.org/?1115155

I almost check folded here because I really didn't know where I was in the hand. Such drawaments and everything else out there. But it was 4am and I said fuck it. If i knew he was going to call me with QJ high, I would have shoved much quicker lol. So I put my money back on Stars yesterday, but didn't play at all. I did start playing today and am up a quick 2 buyins. God I love you stars!

Some hands to note..

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1115166 - Nice
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1115171 - One of the few times I get cute at 25NL. This is part player dependent also. I very rarely fire a 3rd barrel here on the river.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1115182 - Cooler for that guy.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1115183 - Thought he had a bigger hand i guess. Did he really think I would complete with 24?

The good part about this month is that my winrate is $23.86/hr. The bad part is I've only logged 10 hours. I dont know what my problem is, but I have to get motivated to play or get a job. Man I really hate that word. Hopefully the weather holds for the day since we're playing ball tonight. Especially since we aren't playing Tuesday. Thats all for now, I'm going to watch Wasicka wrap up the Heads up title.

Rakeback Pleeease

2007-05-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

I don't remember whether I signed up for FTP on my current computer or not. This is relevant to rakeback because you cant sign up for Rakeback on a computer where an account was already made. I used raketherake for the account. lucko and others have had fine success with them, so that's who I went with. By my calculations and the calculator on the site, I would be getting back about $600-$700 a month. At the stakes I'm playing at this month thats equivalent to 24-28 buyins which is huge.

My Chicago Bulls are still fighting for their playoff lives. They completely blew Game 3 when they had a 15 point lead and let detroit go on a like 30-5 run in the 3rd quarter. Any sports fan knows when you go down 3-0 in a 7 game series, your chances of winning are slim and completely slim to none. Coincidentally the Warriors are still in the playoffs. They are such a fun team to watch. Their fans make it 10x better. Many people didn't talk about them during the end of the season. Baron Davis just got healthy towards the end of the season, and they had pulled off a big trade with the Pacers. Down the stretch they went 16-1 to make the playoffs. They couldnt have played a better team than the Mavericks, because they dont match up well and they couldnt beat them the last 2 years.

We played ball today in the AM. I wasnt expecting it to get as hot as it did. We only had enough for 3 on 3 today as everyone bailed because of other reasons. We went hard though for a good 2 1/2 hours and Pburg's own Robles, Hurricane Dennis and myself beat Nick, biggity biggity Barry and Chris 4-3 in the best of 7 series. I came home all sweaty and dirty and I took a sponge bath in my kitchen sink. Yea my hot water heater decided to break the night before. So the guys were fixing it. I then took a nap and woke up and was burning, I look like a lobster from the sunburn I got while we were playing. For now I'll leave you with a picture of the greatest player in NBA history...Andris Biedrins!

Nutsy!

2007-05-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

Home Game winner for Saturday Night. (Click on image for full size)

First Impressions Go A Long Way

2007-05-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

Not just in poker but in life also. We're going to talk about the poker aspect today though. I believe it was Brian Townsend aka sbrugby aka aba20 who stated this in one of the CardRunners videos he did last week. In Brians example, he was on an alternate name playing against players whom hes never seen before. He set up his image as a extremely loose aggressive player. He didn't mind losing some money in the process, but was lucky enough to actually make some. Then, he would suddenly just switch to a TAG style. In theory he would be getting paid off a lot more since the table viewed him as such a maniac. Also, you can take our home game we play as an example. If someone played with us for the first time and they saw me move in with the Q8o they would think I had no idea what I was doing. That's a totally different story though.

This gets me to 2 hands I played a little while ago. Over ~40 hands the guy was running at 65/2. He was pretty bad along with the other players at 25NL. So I'm in the big blind and the 2 usual limpers are in the pot. I usually dont raise so much but I really just wanted to win the pot here. The crazy guy has been showing down ridiculous hands and I really didn't want to play guessing games; alas he called anyway.

Dealt to trixter23 [Ah Qh]
: calls $0.25
: calls $0.25
Resident Villain: calls $0.15
trixter23: raises $1.75 to $2
Villain: calls $1.75

** FLOP *** [6s 7h 4h]
Villain: checks
trixter23: bets $3
Villain: calls $3

Aside from my flush draw here this was one of the worst possible flops I could have seen. He could have hit any of these cards. When he just called my bet I thought he either had a 6, 4 or a 5. In the few hands I saw from him he would min raise with top pair or over pair if he had one.

*** TURN *** [6s 7h 4h] [7s]
Villain: bets $5
trixter23: raises $15 to $20 and is all-in
Villain: calls $15

This is kind of a weird line by villain. Who checks the flop with all the draws out there then bets when a 2nd 7 comes out? I could have been wrong here but I did think he had a 7, if he did fine I still had outs. It isnt the first time I've made a wrong read.

*** RIVER *** [6s 7h 4h 7s] [2h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [Ad 3h] (a pair of Sevens)
trixter23: shows [Ah Qh] (a flush, Ace high)
trixter23 collected $48.50 from pot

Well, he didnt have a 7, or much of anything for that matter. I wasn't out to set up an image like Brian did, as I really dont see many people paying attention to stuff like that at this level. What they do see though is that I put my money in on a paired board with just a flush draw. I could only be so lucky that guy will stay or someone else at the table picked up on this. Well luck hit me in the face for once and the guy did stay.

Dealt to trixter23 [Kc Qh]
Villain: calls $0.25
trixter23: raises $0.75 to $1
Villain: calls $0.75

Here we had a standard button raise against the same guy. This time I had position on him, so no need to make it so much pre flop.

*** FLOP *** [Ah Td 6d]
Villain: checks
trixter23: bets $1.85
Villain: calls $1.85

Standard continuation bet here, and not surprisingly he calls.

*** TURN *** [Ah Td 6d] [Js]
Villain: bets $14.45 and is all-in
trixter23: calls $14.45

*** RIVER *** [Ah Td 6d Js] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [Tc Jc] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
trixter23: shows [Kc Qh] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
trixter23 collected $33.25 from pot

Alright well I was obviously calling his turn shove. Why did he shove that much money into the pot though? Well he remembered a couple hands ago when I busted him after I put my money in with a flush draw. This time, he probably thought he was behind on the flop(hopefully) and when he hit 2 pair he saw the flush draw and thought to himself "Ok, he wants to catch his flush with Ax diamonds, then hes going to pay for it." Or thats how envision it lol. Till next time.

April Recap

2007-04-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

Well as you already know, April wasn't the best of my months. In fact it was the worst one. It wasn't a losing month, but it was damn close. I believe I really know what it's like to run bad. The stuff I went through was just horrific. It wasn't all bad luck though, I did have moments where I made plays that were just non sense.

So with losing, there in lies consequences. For most likely all of May I'm dropping all the way down to 25NL 6 max. I need to get my confidence back and remember where I came from. There was a time when I thought I could just open the table up and run it over. You can't do that at the micro stakes. You rarely play with the same players so you have to play a nice sound game every time you sit down.

I want to get down to AC atleast 1 time a week, or 4 times in total for the month. Playing live is 2143213x better than looking at a screen all day. It's going to be a real grind this month, but hopefully everything will turn out ok.

I'm Done

2007-04-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

I'm just so sick and tired of this happening. I can't catch a break to save my life. No matter how well I play, I'm consistently losing to 2-3 outers. The past 3 months have just been horrible for me. Now dont get me wrong, overall I'm still a winning player online. So I didn't go busto. It's virtually impossible for that to happen to me with the BR I have. Thank god I have that going for me. For now I'm pulling 90% of my funds off online and playing live down in AC on the weekends.

Just to show you a little of what I'm talking about here, here's 2 hands that show how the deck hates me with a passion.

Now usually, I would be playing this hand extremely aggressively post flop. But this time I figured; whats the point?..I'm not going to hit anyway.

BB ($143.10)
UTG ($124.05)
UTG+1 ($109.40)
MP1 ($69.95)
MP2 ($36)
MP3 ($83.90)
Hero ($100)
Button ($102.70)
SB ($53.10)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Td, 9d.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $1, 3 folds, Hero calls $1, 2 folds, BB checks.

Flop: ($3.50) 8d, 2d, Jh (3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 bets $1, Hero calls $1, BB folds.

Turn: ($5.50) 4s (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $1, Hero calls $1.

River: ($7.50) 2s (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: $7.50

UTG+1 has 5s 8c (two pair, eights and twos).
Hero has Td 9d (one pair, twos).
Outcome: UTG+1 wins

So, I was a 70-30 fav on the flop. How many outs you ask? That would be 21 outs twice ladies and gentleman. I could raise, but will I get any action from villain? Probably not. I would have raised myself into 10 high. Which is always a good situation.

This next one, sigh, what do I have to do? You see this is what keeps happening over and over and over again. My br doesnt like it..and I certainly dont like it.

SB ($44.70)
Hero ($50.75)
UTG ($28.45)
MP ($49.55)
CO ($74.75)
Button ($48.70)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ks, Kd.
UTG calls $0.50, MP calls $0.50, 2 folds, SB completes, BB raises to $2.5, UTG calls $2, MP raises to $5, SB folds, BB raises to $20, UTG folds, MP calls $15.

Flop: ($43) Ts, 2c, 8c (2 players)
BB bets $30.75 (All-In), MP calls $29.55 (All-In).

Turn: ($103.30) 3d (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($103.30) Ad (2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $103.30

Hero has Ks Kd (one pair, kings).
MP has 3h 3c (three of a kind, threes).
Outcome: MP wins $102.10. Hero wins $1.20.

And it keeps coming 1 right after another. More to come later.

Nice Session to Start the Week

2007-04-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

I just finished up a solid 1 hour of play to kick start what I'm hoping to be is a great week. I believe I played 1 hand really bad. Small pocket pairs when my pair is an over to the board is definitely a leak of mine that I have to work on. If you remember a week or two back, I posted the guide about the AHK scripts. I think the betpot one was actually hindering my game quite a bit. I wasn't really thinking about the hand at all, instead just clicking the button to raise real quick. This was bad also for the reason that I didn't change the logs at all. So my raises weren't even 2.5x my opponent's raises. This just prices them into the hand to hit their draws. Here's a couple of hands from today so far.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1027253 - For this level, it was just bad. Maybe if i throw out a 3rd barrel on the river at way higher stakes, I MIGHT get someone to fold. Here, it's not happening though. When he calls the raise on the flop, I think I should have been done with the hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1027265 - Pretty standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1027267 - Just the kind of flop I needed for this hand. And most likely one of the only ways I do get paid off here. I almost thought I was completely drawing dead here to Aces. I mean it all added up. The small raise pre flop. To the check of the flop, flat calling the turn, then huge bet on the end. Luckily, I had a note on this person that helped me out tremendously to call here. I probably fold if I didn't have it.

