Day 5 - God Damn Earthlink!

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

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

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

Day 2

It was a rollercoaster day. I didn't play that much. I woke up late and didn't really feel like playing. Then Florida vs Ohio State came on and i watched that game. OSU's Ted Ginn Jr took back the opening kickoff for a TD. The game appeared to be a blow out. It was...just for the other team. Florida dominated the entire game. I agree with Florida defensive end Jarvis Moss on his statement..

"Honestly, we've played a lot better teams than them," Florida defensive end Jarvis Moss said. "I could name four or five teams in the SEC that could probably compete with them and play the same type of game we did against them."

Now, I'm a Florida State fan. As you know they are bitter rivals and I give all the credit to Urban Meyer and the job hes done in the short time since hes been at Florida. I just don't believe Ohio State was a GREAT team. We know they are good, but their key victories were against a mediocre Texas team, and a Michigan team that got destroyed in the Rose Bowl.

The final AP and Coaches Polls were out right after the game. In a bit of a surprise, 65 of the 66 coaches voted for OSU as the #1 team in the nation. Can you guess who got the other vote? Yep, everyone's cinderella Boise State. Here's Urban Meyer commenting on them..

"I love Boise State. We don't want to go play them. We're done, we're done, we're finished," Meyer said.

"There are probably five, six, seven great football teams in this country and there is one way to figure out who the better team is and that's to go play the game," he said.

Everyone is dieing for it, just give us a Playoff! And last but not least, can we give the Big East some props now? I mean everyone gives the conference crap about their teams, but yet they posted the best bowl record going an impressive 6-0.


Conference W-L
Big East 5-0
Mountain West 3-1
Western Athletic 3-1
Southeastern 6-3
Atlantic Coast 4-4
Pac-10 3-3
Sun Belt 1-1
Big 12 3-5
Big Ten 2-5
Mid-American 1-3
Conference USA 1-4
Independents 0-2

Now onto our post for the day on the race for 5k. I had a maniac at my table that claimed to play 10/20 live. I dont fathom how you can play 10/20 live but yet play .50/1 online. And to make it even better he played only 1 table. If I had to give myself a grade tonight, i would probably give a C+. I played some hands bad and i took 1 or 2 beats, but that happens.

Cash Games: -$46.30
Only 717 hands today. I made some nice calls and some horrible ones. The hand where i had Aces i had no clue what the dude had. He was the one who claimed to play 10/20 live. He put some wicked beats on people. I probably make that call about 50% of the time.

Tournaments: +$38.80
Played 4 $6 Turbo SNG's this afternoon. Got 2 1sts and a 3rd.

Overall: -$7.50
I need: $4635.90
Total Earnings: $364.10

Here are some hands from tonight..

http://www.pokerhand.org/?725402 - The Maniac, one example of his hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?725405 - Bad Call, but you just saw that last hand..
http://www.pokerhand.org/?725407 - Sigh.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?725408 - Thought he turned a set...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?725410
http://www.pokerhand.org/?725411 - His line didn't make sense. Then i got the lecture.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?725414 - Bad play, but it worked out

The Official Start to 5k in 31 days

Before i get to the mission I want to show some more comedy that happened today. The hand that sparked the hate is here http://www.pokerhand.org/?720336 .

DEESGOTCHA said, "moron"
trixter23 said, "im sorry i wasnt the one who bet 10 dollars into a 40 dollar pot lol"
DEESGOTCHA said, "terrable call u lucky ***"
trixter23 said, "reload"
trixter23 said, "I guess you aren't supposed to call with the best hand anymore.."

He really didn't say anything after that. His play wasn't all that bad. I mean i wouldnt be open shoving 62 dollars into the pot on the turn there. I would either be making a small probing bet or checking for a free card.

Now onto the real reason we're posting today. I'm kicking off the race for 5k in 31 days. I feel like I'm playing really well right now and this would be the best time to do it. I will be posting every day with tallies on how much i won/lost, key hands, and other happenings. And please if i have any readers out there, if i miss a day get on my back about it in the comment section. Hopefully I can reach my goal and I plan on increasing it every rolling 31 days. I'm going to set a daily goal of $250. For a 31 day period that's $7750. I want to make sure I try and over achieve. Just like if someone is training to run a mile. You don't just run the mile and be done with training. You run 3 miles, so you can virtually sprint that entire mile, which would increase your time. And we go to the results for the day.