I'm gonna grab some lunch and play some more..

We went up to play ball last night since it was gorgeous outside. There were a ton of people up there and we could only get half court going. It didn't get dark for about an hour and a half so we played till then. Earlier in the day I went to the community center to get tokens for the lights. It's like 50 cents for a half hour of the lights staying on. So we waited till the guys at the other end left and tried the lights. Obviously, they werent going on. Coooooooooler. Everyone just left and we're going back up tonight. I'll post later on tonight after I get back.

I Just Can't Win

2007-04-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

No matter what stakes, what game, what day.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1023949

3 interesting hands with Aces

2007-04-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

I was playing a little bit before and 3 types of hands all involving Aces came up. I believe a big leak in some players' games is not being able to fold AA when they know they're beat. The problem with me is that I usually get in ahead with them and get sucked out on. Lets get to the 3 hands and some analysis.

To set the situation, I had just sat down at this table. I recognized 1 person which is kind of irregular for this time of the day. 1 orbit had passed before this hand had come up. So my image was clean to everyone, unless they had prior hands with me. I don't recognize the player who was in the hand with me either. Had no PT stats on him, so I was going to have to go by feel and reads alone.

SB ($123.20)
Hero ($115.55)

Preflop: Hero is CO with As, Ad.
3 folds, CO raises to $4, 1 fold, SB calls $3.50, 1 fold.

We get AA in the cutoff and make my standard raise to $4. The small blind cold calls and we go to the flop.

Flop: ($9) Kc, Qh, 5s (2 players)
SB checks, CO bets $6, SB raises to $12, CO raises to $30, SB calls $18.

Ok so we get a decent flop for our hand. I make a standard continuation bet of $6 into the $9 pot. Then I'm met with an insta-mini raise. This was very very quick. I thought he had either a weak King and wanted to see where he was at, maybe even a smaller pair. I couldn't rule out a Queen or even a set here. We don't know this player at all. Folding here really isn't an option. Calling is acceptable, but I don't want to play the hand from a passive position. I currently have position on him and want to keep it that way. I want to be the one dictating the action. I believe the right play here was to raise. When I look at this hand, my raise may have been kind of small. A 2.5x 4 bet seems pretty strong to good players. Then again we don't know this guy.

Turn: ($69) Kh (2 players)
SB bets $15, Hero calls $15.

Probably one of the worst cards in the deck. At this point I wasn't really beating too much. I had a Queen, 5, any under pair, or a complete bluff beat. If he had the King, he caught up to me. After he called my 4 bet on the flop I was pretty sure I was done with the hand if a sizeable bet came on the turn. Here he comes out with a weak lead of $15. He saw me raise the flop, so he knows I have a hand. Either he has a complete monster and he wants me to raise again, he's scared of the king, or he doesn't think his hand is good anymore and wants to get to a showdown. When a player usually makes this bet I raise again if I have a solid read on the person. Otherwise I'll just call as I did here.

River: ($99) 3s (2 players)
SB bets $40, Hero folds.

Wow, well I was kind of surprised to see this bet on the river. I just don't think a player who doesnt have a hand bluffs this at all. Lets go back to what we beat, Queen, 5, under pair, or a bluff. The way he played it makes me think that I'm looking at KQ, KJ, AK, set of 5s, set of Qs. From his point of view, I raised pre, 4 bet the flop, flat called the turn. What hand is he putting me on? I made the decision to lay it down, because I thought there was too many hands working against me here. Let's see what he had.

Final Pot: $139

SB shows [Jc Tc] (a pair of Kings)

I was extremely surprised by this. I'm not sure how he 3 barrels me after how I had played the hand. The whole reason I put the 4 bet out on the flop was to get rid of hands like these. Other than an ace, this was the best card for him on the turn. If a 9 comes I'm probably folding. Ace hits and I'm getting my stack in. I don't think villain played the hand well at all, he got extremely lucky with the King on the turn so he could rep that atleast. In the long run, this is a losing play in my opinion.

The 2nd hand here happened when I converted over to 50NL 6 max. I play pretty aggressively at 6 max which has its ups and downs. Again I was only at the table a couple of hands and had no real read on any of these guys. The guy to my right(button) was extremely loose/passive. Meaning he would love to see flops, but would play the very weak and fold almost every time.

CO ($39.05)
Button ($52.65)
Hero ($60.45)
BB ($30)
UTG ($89.25)
MP ($46.25)

Preflop: Hero is SB with As, Qc.
1 fold, MP raises to $2, 1 fold, Button calls $2, SB raises to $7.5, 1 fold, MP raises to $13, Button folds, Hero calls $5.50.

Ok, here is a squeeze play I was going to make. As I said previously, the button was weak, so I thought if I could get past the original raiser I would be fine. If not, no problem. We would play the hand accordingly from there. When it gets back to MP we get another re raise to $13. These little mini raises are so bad. It was only $5 more so i had to make the call. It's safe to say here we're putting him on something big. AA KK QQ and AK are the hands you typically see here. I'm folding to a flop bet about 80% of the time.

Flop: ($28.50) Ks, 7s, 6s (2 players)
SB bets $22, MP raises to $33.25, Hero calls $11.25.

Wow ok, now we have a decision to make. Putting him on those hands would he fold to a large bet here? AA he has no redraw and staring 3 spades and a King in the face. KK has to be in my range here. If he has KK though, hes just not folding. QQ, I could get him to fold. AK its player based. He would have TPTK, but no redraw either. The problem is if I fire out a bet here, I'm committed to the hand. I thought about it for a couple secs then I fired 22 into the 28.50 pot. Villain jams and I call.

Turn: ($95) Tc (2 players)

River: ($95) 5c (2 players)

Final Pot: $95

Hero has As Qc (high card, ace).
MP has Ah Ad (one pair, aces).
Outcome: MP wins $95.

Well he had Aces obv. I think i was a 3-2 dog here on the flop. The turn gave me 4 extra outs. But for stars I had too many outs. This may be a reason why I have been losing lately at this level. They just dont fold lol. Another part of this hand that was amusing was his chat afterwards.

said, "you really tricked me there i thought you had a set of kings"

said, "lol"

said, "you are such a trixter"

trixter23 said, "i thought i could get u to lay down a big hand with no redraw"

trixter23 said, "i had outs, oh well"

said, ""lay down a big hand" i don't resect any of you that much"

said, "respect"

trixter23 said, "u got called by a 4 bet ur staring at 3 spades on a flop and put me on KK and a king flops"

trixter23 said, "respect or not, you went with it anyway"

trixter23 said, "i dont think it was a good call"

trixter23 said, "but u won gl"

said, "no very good call it doesn't matter if i think you have KK"

said, "you rocks think AK is the nuts"(As I was playing 28/23)

I just thought this guys reasoning was a little bit funny on that hand. To the last hand. This one was pretty straight forward.

CO ($49.25)
Button ($38.40)
Hero ($52.05)
BB ($68.80)
UTG ($79.75)
MP ($92.15)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Ad, Ac.
UTG calls $0.50, 2 folds, Button calls $0.50, SB raises to $2.5, BB calls $2, UTG calls $2, Button calls $2.

AA in the sb with limpers, raise it upppppppppp. Not particularly happy with having to play this hand out of position against 3 callers.

Flop: ($10) Ah, 8s, Th (4 players)
SB bets $5.5, BB raises to $15, UTG folds, Button folds, SB raises to $49.55, BB calls $34.55.

That's a pretty good flop for Aces. No reason to slowplay here. It's a drawy board and we want to get in and out as quick as possible. We meet a nice raise out of the big blind here. KQh J9h 888 and TTT come to mind here. But I kind of forgot how bad people play down low.

Turn: ($109.10) 5s (2 players)

River: ($109.10) 9h (2 players)

Final Pot: $109.10

Hero has Ad Ac (three of a kind, aces).
BB has As Kh (one pair, aces).
Outcome: Hero wins $109.10.

Ship the Money!

Comments on how you would played these hands would be cool.

Checking In

2007-04-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Nothing really interesting has happened of late. My downswing has finally passed. I've just been grinding out hands for the last week. Just wanted to post to say I didn't go anywhere. I think I want to write an article on a subject. Only I don't know what I want to talk about yet.

We're halfway through the month, and my goal of 30k hands is still realistic. Although I have only played 11 days this month(1 day being live). I'm at 12k right now. These are all mostly Full Ring hands to. I imagine I would be at the halfway mark if I played a few more 6 max hands.

Everyone will be over tonight for some home game action. Hopefully I can break my cold streak I'm having. I haven't made the money in a little over a month which is sad. Anyway if any cool hands come up today I'll post

April Decides to Shed Some Light

2007-04-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

I'm just going to give a brief summary of the trip report from down in AC on friday. I hope everyone is having a good Easter. I will post a much more detailed version tomorrow, but for now just specifics. I even chopped when i got heads up with a guy in the 2pm tournament at Hilton. First was a little over 1k. Second was a little over 600. So we each took $840. The jesey guys 101.5 tournament was a complete disaster. What a complete waste of time it was. Then again, if I didn't go down for that, I wouldn't have been down there for the 2pm tourney either.

Tonight I'll be at the 76ers game, first row next to the bench. I'll take some pics on my cell phone and post them Monday.

Again have a safe and happy Easter!

UGGGGGGGGGGGH

2007-04-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

April really is going to be the death of me. Cash games aren't going well at all. I dropped down limits and was averaging 24 PTBB/100 over a very small sample size, but the limits are a little bit too low. Im still playing well and getting it in constantly ahead by long shot and i get sucked out on. Tonight I decided to forget about cash games for a night and play a MTT. I didn't want anything to strenous, so I played in one of my fav's..the $3 rebuy. While playing, I was watching high stakes cash games and lucko playing in the $1k wsop qualifier on ft.

Everything was going extremely well. I kind of hit a snag. I wasn't chipping up and had 36k with 1500/3k blinds. Then some things started going my way. Someone had open limped and sb completed and we saw a hand. No one bet at all and i fired 7500 into the 10k pot. Everyone folded and I showed the bluff. The one guy said I now had a target on my back. I said good. I'm not showing it for my health.

3 hands later I got hit in the face with the deck at the right time. The same guy who said I had a target on my back popped to 9k. I held AA and shoved for 36k. The button 4 bets all in. It's another classic race situation for me when he flips AK soooooooooooted. He flops 4 to the flush and somehow I hold. Excellent, now we're at 84k. The very next hand I'm utg+1, when i miraculously pick up AA yet again. Make the standard raise to 9k and the guy who just shoved with AK shoves his remaining 32k in the pot and flips QJ. I make the insta-call and AK7 flops. Thankfully he didnt hit the 4 outer and I'm not sitting on 122k.

My table layout was great and I was really able to abuse the people to my left with ease. I chipped up to 175k w/out showing down a hand. Blinds are now 4k/8k and a short stack makes it 40k to go with 24k left behind. I shove in with KK and he flips A7. He obviously hits his Ace and I'm down to 88k. 2 hands later, there was an EP raise and I shoved with AK. I thought i was above his range from his image. Surprisingly a player behind me called as well. So a 3 way all in saw the EP first raiser have QQ, me with AK, and the caller had JJ. 2 all ins in front and he somehow calls with jj? I hit my ace and am now at 265k.

2 Winning all ins later with QQ beating A6 and winning a 3 way pot with KQ, I was 4th in chips with 696k. Blinds were now 10k/20k and I had QQ on the button. I had just raised the last hand in the sb to take the pot. My image was stil fairly tight, playing 1-2 hands in position each orbit. So I raised it up to 60k and bb jams for 400k. After some thought of his range, I decided to call and he flipped Tens. Perfect!...

Flop 4 9 K

Turn 5

As I'm jumping for joy about to win the 850k+ pot to become the chip leader with 40 left...

River 10 (OBVIOUSLY)

Now I'm left with 278k and 13 bb's with an M of 6. I'm up to 316k when i get dealt AA yet again. Short stack jams for 120k total and I make the call. He flips up the A6 and we're Off to the races weeeee.

Flop A Q J

Turn K

As I'm yelling NO NO NO NO in the chat box

River Ten

My luck really couldn't get any worse. 5 hands later I get Kings and stack the guy who chopped with me earlier and I'm now at 400k. 2 steals later I'm at 500k. 10 hands later I find myself with QQ utg(I know I'm a card rack this tourney, but wahts the use if im getting sucked out on). Blinds 15k/30k and we raise it up to 90. I get a confusing cold call from the sb. Flop comes A 6 6 and he leads for 120k. This is a really tough spot. Villain has me covered by about 50k. I'm pretty sure AJ+ 88+ he 3 bets me pre flop. What is he putting me on? What are you leading into me for when i showed strength raising utg? I thought maybe he had like TT or JJ maybe even KK and lead to see where he stood. I ruled a 6 out. Could it be possible he cc's with AK AQ? If i shove is he going to fold A2-AJ? I had 25% of my stack in the middle. If I folded, I would be left in push/fold mode. I decided it was best to shove.

Well that didn't work, he insta-called me with ....AT. Board bricks and I'm out in 30th place of 2789 people. Not playing many MTT's in the last 2 months or so, It felt good that I could just go in and play well. A few breaks go my way and I'm looking at an easy final table with a chance at 6k. But nope, April owns me.

Friday I'm heading down to Atlantic City to participate in a tournament sponsored by 101.5's the jersey guys at the hilton. It's invitation only and I believe they are giving out some cool stuff. Hopefully lots of people stay afterwards to play cash. All the participants called into the show to get in. I'll have a trip report on Saturday. Then Sat night we have home game action. Sunday I have floor seats for the 76ers game. And by floor I mean first row FLOOR seats. Should be fun. Maybe I can make some money for once poker gods?

See ya around.

Day of the Donkey.

2007-04-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

When I look back at the hands I lost significant money on today, I'm not sure what to do. Laugh, at how bad people are. Be discouraged since I totally wasted my time. Be angry that I lost a buyin today. Be ecstatic that I SOMEHOW only lost a buyin. Or just keep my head up, knowing that I'm making good plays and calls. I'm really not too sure how I could have won more/lost less in these pots im about to post. Lets take a look. The timeline might be a little messed up here, I'm just postin them as I see em.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
(Format: HTML)

BB ($13.30)
UTG ($21.45)
MP ($62.70)
CO ($62.75)
Hero ($82.35)
SB ($27.30)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Tc, Td.
1 fold, MP calls $0.50, 1 fold, Button raises to $2.5, 1 fold, BB calls $2, MP folds.

Flop: ($5.75) 9c, 4s, 7c (2 players)
BB checks, Button bets $5.5, BB raises to $10.8, Hero calls $5.30.

Turn: ($27.35) 2d (2 players)

River: ($27.35) 4h (2 players)

Final Pot: $27.35

Results
BB has 4d 5c (three of a kind, fours).
Hero has Tc Td (two pair, tens and fours).
Outcome: BB wins $27.35.

Weeee, calling raises oop with 45o and getting it in with bottom pair to hit another 4 on the river.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
(Format: HTML)

BB ($35.45)
UTG ($9.75)
MP ($22.30)
CO ($57.60)
Hero ($49.25)
SB ($37.15)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ac, Td.
1 fold, MP calls $0.50, 1 fold, Button raises to $2.5, 2 folds, MP calls $2.

Flop: ($5.75) 3c, Tc, 3s (2 players)
MP bets $2.5, Button raises to $8, MP calls $5.50.

Turn: ($21.75) Js (2 players)
MP bets $11.8 (All-In), Hero calls $11.80.

River: ($45.35) 4c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $45.35

Results
MP has Th Jc (two pair, jacks and tens).
Hero has Ac Td (two pair, tens and threes).
Outcome: MP wins $45.35.

Why do I even raise anymore?

This is where it get's good. Villain was running 79/30 and paying people off left and right. The next hand came up and I knew the 3 better had a monster with his little raise. I never do this, but i was literally going out of my way to play pots with this guy. Well we flop our monster.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
(Format: HTML)

CO ($44.90)
Button ($20.10)
SB ($52.05)
Hero ($43.50)
UTG ($93.20)
MP ($46.30)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6d, 5s.
UTG raises to $1, MP raises to $2.5, 3 folds, Hero calls $2, UTG calls $1.50.

Flop: ($7.75) 5h, Qs, 5c (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $3, MP raises to $6, Hero calls $6, UTG calls $3.

Turn: ($25.75) Kd (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $1, MP raises to $13, BB raises to $35, UTG calls $34, MP raises to $37.8, UTG calls $2.80.

River: ($136.35) Kh (3 players)

Final Pot: $136.35

Results
Hero has 6d 5s (full house, fives full of kings).
UTG has Ks 8d (full house, kings full of fives).
MP has Ah Ad (two pair, aces and kings).
Outcome: UTG wins $136.35.

Sigh. 90% to win on the flop, and he catches 2 running kings. This was actually the first one that set the day's events into motion.

These next 2 hands were from the same guy. I'm just at a loss for words at his plays here. Of course the deck bails him out.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
(Format: HTML)

Button ($129.70)
SB ($24.20)
Hero ($69.40)
UTG ($41.45)
MP ($35.40)
CO ($79.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ac, Kd.
3 folds, Button raises to $2.5, SB calls $2.25, BB raises to $10.5, Button folds, SB raises to $24.45, Hero calls $13.70.

Flop: ($51.15) 4c, Th, Jd (2 players)

Turn: ($51.15) 3d (2 players)

River: ($51.15) 8h (2 players)

Final Pot: $51.15

Results
SB has Qd 3h (one pair, threes).
Hero has Ac Kd (high card, ace).
Outcome: SB wins $51.15.

Whenever someone flat calls in the blinds like this from a position raiser, they never have much of a hand. Their range is usually 2 overs or suited connectors. Did this guy really think I was going to fold to his shove? Is there a training site for this kind of stuff that i can sign up to?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

MP ($118.45)
CO ($46.20)
Hero ($49.25)
SB ($46.90)
BB ($39.75)
UTG ($79.15)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ad, Kd.
1 fold, MP raises to $2, CO raises to $3.5, Hero calls $3.50, 2 folds, MP calls $1.50.

Flop: ($11.25) 9d, Jd, 7s (3 players)
MP checks, CO bets $5, Button raises to $15.5, MP folds, CO calls $10.50.

Turn: ($42.25) 3c (2 players)
CO bets $27.2 (All-In), Hero calls $27.20.

River: ($96.65) 8c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $96.65

Results
CO has 8d Ah (one pair, eights).
Hero has Ad Kd (high card, ace).
Outcome: CO wins $96.65.

I didnt like his little min raise pre flop at all. So I decided to cold call in position. The flop was good to me, and I wasn't going to fold to this donkey. His turn shove made me think he had some type of straight draw. I just didn't know how BAD his draw was. This is the hell I live in with Small Stakes NL. I'm sure there are people like this at .50/1 and 1/2 so it would just cost me more when this type of garbage happened. Today totally ruined everything stats wise. Maybe tomorrow things will change.

Decent Start to April

2007-04-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

I only got in 3 hours of play today since its Sunday. Played a total of 1126 hands and made $99.40. Ran at 8.83 PTBB/100. I should have ran much better, but as soon as I won 2 big hands I lost it right back to 1 beat and 1 really bad play.

I dont feel like posting the hands so I'll just give a brief synopsis. The first one I get a guy all in on the river when I had the nuts and he called with 2 pair so I took his stack. On a diff table I got min 3 bet and called to see a flop. I had Jacks and spiked one on the flop, got it all in and he turned his queen for a better set.

Another hand I raised from the cutoff to $2.50 after a limper and got called by both blinds and the limper. I held AKs, flop came 5 9 A. BB leads for 1/3rd the pot and I raised and we got it all in. After my raise I really had no choice. He weak led the flop with a set and it held up. Not many people play that way at 50NL, only very few. I had to learn the hard way with him.

Overall I feel good about today. If I played my full 8 hours and maintained my $32.77/hr win rate, I end at $260 or so for the day. 5 buyins at any level is good for me. Till tomorrow!

GFY March

2007-03-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

To say March was a bad month, is an understatement. Actually I didn't lose money, then again, I didn't make much either. I've decided to go back to Full Ring for the time being. 6 max is profitable, but I don't have the bankroll to play the style that I want to. My hourly win rate and the amount of hours I played was complete garbage. I only played the equivalent of 2 weeks out of the month, which is simply not acceptable.