Day 1

Again like I said, I'm playing pretty well right now. I only played about 2 hours today and got in almost 1k hands. My goal is to play about 2k hands a day. All i played was cash games again. I 6-8 tabled .50/1. I didn't play any tournaments today. They could be a real boost to my goal.

Cash Games: +$371.60
I really didn't have to make any moves today at all to accumulate chips. They kind of just fell in my lap.

Tournaments: $0
Didn't want to get in anything huge today. The playoffs are on and the football season is winding down, so I want to watch all the football i can.

Overall: $371.60
I need: $4628.40
Total Earnings: $371.60

Here are some of the hands that made my day.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?720374
http://www.pokerhand.org/?720376

*This post is for Sunday, Day 2 is on Monday.

Insight from a .50/1 player

I played the 2pm 3r and a $11 double shootout to the sunday million so far today on stars. I was really doing well in the 3r and had about 54k with 1-2k blinds. The DS was going on while this was happening. I had it 3 handed on the 2nd table and got sucked out on 3 times and i eventually bubbled in 3rd. I just got so mad at the last one, i had TT and raised on the button to 600 with 1-200 blinds. The short stack came over hte top for like 400 more and he flips up A5. Of course the ace flops. I just was so angry. For the first time in a long time i went on complete tilt. I shoved with k4 and ran into AK like 3 hands later. Then in the 3r, it was folded to the blinds and the sb raised it up to 6k and i shoved 47k with 83 and he insta called with AJ. Yep AJ. Then it was gg me in that to.

Later on tonight I'm gonna play some cash again. I really haven't played too much in the last 2-3 days.

This came up last night and it really gave me a perspective from the "average" cash game players point of view. Here is the hand in question. http://www.pokerhand.org/?717399

I don't like raising OOP with 3 limpers because in 50/1 they are calling you, no matter what they have. So i just check and see a flop. It comes ace high with 2 spades. I could have check raised the flop, but it's a drawy board and i wasnt in the mood to play a big hand when i hadn't put any money into it. I never found out where i was in the hand, so i threw out a block bet of $7 into a $37 pot. He makes the call and flips over his k3...lol. That's not the real point of this post though. He begins to berate me for "slowplaying" And off we go.