I haven't had a losing month since I started playing full time in November, but I've seen my results drop each month that passes. I'm going to contribute this to a couple of different reasons. Before I state those, I want to go back to my first month of cash games. I started half way through the month of November and only got in 5k hands. In those 5k hands though, I absolutely crushed it. I had a little over 9 PTBB/100. My win rate was $74.29 an hour. What I noticed though was that my PF Raise and VPIP were a little low. They were low for 6 max standards. For full ring they're almost spot on.

As I continue to look through my database, I'm losing money trying to outplay people. At the level I play at, it just doesn't happen. People don't fold and that's something that I have to learn. I'm trying to play poker when I should be just letting my cards play themselves. Here is what I want to try to accomplish this month.

1) Play 30k hands. This shouldn't be too difficult. Only 1k hands a day.

2) Every time I get on a table, get a read on some of the players before I commit a greater portion of my stack to a particular hand. Unless I have a prior read on him.

3) Just play solid poker. I was playing yesterday and got a guy to commit his entire stack($175) with AT pre flop. He said I played it like a small pocket pair so he wanted to race. Of course I had AK and he flopped 2 tens. I can only get my money in as a 3-1 fav so many times, eventually I'll win one.

You'll notice these goals aren't really results oriented at this point. I think if I focus on those 3 things, the money will come. So if you're ever running bad, even playing well and just not having your hands hold, go back to when you were running solid and see what you were doing. I hope everyone had a good March, and an even better April!

AHK Instructions

2007-03-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Here are instructions on how to use BetPot and the StarsAuto Reloader. It works the same way for Full tilt, you just have to download different things. I'll post for both.

*BetPot*

1) Download AHK from http://www.autohotkey.com and install it.

2) Download http://www.overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/BetPot?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=BetPot-v0.2g.zip (For PokerStars, click Save and not run)

3) I recommend making a folder in My Documents called BetPot.

4) Go to the folder you just made, and there should be a file named BetPot-v0.2g. Right Click and click "Extract Files Here".

5) Now you'll have a folder called BetPot, open it.

6) You should see a piece of paper with the letter h on it, which is the script. Double click it and and you'll notice a green piece of paper with an H on it go to your tray in the bottom right. That means its activated.

If you open the BetPot.AHK file in notepad, you can change the betting amounts.

~MButton::
Pot(getid(),"1 1 1 1", "smallblind", "ssnl", 0)
return

^MButton::
Pot(getid(),"1", "smallblind", 0, 0)
return

^!MButton::
Pot(getid(),"999", 1, 0, 0)
return

~RButton::
Pot(getid(),"0.75 0.75 0.66 0.66", "smallblind", "ssnl", 0)
return

~MButton is the middlewheel
1 1 1 1 is preflop, flop, turn, river

~RButton:: is the right mouse button
0.75 0.75 0.66 0.66 is preflop, flop, turn, river

IF IT DOESNT WORK: You have to change your windows theme from XP to standard, and your colour settings from 16bit too 32 bit. Also don't take the script out of where you extracted it to, sometimes it wont work. To close out the script, right click on the task tray and hit exit.

*Auto Reloader*

1) ^ From Above, if you did this already you dont need to do it again.

2) Download

http://overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/StarsAutoReloader (Stars)

http://overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/FullTiltAutoReloader (FT)

3) I recommend making a folder in My Documents called Auto Reloader.

4) ^ Same as above.

5) ^ Same as above.

6) ^ Same as above.

The auto reloader should work off the bat *IF* you're in the EST(Eastern Time Zone), if not you have to right click the scipt and open in notepad.

THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR TIME & STARS SERVER TIME timezone_difference_EST := "-5"

Below is the random key that you can hit to make you reload w/out waiting for the next hand where you had folded. You can change this at any time. So when you fold if you're at 97 of 100, hit f1 and ur stack goes to 100. Sometimes it does this anyway even if you hit the button to reload.

F1:: ; <-------- Hotkey for manual reload, point mouse, press key.id := getid()

Any questions, concerns let me know

AHK

2007-03-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

AHK(Auto Hot Key) is used in a variety of ways. With it, you could automate *almost* anything by sending key strokes and mouse clicks. In non computer jargen language, you basically hit a button and it does multiple things at once. How does this pertain to poker you ask? Let me amuse you.

When you first sit down at a table you sit out waiting for the big blind(hopefully, do it if you dont). You get through that first round of blinds w/out playing a pot. So say we're playing 1-2, we bought in for the max of $200. Our stack is now at $197. I can open a script that says, "If i drop under 100 bb's reload my chips to the max". Instead of going up to the chip tray; clicking add more chips, then selecting how much you want, etc etc..It automatically puts you back up to the max(or whatever you choose). It's made my life 10x easier and I'm able to pay closer attention to the players instead of constantly keeping my stack at max.

The other little trinket I've found is the BetPot Script. It's exactly what the name says. I right click on the mouse and i automatically puts the pot amount in the box for me to bet. There are other presets for the middle mouse for the flop turn and river. If i hit the middle mouse, It goes 75% on the flop 66% turn, 66% river, or whatever you choose for the presets to be. This has been pretty helpful also.

If anyone wants to know where/how to get these just leave a comment and ill get back to ya. I had prior experience with AHK so i got this up and running in a couple of seconds.

How to use PokerTracker

2007-03-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have PT, this is a great "how to" guide on finding your leaks. The only part that might be a little confusing is heads up play. I think its a little skewed. This was first posted on 2+2 by Pokey. So all credit goes to him.

Not a week goes by that someone doesn't ask if they are playing the game right. In that post, they include a dozen numbers from Poker Tracker and hope that the old-timers on SSNL can fix all their holes. While it's true that Poker Tracker can help find problems, this is not the way to approach it.

I'm going to try to give you a rough guide for the things you can do to check on your game.
These are all just my opinion; they're all subject to interpretation, and other people may disagree with me strongly. The best way to play is usually player-specific, but these strike me as some things you can check on that are frequent flaws in the small-stakes player's game.

1. Do you have sufficient preflop aggression? To answer this question, open up your ring game statistics and go to the "position stats" page. For each position other than the small blind, divide the "PF Raise %" by the "Vol. Put $ In Pot." If you get a number smaller than 0.5, you're not aggressive enough out of that position. See, aggression is a relative term; it should be a function of your level of looseness. You can be a consistently winning player at SSNL with a VPIP of 12%, and you can be a consistently winning player at SSNL with a VPIP of 30%, but only if you are sufficiently aggressive. My general guideline is that you should raise at least half the hands you play, from every position on the table.

2. Are you positionally aware? Positional awareness means that you understand Ed Miller's comment when he said:
Quote:
"Total all the dollars you've ever bet playing poker. The large majority of those dollars should have been bet from late position. Only a small percentage of your total handle should have been bet from up front."

To test this, go to the Position Stats and look down the list of VPIP from Button to UTG. You should see that VPIP steadily dropping the farther you get from the button. I'd love to see my button VPIP at double my UTG VPIP, but if my Button VPIP is at least 50% larger than my UTG VPIP, I'm happy with the situation.

3. How's my stealing? To check on your performance when trying a blind steal, go to the General Info. tab. Where it says "Att. To Steal Blinds" I'd like to see that number at LEAST 20%. (Personally, I like mine to be over 30%, but I'm very aggressive in these situations. If you're trying to steal the blinds less than 20% of the time, you're leaving lots of money on the table.) Now click on "Filters..." and under "Chance to Steal Blinds" click "Chance to Steal & Raised." Select OK and look at the numbers. This shows every time you've tried to steal the blinds, and how the attempt turned out for you. Under "Totals" see the "BB/Hand" statistic. That shows your per-hand winrate on blind steals. If you multiply this number by 100, it should be at least double your "PTBB/100" average winrate. If it's much less than that and you have a decent sample size, you have a hole in your game when it comes to blind stealing. This should be an exceedingly profitable thing to do when you try it; if it's not, you need to work on your strategy.

4. Defending the blinds. Click on "Turn Filter Off," and then click on "Filters..." again. Under "Blind Status" click on "Either Blind." Now under "Vol. Put $ In Pot" click on "Put Money In." This shows you if you're bleeding money out of the blinds. A "BB/Hand" of about -0.375 would indicate that you were no better off putting money into the pot than if you had folded. If your "BB/Hand" is larger than that, then you typically win back some of your blind money when you put money into the pot from the blinds. That's all you can really hope for. If you click on "Filters..." again and go under "Steal Attempted Against Your Blind" and click on "Steal Attempted." After you click "OK" you'll now see how you did when you chose to defend against a blind steal. Again, the magic number is for your "BB/Hand" to be bigger than -0.375; that means you're making back some of your blinds when you try to defend against a steal. If either of these numbers is lower than -0.375, you'd lose less money by always folding rather than doing what you're doing.

5. Heads-up play. Click on “Turn Filter Off,” then click on “Filters…” again. Under “Hands With Between…Players Seeing The Flop” change the range from “0 to 10 players” to “2 to 2 players.” Hit “OK” and see what comes up. This shows you how you’ve done when you were heads-up preflop, but a flop was dealt. See how you’ve done in these situations. If things look OK, go back to “Filters…” and under “Pre-flop Raise” select “No Raise.” This will show you how you’ve done when you didn’t raise preflop, but the hand was heads-up on the flop (this includes pure limping and when someone ELSE raised preflop, but not when you were the preflop raiser). Is this number positive? If not, it could be an indicator that you have trouble when you are not the aggressor preflop, especially without padding in the pot.

6. Multiway pots. Clear the filter and go back under filters. Change “Hands With Between…Players Seeing The Flop” to “3 to 10 players.” This shows you how you do in multiway pots. If things look good, go back and select “No Raise” under “Pre-flop Raise.” Is it still positive? If so, you’re selecting good times to play/limp multiway pots, and you’re playing them well postflop.

7. Pocket pairs. Under “Filters…” change the “Type of Hole Cards” to “Pairs.” This will show you how you generally play and perform with pocket pairs. Your Total VPIP with these should be EXTREMELY high; unless you play at highly unusual tables, I’d be surprised to see this number below 85%. Pocket pairs make extremely powerful hands that are extremely well-hidden; if you’re not playing them almost all the time, you’re leaving money on the table. Also, your Total PFR% with these hands should be rather high -- at least 1/3 of your VPIP, if not 1/2. Some people have this number higher still, and I don’t have a problem with that, especially at short-handed tables. If you have enough hands, I’d expect every one of these lines to be positive, and reasonably significantly so. If you have any glaringly negative numbers, especially AA-88, it may indicate bad play. Look over individual hands where you lose lots of money and see if you played too timidly early in the hand, or if you went too far unimproved in the face of resistance. Also, look at the hands where you won to see if you played too timidly, or if you routinely forced weaker hands out when you should have been milking them for profits.

8. Suited connectors. Under “Filters…” change “Type of Hole Cards” to “Suited Connectors.” I’m much less likely to play suited connectors than pocket pairs, but some people play them religiously. As a result, I don’t really have a good suggestion as to how high your VPIP or PFR should be. However, your BB/hand should be positive; if it’s not, you’re probably not playing your suited connectors well. Remember: these hands play best in a multiway, unraised pot, or as a steal move. In the “Filters…” change “Vol. Put $ In Pot” to “Cold-Called.” When you hit OK, you should have almost no entries to view. Of the times you cold-called, you should be able to come up with a specific explanation for why you did so in each and every one of them. Review the hand histories; if you can’t come up with a really good reason why you thought it better to cold-call, rather than raise or fold, you need to rethink your suited connector strategy. Good explanations: the raise was very small, villain is passive post-flop, I had position on villain, villain and I are both extremely deep-stacked, villain is incredibly aggressive preflop, my suited connectors are particularly strong, there are several cold-callers in front of me, etc. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever cold-call with suited connectors; rather, I’m saying you shouldn’t AUTOMATICALLY do so. Your default play here should be to fold weak suited connectors and reraise strong ones.

9. Unsuited connectors. Clear the filter and then go back into it. Change “Type of Hole Cards” to “Off-Suited Connectors.” Your VPIP for these hands should be noticeably smaller than your VPIP for suited connectors. Check your winrate and make sure it’s positive. Filter for cold-calling and see if you had good reasons for doing so, keeping in mind that the reasons need to be even stronger than for suited connectors.

10. Postflop aggression. Clear the filter. Select the “More Detail…” button above the “Filters…” button. Scroll down. There is a section marked “First Action on Flop After A Pre-flop Raise.” This shows your likelihood of continuation betting. If you add Bet and Raise, the total should be at least 40%. If it’s not, you’re probably giving up too soon on your good hands, and that will cost you money in the long run. Remember: people who cold-call a preflop bet are often in fit-or-fold mode. If you don’t bet, you don’t give them a chance to fold. The pot is already decent-sized, and there’s no reason to give some donk a free look at a turn card that could sink you. If you raised preflop, you need a good reason NOT to raise the flop. Continuation betting should be your default play. Scroll down a bit farther to “Aggression Factor.” Your total aggression factor should be at LEAST 2. No-limit is not a game where you can call frequently and turn a profit. You should always be looking to see if you can raise or fold; only if you have a good reason why you CANNOT raise or fold should you call. As a result, calling should be an infrequent occurrence in your play, which gives you a large aggression factor.

11. Check-raising. Some people never check-raise; others check-raise infrequently. I personally like to check-raise at least once in awhile; 1% would be fine, 0.5% would be acceptable. The goal of the check-raise is to remind your opponents that just because you checked does NOT mean that you don’t have a hand. However, circumstances need to be very specific for a check-raise to be appropriate. Typically, I check-raise on the flop when OOP against a preflop raiser, or on the turn when OOP against a flop bettor/raiser who was clearly not on a draw (uncoordinated flop). If you are check raising much more than 2% of the time, you’re being entirely too tricky for a SSNL table, and straightforward play would probably be more profitable for you.

Best 4 Weeks of the Year

2007-03-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

I'm here writing to you, on the eve of the greatest 4 weeks of the year. Other than my team playing in the Super Bowl, I anticipate this tournament the most. It's what makes NCAA Basketball so great. As Dicky V would say, it's AWESOME BABY! The time has come once again, for March Madness.

*

I literally can't wait for tomorrow to come. A jam packed day where some dreams begin, and some end. We're not just talkin about the players here. It's the millions of people who need a particular team to have that huge upset. Offices around the country won't have "work" on the top of their priority list. Then again, when do they ever?

It's 9:45 on Wednesday March 15th, is your bracket complete?

*photo courtesy of espn.com

Epassporte and PLO Cash Games

2007-03-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

For those that don't have patience, Epassporte isn't the way to go for you. After taking about a month for my micro deposits to get verified, then waiting another week for my funds to make it from my bank account to Epassporte, everything was finally finished. That is, until I went to cash out last week. I withdrew from my Stars account to Epassporte, and unlike Neteller, it was there in about 3 hours. I was completely thrilled. Usually Neteller takes about 3 days for my funds to reach them. Epassporte did say however, that it would take about 7 business days for my funds to reach my checking account. No problem I thought.

Then I went to make my cashout. Declined. "You have got to be kidding me", I thought. I read the limits section of the FAQ and it said I can only withdraw $300 a day. I was not about to request a cashout for 5 straight days. I really don't want that much activity on my checking account. That's when people start asking questions. So I read a little deeper and saw that I could raise my limits. Then i went on another downer when it said I had to have a 2nd load option. GREAT, now I'm going to have to wait another month for this one to be ready. I decided to research on 2+2 to see what all the "ballers" were doing with this restriction. Then I found out that I could use my debit card as a 2nd option.

Everything went through in a solid 5 minutes. I did get a call from PNC asking me if it was me who activated my debit card on the internet and I said yes. They hung up and I was on my way. I had to put money onto a site for it to be solidified, so I just threw like 85 bucks on Full Tilt. At first I was just going to deposit, then withdraw, but I caught the PLO cash game bug. 500 hands later...

I had to download the trial version of the Omaha PT. I only had 85 bucks, so I decided to just play 4 tables of .5/.10. After playing for a little bit I found these were some of the easiest games around. People had no idea how to play. I think I might leave some money on FT when I get tired of the grind on stars. That's all I have for now, maybe I'll post some hands later on today.

Small PLO Final Table

2007-03-07T10:22:00.000-08:00

I hopped in a small $8 PLO tournament this morning. I doubled up at the 15/30 level and had 3k in chips going into the 25/50 level. It should have been all over after this hand

Seat 1: ZENZO (3090 in chips)

Seat 2: AceSpaded (1715 in chips)

Seat 3: trixter23 (3175 in chips)

Seat 4: badbugger (1590 in chips)

Seat 5: wildone111 (200 in chips) is sitting out

Seat 6: JA2377 (2027 in chips)

Seat 8: charly441 (5160 in chips)

Seat 9: xxxCMFxxx (1148 in chips)

badbugger: posts small blind 25

wildone111: posts big blind 50

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to trixter23 [2d Kd Ah Ac]

JA2377: calls 50

charly441: folds xxx

CMFxxx: calls 50

ZENZO: folds

AceSpaded: folds

trixter23: raises 200 to 250

badbugger: folds

wildone111: folds

JA2377: calls 200xxx

CMFxxx: calls 200

*** FLOP *** [8s As Qd]

JA2377: checks

xxxCMFxxx: bets 825

trixter23: raises 825 to 1650

JA2377: raises 127 to 1777 and is all-in

xxxCMFxxx: calls 73 and is all-in

trixter23: calls 127

*** TURN *** [8s As Qd] [7h]

*** RIVER *** [8s As Qd 7h] [Th]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

JA2377: shows [Ks 6c 9s Jh] (a straight, Ten to Ace)

trixter23: shows [2d Kd Ah Ac] (three of a kind, Aces)

JA2377 collected 1758 from side pot

xxxCMFxxx: shows [Kh 5s 6s 4s] (high card Ace)

JA2377 collected 3519 from main pot

There was a lot of draws out there and this left me with about 10 bb's. I fought back though and doubled up to 2k. I was then able to steal some blinds and move up to 3k w/out having to showdown a hand which is always a good thing. Here I went to 7800

Dealt to trixter23 [Ks Kh Ts 4h]

haystaxbaz: folds

KRT1: calls 200

zydes: calls 200

rovinggamblr: calls 200

trixter23: raises 1100 to 1300

Frank244: folds

tina0301: folds

KRT1: folds

zydes: calls 1100

rovinggamblr: folds

*** FLOP *** [7s 4d 6s]

trixter23 said, "gl"

zydes: bets 3300

trixter23: calls 2241 and is all-in

*** TURN *** [7s 4d 6s] [2h]

*** RIVER *** [7s 4d 6s 2h] [2c]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

zydes: shows [Ah Th Td 7d] (two pair, Tens and Deuces)

trixter23: shows [Ks Kh Ts 4h] (two pair, Kings and Deuces)

We made our way up to 9k w/out much resistance. Then we won an all in from another player after i cracked his aces with 8s 7h 3h 5d. I had flopped a wrap with a flush draw so that was an easy decision. I had moved to 17k when the following hand occured. This was by far the biggest hand of the tournament, because it volted me to chip leader. Which I took full advantage of and didnt relinquish.

Dealt to trixter23 [5d Th Ac Jd]

gvonah: folds

zydes: folds
Shmooter: folds

rovinggamblr: folds

Freya: raises 800 to 1200

trixter23: calls 800

*** FLOP *** [Kc Qd Ts]

Freya: bets 1200

trixter23: raises 2000 to 3200

Freya: calls 2000

*** TURN *** [Kc Qd Ts] [4s]

Freya: checks

trixter23: bets 6400

Freya: calls 6400

*** RIVER *** [Kc Qd Ts 4s] [Ah]

Freya: checks

trixter23: bets 6457 and is all-in

Freya: calls 6457

*** SHOW DOWN ***

trixter23: shows [5d Th Ac Jd] (a straight, Ten to Ace)

Freya: shows [As 2s Ks Qc] (two pair, Aces and Kings)

I was able to chip up pretty nicely on the bubble and went to the FT first in chips with 50k. Other than mexi and maybe zydes, there really wasnt anyone that could hurt me if i lost a pot.

I took out the next two players and had a commanding lead in the tournament.

Then I eventually took it down

I haven't been doing well in MTT the last month or so at all. So it feels nice to get over that hump and book a win, even as small as it was. I think i can contribute cash games to that lack of success. I just dont have the patience I once had when i soley played sng's or tournaments. See everyone at the tables.