rrob406 said, "don't slow play"
rrob406 said, "dumb as s"
trixter23 said, "LOL"
trixter23 said, "i wasnt"
trixter23 said, "its called a block bet"
trixter23 said, "and way to be limping utg with k3"
trixter23 said, "ur a great player"
rrob406 said, "lol"
rrob406 said, "dude there was 3 people in the hand"
trixter23 said, "u"
trixter23 said, "were"
trixter23 said, "utg"
rrob406 said, "i was last to call"
trixter23 said, "no u werent"
trixter23 said, "look at the hh"
rrob406 said, "i had a pair of 3s and a runner runner flush draw"
trixter23 said, "LOL"
trixter23 said, "ur still not getting it"
rrob406 said, "i'll play when i'm getting 4 to one on my money"
trixter23 said, "LOL"
trixter23 said, "im talking preflop genius"
rrob406 said, "i know i was first to call out of the blinds"
rrob406 said, "i'll play a k3 suited for a buck"
rrob406 said, "you should've raised preflop"
rrob406 said, "or at least raised after the flop"
SethNKim said, "well some ppl call $4 raise w/ q2 off"
rrob406 said, "exactly"
SethNKim said, "so i wouldnt be to mad w. the k3 siuted"
SethNKim said, "mr cash"
SethNKim said, "like q2 off"
rrob406 said, "i'll play for a buck"
trixter23 said, "lol"
rrob406 said, "it's just a buck"
trixter23 said, "ppl are so bad and have no clue"
rrob406 said, "who cares"
SethNKim said, "lol"
trixter23 said, "gl"
rrob406 said, "lol"
rrob406 said, "you just don't know how to protect a hand"
rrob406 said, "and you call me bad"
rrob406 said, "lol"
trixter23 said, "ok"
trixter23 said, "so ur telling me"
trixter23 said, "with 6 limpers"(exaggeration, i do it all the time)
trixter23 said, "and AQ in the bb"
trixter23 said, "ur gonna raise"
rrob406 said, "about 50% of the time"
rrob406 said, "i'll give you that"
SethNKim said, "theyll call anyways"
trixter23 said, "where are u gonna get urself"
trixter23 said, "ok the ace flops"
trixter23 said, "everyone calls"
SethNKim said, "yup"
rrob406 said, "but there's no excuse for not reraising after the flop"
trixter23 said, "ur oop"
trixter23 said, "why"
SethNKim said, "w/ q2 off"
rrob406 said, "lol"
trixter23 said, "u obv dont take position into account considering ur limping utg with k3"
rrob406 said, "yeah"
trixter23 said, "now say u raise the flop like u said"
rrob406 said, "protect your hand"
trixter23 said, "and u get 4 callers"
trixter23 said, "what u do on turn"
rrob406 said, "you bring it up to $10 after the flop"
trixter23 said, "cmon who are u kidding"
trixter23 said, "ur saying ull play k3"
trixter23 said, "theres 2 spades on the board"
rrob406 said, "then you can check on the turn if you're scared"
rrob406 said, "lol"
trixter23 said, "3 people arent goin anywhere for 10 bucks"
rrob406 said, "lol"
rrob406 said, "you make them pay to see a flush"
rrob406 said, "you know that's what they're on"
rrob406 said, "it's easy to fold if the flush comes out"
rrob406 said, "you have to make them pay to see it"
rrob406 said, "bottom line"
trixter23 said, "u just dont get it lol"
rrob406 said, "no sonny boy"
rrob406 said, "i'm trying to teach you"
trixter23 said, "that explaiuns it"(Now i'm starting to get disgruntled, no offense to older folks)
trixter23 said, "calling people sonny boy"
trixter23 said, "ur prob 50+"
rrob406 said, "and you have no clue"
trixter23 said, "go play 2-4 limit."
rrob406 said, "i give up"
rrob406 said, "if you don't want to learn how to play smart that's ok"
rrob406 said, "keep giving your money away"
trixter23 said, "from u, ill pass"
trixter23 said, "cuz u have no clue"
trixter23 said, "gl"

SIGH

Value Betting into the New Year

I played enough the last 3 days to make Platinum Star this month. I'm pretty confident i can get Supernova by summer time next year. I'm going to save up my FPP's so i can direct buy-in to the main event the following year. That would be pretty cool if I could actually persuade myself not to spend any of those FPP's.



The goal for next month might be a little bit modified. Looking at my schedule i don't know if I'm going to have the time to play as much as I would like. Either I'll postpone it till Feb or March, or make it a little smaller.

And to wisk everyone off into the New Year, I leave you with a nice hand I just played.

Dealt to trixter23 [Ac Ah]
tnhan: calls $1
JJJ's: raises $4 to $5
patmac611: folds
RBSurfer: folds
trixter23: raises $95 to $100 and is all-in
ccsboyz: folds
LS38: folds
gibbyholdem: folds
tnhan: calls $41.90 and is all-in
JJJ's: calls $95
*** FLOP *** [3s 8d 7d]
trixter23 said, "ROFL?"
*** TURN *** [3s 8d 7d] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [3s 8d 7d Td] [3h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
JJJ's: shows [Qs Qc] (two pair, Queens and Threes)
trixter23: shows [Ac Ah] (two pair, Aces and Threes)
trixter23 collected $114.20 from side pot
tnhan: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $127.20 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $244.40
Main pot $127.20.
Side pot $114.20. Rake $3
Board [3s 8d 7d Td 3h]
FlopSeat 2: tnhan mucked [Kd Kc]

Final Table in AC and a Ridiculous Call

I went down to AC tuesday to play in the daily tournaments over at the Showboat. I was very excited about the new structure that they have. That changed quickly when I saw how the structure changed very quickly. You do get 10k in chips like i said before, but the blinds increase entirely too rapidly. Each level lasts 20 minutes and the structure goes like this.