Worst Play EVER(Obv Bad Beat Post)

2007-03-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

I've ran about even over the weekend and Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure whether the players were worse because it was the weekend or what. The play was absolutely terrible, and of course I wasn't on the good end of it. There are so many hands I can post from the guy calling off 1/3 of his stack pre flop, then getting it in with a 10 high flush draw, 2 to the flush on the flop, on a board of 3 6 9(I had pocket 9s), then hitting runner runner for his flush. To this guy I'm about to post here. It's just inexplicable. Here I was down about $27 dollars after this hand, then turned it into a $20 winning session. That was a nice $47 dollar swing. But it's crap like this that I've been running into the past 4 days. Is it a coincidence that this happened after I posted how good I was running? I think not. Lee stop toying with the switches!

Seat 2: trixter23 ($61.15 in chips)
Seat 6: DONKEY ($32.65 in chips)

Dealt to trixter23 [Ks Kc]
DONKEY: calls $0.50
A: calls $0.50
trixter23: raises $2.50 to $3 - Raise it on up
B: calls $3 - Nice
hellokity: folds
C: folds
DONKEY: calls $2.50 - Um?
A: calls $2.50 - WTF?

*** FLOP *** [2s 3h 2d] - Excellent flop for Kings.

DONKEY: bets $6 - Uhh...what are you doing? Probe bet for your small pp? I know you're not smart enough to bet out if you flopped a boat.
A: folds
trixter23: raises $9 to $15 - Alright I'll save ya money, I'm telling you your hand is no good, this is where you fold. Small enough raise for you to call though, because i do want you to.
B: folds
DONKEY: calls $9 - Fine, suit yourself.

*** TURN *** [2s 3h 2d] [4c] - Another good card.

DONKEY: bets $6 - This guy totally misses the point.
trixter23: raises $6 to $12 - Misclick, meant to just shove him here
DONKEY: raises $2.65 to $14.65 and is all-in
trixter23: calls $2.65 - Ok, glad thats settled.

*** RIVER *** [2s 3h 2d 4c] [Ad] - That's not a good card.

*** SHOW DOWN ***

DONKEY: shows [3s As] (two pair, Aces and Threes)
trixter23: mucks hand
trixter23 said, "OMGFU"
DONKEY collected $69.05 from pot
trixter23 said, "ASDLKFJLAKS;DJFLJASDF;"
trixter23 said, "LASKDFK;SDAJF" - This goes on for a little bit.
trixter23 said, "DASJK;FPDSK"
trixter23 said, "P[FDSK"
trixter23 said, "]P[FSD
trixter23 said, ";SJL;'DAF"
trixter23 said, "SL;'DF'ASDF'SDALFSD"
trixter23 said, "K';FSDAK"
trixter23 said, ";'FGDSK;'ALGL'ASDK'"
trixter23 said, "LGASDL'G'"
trixter23 said, "SL;ADG'L;ASDG'LSDAKG'SDA'"
trixter23 said, ";KGSD'" - Still Going...
trixter23 said, "GSAD"
trixter23 said, "GKASDGK'"
trixter23 said, "LASDGK'L"
trixter23 said, "SDAK'"
trixter23 said, "GSDK"
trixter23 said, "G'KS'D"
trixter23 said, "LGK'"
trixter23 said, "LSDGK'"
trixter23 said, "LSDK'" - Let the verbal abuse begin.

trixter23 said, "mother ****ing idiots"
Donkey said, "please dont cry"
trixter23 said, "dude ur ****ing bad"
trixter23 said, "****"
Donkey said, "still crying"
trixter23 said, "do u know how bad u play?"
Donkey said, "whaaa"
Donkey said, "poor cry baby"
trixter23 said, "im actually laughing at how bad u are"
Donkey said, "sniff sniff"

I'm really going to get my chat taken away one of these days hahaha.

A Decent Day

2007-03-03T02:47:00.000-08:00

I just finished up a long session on the day and was up a little under 4.5 buyins. It's 10 to 6 in the morning and I have to get up at 830 to coach my 8th grade team at 10. Most likely I'm not going to sleep at all and just watch a movie and go to bed when i come home. We have home game on the slate tomorrow night so that should be interesting. I thought I'd leave you with this hand to start the day. God I love being right when i think they're going to call an extreme overbet.

Hero ($53.15)
Button ($74.80)
SB (Villain 1) ($39.35)
BB ($97)
UTG (Villain 2) ($25.25)
MP ($29.75)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Js, Ks.

UTG (Villain 2) calls $0.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $2.5, 1 fold, SB (Villain 1) calls $2.25, 1 fold, UTG (Villain 2) calls $2.

Flop: ($8) 4s, Qh, Ac (3 players)

Villain 1 checks, Villain 2 checks, Hero checks.

Turn: ($8) 9s (3 players)

Villain 1 checks, Villain 2 checks, Hero bets $3.5, Villain 1 calls $3.50, Villain 2 calls $3.50.

River: ($18.50) Tc (3 players)

Villain 1 bets $2.5, Villain 2 calls $2.50, Hero raises to $47.15, Villain 1 calls $30.85 (All-In), Villain 2 folds.

Final Pot: $101.50

Results below:

Villain 1 has Qc Td (two pair, queens and tens).
Hero has Js Ks (straight, ace high).
Outcome: Hero wins $101.50.

Long Overdue

2007-03-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

I haven't made a post in about 2 weeks. Mainly because I really didn't have anything to talk about. I thought I would update everyone on my 6 max results so far. There were a couple of reasons why I wanted to learn how to play shorthanded.

1) Less Tables - With full ring I was playin 6-8 tables at a time. Part of the reason why I was doing that was boredom. You have to play so much tighter at a full ring table because the extra number of people. And by playing so many tables, I dont get to exploit weak opponents as much as I would like to. Which leads me to my next reason..

2) Exploiting Weak Opponents - With less people it's much easier to isolate one particular person over and over again. In full ring there could be 2 fish(esp with the limited dep options) and if hes across the table, I'm going to have a little trouble playing lots of pots with him. My favorite type of player, is the one that plays 80 percent of the hands. He'll limp, then call a raise, then either fold on the flop or the turn.

3) Hourly Rate - Less people mean that you are going to be playing more pots. This means you can either win more money, but you can also lose just as much.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but I havent really had to hard of a time making money. Although im only playin .25/.50, which probably has something to do with it. One of the most revealing things that doesnt change until you reach 2/4 or above is that people dont change the way they play. I used to play with a lot of the same people in full ring, but I really havent at 6 max yet. Lets get to some hands and my results so far.

This is a hand I just played in my session tonight. Some of the terminology you'll see as you're reading is VP$IP(Percentage of time the player voluntarily put money in the pot). PF Raise(Pre-Flop Raise). AF(Aggression Factor). The numbers that you'll see will come up in that order. So if i say Villain was 35-15-5, that means he has played 35 percent of the hands, raised 15 percent, and his AF is over 3 so hes a pretty aggressive player.

Seat 1: trixter23 ($133.50 in chips) <-----Nice stack Nick.
Seat 2: Villain 1 ($20 in chips) <-----God Damn short stacks.
Seat 6: Villain 2 ($35.45 in chips)<-------No Comment

Villain 1 - Was Playing Semi-Loose Aggressive/Aggressive. Stats were 29/6/4.5. Made a couple of bonehead plays. Seemed like a typical NL50 player who doesnt fold.

Villain 2 - Semi-Loose Aggressive/Passive. Stats were 26/12/1.25. So as you can see hes not an aggressive player at all. He didn't really get out of line until this hand.

Dealt to trixter23 [4h 4d]
Villain1: calls $0.50 - He was utg and just called the blind. I wasn't sure what this meant. I did know that he raised with AK utg in a previous hand.

Villain 2: calls $0.25

trixter23: checks - I'm not going to raise here. I would be oop against the utg limper and I have no idea what he has. Also my hand would also be disguised if hes limping with a big pair and I flop a set, most likely I'm going to win a big pot.

*** FLOP *** [5s 6c 6h]
Villain 1: checks
trixter23: checks
Villain 2: checks

I don't think a bet here by me would make sense. If I had a 6, I would be check raising, and not leading out into an un-raised pot. I could represent a 5, but again I still would have no idea where I would be in the hand if I got a caller. Villain 1 kind of surprised me with a check. Usually if i limp utg, I'm betting any flop.

*** TURN *** [5s 6c 6h] [4s]
Villain 2: bets $1 - What are you doing?

trixter23: calls $1 - Gin! No reason to raise here, lets let him catch his draw if hes on one.

Villain 1 raises $1 to $2 - Ok, so this was a little scary. We all know how I feel about the min raise.

Villain 2: calls $1 - Gotta call

trixter23: calls $1 - Duh

*** RIVER *** [5s 6c 6h 4s] [3c]
Villain 2: bets $1.50 - $7.50 in the pot and he bets $1.50? That's no good.

trixter23: raises $4.50 to $6 - Hopefully someone hit something, this is an obvious raise spot.

Villain 1: raises $11.50 to $17.50 and is all-in - Uh oh. What's he got here? Did he river a set? Does he have a 6? Straight? I have no idea, but this is an easy call for me.

Villain 2: calls $16 - Um? Ok so you flat call after i re-raise you, and then the guy behind me goes all in. I'm definitely not worried about you and I know I got you beat. The rest of your money is going in this pot.

trixter23: raises $113.50 to $131 and is all-in - Duh

Villain 2: calls $15.45 and is all-in - Just leave now.

trixter23: shows [4h 4d] (a full house, Fours full of Sixes)

Villain 2: shows [Ac 7s] (a straight, Three to Seven) - I actually thought he would have 78 here. Anything else and I'm folding, and I probably fold the 78 to.

trixter23 collected $30.85 from side pot

Villain 1: shows [6d 5d] (a full house, Sixes full of Fives) - Sigh

Villain 1 collected $57.05 from main pot

Overall It was just an unlucky turn for me. Honestly I raise the 56d utg there. I usually don't play a pot unless I raise. Im rarely calling. Nothing I can really do there, but thank Villain 2 for thinking his straight was good.

Hand 2

Seat 5: trixter23 ($67.45 in chips)
Seat 3: Villain ($25.10 in chips)

Villain is 66/22/.67 - EXTREMELY loose aggressive player, but hes passive post flop. No real reads, haven't been playin with him long.

Dealt to trixter23 [8c 7c]
trixter23: raises $1 to $1.50 - My standard raise is usually to $2 here, I don't remember why I made it $1.50. I'm utg here so we will be playing oop unless the blinds just call.

Villain: calls $1.25 - Calls from the sb, excellent.

*** FLOP *** [8h 3s 7d]
Villain: bets $2.50 - What are you doing betting into me? That's a pretty harmless flop for your range sir. Unless you're seeing if your A7 is good.

trixter23: raises $6 to $8.50 - That's a pretty good flop for my hand, Lets see if I can peddle him along. If he has a nice overpair like TT or JJ we're going to get paid. The only hands I'm worried about here is 33 or 9T.

Villain: calls $6

*** TURN *** [8h 3s 7d] [9s]
Villain: checks

trixter23: bets $19 - I'm just shipping it in here. If he does have 9T hes going to have to pay to get there. Thers no reason to not believe I have the best hand. Hes super passive so I'm expecting an over pair here if he calls.

Villain: calls $15.10 and is all-in - GL Sir

*** RIVER *** [8h 3s 7d 9s] [2d] - Could NOT have helped his hand

*** SHOW DOWN ***

Villain: shows [Js Ad] (high card Ace) - Um.....no comment.

trixter23: shows [8c 7c] (two pair, Eights and Sevens)

trixter23 collected $48.25 from pot - Ship the money!

So he called my raise on the flop with no pair, no draw. He doesn't really have that much money left after this so he has no fold equity to make a play if I have anything I'm going to call him. He definitely got a good note. It's players like these that make me want to play 6 max.

Now to my stats. It's still a very small sample size, but I'm incredibly happy with the way I'm playing right now. For 6 max your PTBB/100 is a little different from full ring. 3 PTBB/100 means your a pretty average player. 5 PTBB/100 means your above average player. and 8 or higher PTBB/100 means you're absolutely crushing the game and you're probably one of the best players out there. Keep in mind this is over a LARGE sample size. As in large I mean about 30-60k hands.

This sample size only accounts for 12.6 hours of play. My "True Hourly Win Rate" is $39 an hour. I couldn't ask for a better beginning. Here's another shot of my last 13 sessions, and at the bottom is the true hourly win rate. Green is sessions where i made money, Red is where i lost. I'm having winning sessions about 62% of the time, which is right where I should be. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I'll get back to posting regularly. Good luck at the tables everyone.

Ugh

2007-02-15T18:20:00.000-08:00

I caught the flug bug on Monday and I've been layin around the last 4 days. I feel absolutely miserable. Its clearing up though so I'm happy about that. I haven't been able to play since my eyes burn if I look at the screen too long. Hopefully I'll be ready to go for the weekend push.

Sunday Million and 6 Max

2007-02-12T12:15:00.000-08:00

So I decided to use some fpp's to play in the sunday million yesterday on pokerstars. I accumulate so many since I'm platinum. Well atleast until the end of this month because there is no way I can make 10k vpp's this month. I haven't been really playing too much. I played well, I had some good reads on people, but really couldn't get anything going. I believe blinds were 400/800 and the antes were about to kick in and i pushed in EP with AQ with 7800 chips. I ran into Jacks and didn't improve.

Overall, I was happy with my play. I maintained an active image but still didn't get any big pots brewing when i had anything. There's always next time though. I think I went out 3100th out of like 6800 or so. Going through half the field still doesn't garner me anything.

Also I'm still in the transission phase of getting into 6 max ring games. I've found that I need to play 2 to start off and add a max of 2 more to be profitable. Any more than that and it just boggles your mind. It's definitely easier playing less tables because you can pick apart the weaker opponents. Here is a graph showing a nice 2 table 40 min session I had to get things going for the day.

As you can see, I won 2 nice pots and pretty much just chipped up everywhere else. I never had to get out of line so I was happy about that. I'm pretty sure 6 max is going to be more profitable as long as I pay attention and stick to my game. The moment I start to try and get cute is the moment I'm going to start losing money. I'll update about 6 max when I get a bigger sample size in for sure.

On the home game front now. I grabbed a new table from gebhardts. They have some very nice tables, but ours need to be portable. I got one for $200 that was sitting in the back and was perfect. We had a nice turnout again of about 18. We really have to do something with the structure though. It's a pretty fast paced one that doesn't benefit the post flop players very well.

I'm thinkin about running a cash game with .25/.50 blinds and sng's on the side. We'll see how everyone likes that, otherwise we'll just have to figure out a new structure.

Other than that, I have nothing else new. If anyone has a structure btw that they like post it in the comments.

Not a Problem

2007-02-08T21:53:00.000-08:00

Get em Lee

Burnt out

2007-02-02T08:54:00.000-08:00

Over the last 3 days in January, I played a little under 10k hands. 8-10 tabling .50/1 for a long period of time certainly took its toll. What's surprising is that I actually made money. Reads weren't an issue, I was just playing abc robotic poker. Yesterday I played about 1k hands, but only while 4 tabling. I really don't understand how people can make money playing that many tables. I wasn't able to concentrate on position or weak players in the game.

The other big topic that's getting a lot of coverage besides the super bowl is the retired NFL players pension and disability fund or lack thereof. I read an article today in The Star Ledger written by Jerry Izenberg about this. Some of the stories that you hear about the old time greats are truely a shame. You think of some of the players today and say to yourself..where is he going to be in 25 years? I'm pretty sure the likes of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and other All-Pro players will be fine. But what about John Lynch, safety for the Broncos or any linebacker in the league. These guys aren't getting 75 million dollar contracts. Plus they subject themselves to probably the most physical abuse among the players.

This article just makes me respect Tiki Barber's decision to retire a TON more. He is a very bright man and values his health more than fame and fortune. Don't get me wrong he loves the game, but he sees the longterm issues of playing a lot more clearly then most players. He has 2 kids, both under the age of 5, and wants to go outside and be able to run around with them. Take a look at Jerome Bettis. He was quoted in espn the magagzine for saying that it takes him literally 5 minutes to go up stairs sometimes. His knees are completely shot.

What's this have to do with poker you ask? Money management. You see a lot of these people getting paid 8 figure deals and they live in their HUGE houses with 67 cars and live a lavish lifestyle. Well what are you going to do when you retire? What if your're like Terrell Davis and sustain a career ending injury? Ok sure, you're getting paid 8 million dollars a year. That doesn't mean you have to have bills totalling 500k, plus a 2 million dollar house, with a 275k car, with a house in california also. How about actually only paying yourself 4 million a year, and putting the other 4 million in savings and not touching it.

We as poker players have some of the absolute best and worst money managers in the world. What kind are you?

Here is the link to the article I was referring to

http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=24685860

Playing Well

2007-01-27T03:58:00.000-08:00

The last 2 days I've been able to really focus on my play. Which in return has given me back to back $500+ days in the cash games. I've been making great decisisons and getting paid off on my big hands. Reluctantly, I only had 1 suckout yesterday. It was a bad one, but what can ya do.

My ankle is feeling much better, it's still a little bruised and swollen but I can walk on it without a brace in my house now. When i go out i have to wear the boot or aircast for pre-caution.

I need 3600 vpp's for Platinum this month. With 5 days to go, that's 720 a day. It might be possible. I'm just going to play solid poker and see what happens.

Yikes

2007-01-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

Well, even more bad news for the month of January. While I was playin basketball on tuesday morning, I crossed feet with one of the other players when we were both going for the ball. My right ankle decided to roll outward, then twist forward. I pretty much instantly knew I did something really bad to it. Here's some background on my ankles. To put it bluntly, I probably have some of the weakest ankles known to man. I've played Basketball all my life from elementary school all the way through community college. I wear braces on both my ankles. When I played in school, the trainer would tape both of them, Then I would have 2 socks on, plus the braces. I've rolled both ankles twice before atleast. I've never broken a bone, but I'm getting closer and closer to doing some real damage.

As soon as I hit the ground I knew it wasnt going to be fun. Usually, I can walk it off and just not be able to walk for the next 2 days or so. This time though, I wasn't able to put any weight on it what so ever. Now remember, I have no insurance so I'm kind of worried now. I'm really hoping its just the absolute worst sprain you could have without having to need surgery. I was in writhing pain for a good 3 hours before I was able to go to a specialist. I took some x-rays and he came back in and the first thing he said was that i didn't need surgery. Everything after that was pure bliss haha. My diagnosis was a 3rd degree sprained ankle. What he did say though was that I was extremely lucky. My ligaments and tendons have been stretched so far the last few times I've rolled that ankle, he hadnt a clue why I didn't tear both of those off the bone this time. He said another 2-3 inches and I was done. So now I'm in a boot and an aircast for the next month or so. I had to pay for the x-ray and boot but that didn't bother me.

Now onto da pokah. I haven't played any cash for the last 4-5 days or so and have just been playin some small tourneys. I have 2 deep finishes in the rebuy in the last 2 days. 1 of them was when i was stone dead with 482 chips with blinds at 200/400. I actually came back and got 98th or something. I went out in the most idiotic way. I dont even want to put it up here. Hopefully I can make a ft in the next few days as I'm playing really well tournament poker right now. That's all for now, if Lee lets me make a final table this week, I'll let ya know. Good Luck everyone!

Sooo

2007-01-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Everyone is freaking out about the payment processors such as Neteller, click2pay, epassporte, etc, etc shutting down. Most of the people are taking their money off the sites. Personally I believe my pokerstars account is the best place for money at this time. I don't want to jump the gun and cash out because this is going to be resolved. It affects me considering i used to cash out through neteller. As far as getting money on the sites, I haven't deposited since back in August when I came back from Vegas.

I played 7 of the 5400 fpp 10 man sng's that pay 4 spots to the sunday million. Dissapointingly, I only won 2 seats. I bubbled 3 others, and got like 6th or 7th in the other ones. The play is pretty bad, but everyone plays SOOO tight, it's hard to accumulate any chips other than re-stealing against late position raisers. I cashed in my entries at a site and got $203.18 for each T$215.

Other than that, I've been playin my usual cash game sessions. I started playing .25/.50 6 max. 6 max is much more profitable than full ring. I'm running real hot right now, but in a VERY small sample size of 1200 hands. I'll update further when i get more hands in.

That's it for now, halftime hit in the bears vs saints game. I'll post if anything intresting happens.

FU Neteller

2007-01-18T13:09:00.000-08:00

They have now closed its doors, i really cant believe this is happening in the united states of america.

It's Over.