50-100
100-200
200-400
400-800
600-1200
800-1600
1200-2400
1500-3000
3000-6000
5000-10000
10000-20000

I played in the 11am tourney and busted like 34th or so. The structure was completely oblivious to me at the time and i had no chips on the jump from 400-800 to 600-1200 level. I hopped in the 2pm tourney and was just going to be super aggro. I was able to chip up fairly easily. I bludgeoned the final table bubble and went to the final table with the chip lead. There was this absolute psycho lady who was pulling shit out of her ass the whole tournament. I had the luxury of sitting next to her up until this time. I didn't get any hands the entire final table, and if i didnt get walks because of my stack i would have had to push with a shitty hand. We wound up in the money and went to break before the final 5 started play. At this time blinds were 10k-20k and i had only 37k. 2nd place had only 50k, and the crazy lady had about 80 percent of the chips in play. They wanted to chop, and when i think of chop im used to stars and their chip count chops. Well I was like theres no point for me to do one because im so short stacked i would want a premium. The one guy said no we could give her 700 and we do an even chop with us for 300. That was more than 3rd place money so i was happy about that.

Overall the play/structure sucks. I'll still play it when i go down, but I could venture from that in the future. One of the guys I was playing with was Brian O'Halloran. He was in Clerks. I thought that was pretty cool.

So i had come home from dinner at my aunts house and really didn't feel like playing entirely too much. So i hopped in a $15 MTT. I had a nice stack going, with a little under 7k going into the 200/400 level. Not in comfortable position, but not in dire need either.

The following hand came up and i had As Qd on the button. The important stacks are as follows. Antes are there i just didnt feel like pasting.

Seat 1: Telecommuter (8540 in chips)
Seat 6: StickyStaX (14980 in chips)
Seat 8: trixter23 (6829 in chips)
Seat 9: cakes75 (17728 in chips)
cakes75: posts small blind 200
Telecommuter: posts big blind 400

StickyStaX: raises 550 to 950 - I see this as an extremely weak raise about 80 percent of the time, and a strong raise about 20. It was this players first hand at this table and i thought he wanted to feel it out and see what he could get away with.

trixter23: raises 1849 to 2799 - So i bump it up 3x and make it 3k to go. I really don't want a call, just hoping to take the pot down now.

Telecommuter: calls 2399 - ???????? Ok, so the big blind cold calls my 3bet. I'm thinking/hoping if he had AA/KK he repops here all in. QQ maybe he calls for pot control??? I really don't know at this point. And i forgot to add, this guy insta called my re raise.

StickyStaX: folds - Original raiser folds, now we have position.

*** FLOP *** [Kc 6h Tc] - Ok this is a decent flop for me, i can represent AK here.

Telecommuter: checks
trixter23: bets 4005 and is all-in
Telecommuter: calls 4005 - I really don't have too much room to maneuver here so i just shove. There is a little over 10k in the pot and i WANT IT. He check/calls(EXCELLENT PLAY) here. I really thought he had Queens.

*** TURN *** [Kc 6h Tc] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [Kc 6h Tc 2s] [7h]
trixter23 said, "sigh"
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Telecommuter: shows [8s 8c] (a pair of Eights)
trixter23: shows [Qd As] (high card Ace)
trixter23 said, "8s"
Telecommuter collected 14983 from pot

So as you see he had 88. I know i didn't play the hand optimily, but he played it just downright awful.

I need about 1400 points for Platinum Star, for the VIP Club on stars this month. I will get it to set myself up for a nice starting run in January. I want to get supernova this year, which is very achievable.

Nightly Progress

I'm taking a little break right now, and there are some hands that I want to get down while its fresh in my head. Heres what the stats are lookin like tonight so far. I have been 4 tabling $200NL and playing 2 $100NL tables.




http://www.pokerhand.org/?686429 - This hand there is nothing much i can do. I really wanted to take this down pre flop, but got no respect and they both cold called. My image up to this point was a tight solid game, but no one had looked me up yet, so I thought it was a nice time to make a little squeeze play. When i flop my set there are 2 hands im worried about. QQ and AK. Axera was a pretty weak player, so i thought if he had aces he would have 4 bet pre flop. I wasn't sure exactly what westmore had. I made the push because i didn't want to second guess myself. And of course he calls with TPTK and hits his miracle card.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?686437 - So this hand was just nuts. There were 2 limpers and i made a position raise with 9T of spades. Sort of again wanting to take it down there. I could have bet a little more here possibly 10 or 11 dollars which would have been pot. We got a surprise when 2 people called to come along for the ride. Including the sb. This is a flop thats rarely going to hit anyone so i elect not to continuation bet. Which possibly could have been a mistake. I wanted the free card in case i was against 10s or jacks or something of that nature. The turn hits and its not something that would help anyone unless they have 4s. When snowdin makes the $12 bet into a $31 dollar pot you can read it as 1 of 2 things. It's either a probing bet to see where hes at, hes extremely weak, or maybe he has a made hand and lookin for someone to raise him. I'm always suspicious of those small bets and i read them as weakness. The problem here though is that he doesnt have much money left behind him. So if he does in fact push, im committed to the hand and i have to call. I make the raise and he pushes. And like usual we miss our 15 outer. I know i played the hand a little bad, but that guy has absolutely no reason to be in the hand at all. Calling a raise in the sb with QJ then 4 betting with COMPLETE air is ridiculous. Did he really think I was going to fold?