2007-01-15T01:18:00.000-08:00

I have to stop the 5k goal in 31 days. I don't want to use the word "quit", because I really don't feel I am. Tonight i dropped another $300 or so in some of the sickest ways ever. I don't know how many 75-25's I'm gonna lose in this stretch. Losing isn't really the reason why im stopping. I can cope with losses fine. Even though this is the second most I've lost in this short period of time. I'm afraid I will try to play out of my bankroll to get money quickly for the 5k. Plus I think i need to take a few days off if thats at all possible. I made so many tilted calls tonight because everything was running bad.

Those are 2 things that i pride myself in with poker and life in general. Bankroll Management is hugely important considering i have no job right now(other than the poker income). Also, I never really tilt, but on the rare occasion that i do, it gets bad. Heres some of the hands from tonight's debacle which i will try and explain in detail. Plus I will try to go chronologically. I started playing 1-2 because I was playing really well in the afternoon time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740413 - So we have an UTG mini raiser. I never like raising people who raise utg unless I have a really strong read on them, in this case i didnt. So I flat call and the blinds come along for the ride. Hit the straight on the turn and I don't raise because there are still a lot of draws out there and dont want to get too pot committed. The river bricks out and he still bets. So we know he has a Ten, but don't know his other card. Well actually i did call it out then called his bet to reveal the queen. Bad Call? Probably.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740416 - I think this might have been the hand right after the first one i posted. It was against the same guy and I didn't know if he thought he could outplay me or really had a hand. Another hand played horribly.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740418 - Around the same time at a different table. Apparently I can't even get people off hands. I knew he had a weak king as soon as he insta called me on the turn. Maybe if C/R then led out he would have folded...nah who am i kidding.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740422 - This hand made me super angry. Like I said up top, I'm not going to re raise an utg raiser. I flop a set, but the dreaded diamonds are up there. I bet the pot, and immediately got mini raised. I didn't think he flopped a flush at all because the donks dont play the nuts that aggressively on the flop. I put him on AA or KK with a diamond. So i flat call to see what the turn is. The 8 shouldn't have helped him at all and he bets a little under half the pot. I thought this was a very weak bet and shoved on him. He calls off his remaining 65 and im praying for the board to pair. He then tables 9d 9h.

At this point I'm kind of shocked. I really can't think of a scenario in my head where if the roles were reversed I would be getting all my money in there. Let's think about this for a minute. For theoretical purposes, suppose I have Ad Jc, hes drawing to a flush with a 9, hes beat there. Or even i flopped a flush, hes completely drawing dead. The play was just horrible and from here i completely went on tilt.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740432 - Different table, different guy who wasnt on the table and obv lee told him i was completely on tilt. But, I mean I am 50/50 to win with a pair, and my FAV # is Ten following the last hand so I had to call. a slkfjas;lkdfja;lsdjf

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740435 - This pretty much says it all...damn my luck
trixter23 said, "im gonna call cuz im completely on tilt right now"
trixter23 said, "nh"

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740437 - I could see where this was going..

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740440 - No respect for position.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?740441 - Dropped to .25/.50(which i cant take seriously), why would i hit my draw? who are we kidding.

I dont think I'm playing THAT bad, but I would have to maintain a high level of play throughout the next 24 days or so, and i just CAN NOT go busto. I also hope I'm not dissapointing anyone by making this decision. Maybe in the future I will try this again.

Day 7 - Jack Bauer is Back!

2007-01-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

Took a break today, most likely will play tonight after the season premiere of 24.

Day 6

2007-01-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

I really don't know what goes through the minds of some of these people. Yesterday was one of the most swingy days I've ever had. I couldn't be consistent, but that had nothing to do with me. As you see by the graph below, it was another huge roller coaster. It's just getting sick the way I'm losing some of these pots.

Although I did get bluffed out of a huge pot with MadMike69. He's a very solid player, and I didnt think he was capable of such a nice move. I'll post the hand at the end like usual. It actually gave me kind of a boost in confidence. His line was consistent through the whole hand.

I played the Nightly Hundred Grand($162) on Pokerstars last night for the first time. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to play it during my run for 5k during the month, but I felt good going in. I dont have any regrets in the way I played. The play was still pretty bad. My main quarrel with wanting to play was that I didn't want to go in as scared money. I didn't and I actually played more aggressive than usual. I went out when blinds were 25/50. It was folded to the button who had about T1900 or so. He raised to T300. An opening raise from the button for that much told me that he really didn't want to see a flop. I figured he had something like 77 or 88. I held AQs in the sb and I jammed for T2700 total. He was a very solid player and I didn't think he would want to gamble this early in the tournament. The bb woke up with AK and called and I was out. It was an over shove, but I went with my read. The button raiser said he had 9s. My AQ would have beaten him considering the 4 Q K flop.

So I finally had reeled someone in with Aces pre flop. And he called off his stack with 9s. Obviously he hit his 9. It wasn't like he had no chips either, he had 63 dollars behind. I couldn't win a race yesterday, but his explanation just takes the cake. http://www.pokerhand.org/?736585

trixter23 said, "un ****ing believable"
trixter23 said, "now tell me, did u really...REALLY think u were ahead there?"
trixter23 said, "k thought so."
MrNebbish said, "no - 1 pair is always 5050"
trixter23 said, "lol"
trixter23 said, "hahaha"
trixter23 said, "weeeeeeeeeeeee"
trixter23 said, "LVOE IT"
trixter23 said, "wcg please shoot me directly in the face."

Cash Games: -$35.85
I played over 2k+ hands. I'm pretty sure I only played 1 hand extremely bad all night. I was just waitin for someone to pay me off on hands and I was just getting outdrawn eeeeeevery time. One of these days I'll break out ...hopefully.

Tournaments: -$162

Overall: -$197.85
I need: $4418.90
Total Earnings: $581.10

http://www.pokerhand.org/?736533 - Play AA worse sir.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736540 - I'm a complete sicko
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736543 - I play with WCG alot. He's a funny guy.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736554 - Are we serious?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736560 - Had to be beat.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736564 - You're kidding, my hand held?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736567 - I give min raises no respect when I'm in position. And yes he called that pot sized bet with a gutshot weeeeeeee.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736571 - He had the monster AT
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736574 - So absolutely ridiculous
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736589 - Excellent play by mike, I dont know how he 4 bets the flop with air, but he did it.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736593 - cgl is a good player, I REALLY wanted that call.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736595 - He insta-mini raised.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736597 - Excellent scare card.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736603 - weeeeee
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736605
http://www.pokerhand.org/?736608 - lol told him i had 2 pair.

My day in a nutshell...

2007-01-13T03:30:00.000-08:00

HH's and description to follow later on today, its 6:32 am

Day 5 - God Damn Earthlink!

2007-01-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

I woke up early again today for some pwnage at the tables. While browinsg i got disconnected 3 times. Considering I dont get up early for many people, I wasnt quite happy with this. The problem seemed to stop, so I started to play. Well, Earthlink decided to wait till i flopped top set in a pot that was 3 bet pre flop to disconnect and stay down. Oh, I was happy about that one. I'm guessing he had won the pot because when i came back the money wasn't in my stack. Good Game Earthlink!

With that, I didn't play any during the day. I think i got in roughly 40 hands. Practice started at 7:30, when i came home at 9 the internet was still screwed up. I was just sitting and watching tv watchin the internet go in and out. Then at midnight i decided to 12 table. Yep, I've never done it before, but it seemed like a GREAT time to try it. 10 minutes or roughly 267 hands later...sigh ridiculous...I was up around 20 dollars. 12 tabling went bye-bye after that, because that shit is completely insane. I can't imagine how people do sng's considering they get down to 2 and 3 people. I'm playing full ring and i got flustered.

Cash Games: +$33.65
For the 2nd time in 2 days i flopped the nuts and still was re-drawing to a flush and got it all in, only to lose to a boat. It happened again today on a very OBVIOUS board. I want those calls, but the cards just havent been letting me win. That pot and a few others, and I would have had a $200+ night. That's the way it goes though...

Tournaments: $0

Overall: +$33.65
I need: $4221.05
Total Earnings: $778.95

http://www.pokerhand.org/?732857 - Sigh - cancer.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?732861 - Joy!
http://www.pokerhand.org/?732864 - Later he did say he had set of 7s
http://www.pokerhand.org/?732871 - weeee
http://www.pokerhand.org/?732873 - Was gonna take it away with a scary turn card, but i hit.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?732874 - J9 no g00t on my table
http://www.pokerhand.org/?732879 - He was insta-calling my bets, should have gotten away

Day 4

2007-01-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

And I thought yesterday was a rollercoaster. I got up early around 12 (hahahhaha, early for me) and got right to it. I was up about 150 within the hour and stopped to take a break. After that, the shit hit the fan. I was making laydowns left and right to some crazy boards. There are like 40 hands i can go over here, i'll post them at the bottom like usual. I played 216 1-2 hands and approximately 1k .50/1 hands. It's kind of hard to keep track of how many hands i play considering i don't stop at midnight. PokerTracker does though haha.

Considering how bad I was running during my 2nd session, I'm really surprised I booked a profit today. I probably would have made double, but it happens sometimes.

Cash Games: +$208

Tournaments: +$5
Played a heads up tournament at the end of the night to even things out hahah.

Overall: +$213
I need: $4254.70
Total Earnings: $745.30

http://www.pokerhand.org/?730432 - RNG said he had 6's, i've never seen set over set over set. That would have been interesting.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730438 - Something just didn't make sense. vawired was reported for his chat.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730439 - Standard.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730441 - Yawn.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730442 - Love letting them hang themselves, weeeee.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730444 - I'm a sicko.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730450 - Easy fold I think..
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730451 - I know what he has, yet i still call to show the table my EXCELLENT reading ability...lol
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730455 - Un raised pot...stay away
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730459 - Happened twice today, once pre flop.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730463 - I let him know about how i feel haha.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730470 - Holy sicko, and that jack was g00t to baby weeeeee
http://www.pokerhand.org/?730477 - Why do you do this to me lee..

Day 3

2007-01-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

Didn't play much again today. I need to start waking up early and playing during the day time. With my current sleeping schedule i don't get to play nearly as much as i want/need to. I'll get right to it tonight. Also, I started playing a little 25.50 6 max game. I played 387 hands there and made 5.87 PTBB/100 which only equivalates to $22.70, but I have to start somewhere.

Cash Games: +$168.20
Nothing too spectacular. I basically played in position and took all the orphan pots.

Tournaments: $0

Overall: +$168.20
I need: $4467.70
Total Earnings: +$532.30

http://www.pokerhand.org/?727876