Here's a couple of standard plays I make.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?686456
http://www.pokerhand.org/?686458
http://www.pokerhand.org/?686459
http://www.pokerhand.org/?686462

I'm going to get back to playing and if anything interesting happens i'll be sure to post

Rocky 6 and the plan for January

I went to go see Rocky 6 tonight and i was very pleased. I really expected it to be much worse than it really was. This movie really should have been the last movie of the Rocky series instead of number 5 where he trains tommy gunn. I wont give away from any of the movie, but I do have 2 opinions. For being a "dopey" boxer, balboa does give some great speeches. He is a better motivator than anything else. In this last movie, he gives a couple more of those speeches which really is an inspiration. The second being, there should have been more of him training. You'll see in the movie why they didn't show AS much as say in the previous movies. But they could have done it a bit differently.

Overall, I thought it was a great way to close one of the great series' of all time. Again I don't want to give it all away, but in a couple weeks I'll post my full thoughts.

The second topic I wanted to discuss are my plans for January. I'm not too happy with the way I've been playing as a whole this month or how much I've been playing. I'm betting off lots of chips with just TPTK in unraised pots, etc etc. So to get back on my A game, I'll be setting a goal for January. I haven't done this in the past, but it's a good way to start getting on track.

When doing this though, I have to make a realistic goal. There's no point in saying, "I'm going to make 100k in 100 days", I'll leave that to bill ivey and those boys. For the stakes I play, I think a realistic amount of money is $5,000. My first month playing cash games in November, i made $2400 while only playing roughly 10k hands.

I'm very excited about this and I hope the readers(if any) of this blog will like it also. I'll be posting every day with up to the minute tally's of my dollar amount, hands, and other weird things.

Oh and the last thing, I'll be heading down to AC next week to play in a couple tournaments. It's going to be great with all those people going down with their xmas money and giving it back to the players. My favorite tourney over at the showboat just got 100x better. For $53+12 you start with 10k in chips now. Blinds start at 50/100 instead of 25/50 but i'd rather take the extra 5k in chips. Their weekend tourney is 105+15 i believe and you start with 15k. Maybe if i dont hit my goal for january ill punish myself. Maybe I'll only be able to play LIVE. Actually that would only make my BR bigger considering im awesome live. We'll see lol.

To close, i would like to say congrats to lucko on taking down the 109r the other day. It's the toughest tournament on the internet and to win it OUTRIGHT with NO CHOP, is a great accomplishment. I don't remember exactly how i started talking to him about hands and such but im glad i did. For aspiring poker players, hes a good mentor to have around. Head over to his blog at http://pokercash.blogspot.com to learn a few things.

Till next time, good luck at the tables!

PS - Here is a hint on why I haven't been playing as many MTT's the last 2 months. GG that guy

http://www.pokerhand.org/?684846

Early Morning Cash Game Session

A problem that i have is staying up way too late. If i don't keep a set schedule I'll just keep staying up later and later every night. That's where i found myself this morning when i logged on my computer at 6:30 am. The REAL problem with that is that I haven't gone to bed yet and I am supposed to get up at 8:45 to go play basketball at 10 o'clock. I'm definitely still going to play, but it's gonna be tough on absolutely no sleep.

I wanted to play some poker, but i really didn't feel like thinking too much. So i went down a couple of levels to .25/.50 and fired up 8 tables. Let me tell you, there is no reason why someone cant grind it out down here for a very nice profit. To show you what i mean, let me provide you with some screen shots.



This is my pokergrapher that i use in conjunction with PokerTracker and PAHUD. On the left is Net $ Won, and on the bottom is the amount of hands i played. I got in a solid 1 hour 20 minute session and was up $178 dollars at .25/.50. I think thats pretty decent dont ya think? I haven't played this low in a long time. I believe I'm gonna have to start playin there again. I was pounding on people left and right. Take a look at my tables and my stack sizes. Some may add up to more than 178, because i rebuy to the max everytime i dip below it.



Maybe later on today ill post some hands and some typical mistakes i see. I've been really meaning to do that, but i just havent had the time. Here is a shot of my session in pokertracker.

VIP SNG with Greg Raymer

My SNG with Greg Raymer was today. I took 2nd and a nice cash of $500. Raymer obv got the victory. It was kind of anti-climatic. Greg got practically handed chips the whole tournament. I can't complain either because the same thing happened to me. It would have been fun to play Greg heads up with even stacks but the guy who placed 3rd was in autofold mode, so i decided to take the extra 200 bucks instead of buck heads and only get 300. Lets get to the sit and go.

My feelings were mixed as far as my table position. I liked that marcus85 and omfi were right next to Greg, because it looked like they were my biggest competitors according to sharkscope.com. The problem was, if i wanted to steal or play pots in position, Greg would most likely be in the pot.

The First significant hand of the SNG was between Raymer and Marcus85. I don't particularly like Marcus' play here but you can judge for yourself.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?662229

Next, this hand came up http://www.pokerhand.org/?662232 I like my play here, but I'm not sure of my bet. I made it clear that I had a hand, but i believe its too much. With an utg limper. Then 5 callers I was surprised I didn't get more resistence. The blinds can be coming in with any 2 for pot odds and can easily have 34 k3 or k4. Even 3s or 4s could be likely. After that hand it put me 2nd in chips.

Probably the biggest hand of the tournament for me was next. I was in the button with KJ, and i wanted to start hitting the blinds. The flop couldn't have been better. He very well could have had a AJ here but sometimes it just hits ya, that you have the best hand sometimes. This was one of them. http://www.pokerhand.org/?662266

After that people just kept giving Greg Chips. I don't think he lost 1 race all day. That includes when he was behing with AQ vs AK. We got 4 handed and it was SUPER tough to get chips. Neither Sugerfoot nor the other guy wanted to play a pot so i was forced to try and get chips from Greg. Considering this was the only guy that could bust me i wasnt happy. It didn't help that i wasn't getting dealt. I wouldn't mind playing small pots with him, but i couldn't even do that. This is how it looked going 4 handed. I threw a GGGGGGG-Men in the chat because they were up 10-0 at the time.

As i said before, the other 2 weren't interested in playing. So i had to get my chips from somewhere. I decided to try and make a play on Fossil, but that didn't work out too well. No one really challenged him in a hand all day. I didn't think he hit the flop at all, but apparently he did hahaha. http://www.pokerhand.org/?662321

We got heads up with him having a 13-1 chip advantage, and it was over in a good 4 hands. I thought i played well with my holdings and got a nice payday of $500. For those who have a PXF Membership here is the link http://www.pokerxfactor.com/servlet/pxf?a=mv&t=myhand2&handid=35362 Those who would like the .txt file of my hand history can leave your email in the comment and ill send it to you.

Couple Hands

I had quite a few interesting hands i wanted to go over that happened during my session last night. I've been 8 tabling .50/1 lately because of my struggles. There were some hands i got lucky, but my opponent shouldnt have been in the hand anyway. Then there were some hands where i got guys to give me chips with air. I'll talk about why i made each move also.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

MP2 ($67.05)
CO ($151.10)
Button ($98.50)
SB ($22.95)
BB ($100)
trixter23 ($215.10)
UTG+1 ($94.45)
MP1 ($178.30)

Preflop: trixter23 is UTG with Ks, Kd.
trixter23 calls $1, 3 folds, CO calls $1, 1 fold, SB completes, BB checks.

Here this is pretty standard. Probably about 75% of the time i limp with aces and kings when I am in early position. I look for a raiser so I can 3 bet and hopefully take the pot down there. Aces and Kings are super hands in tournaments, but in cash games they are completely overplayed most of the time. Unfortunately we don't get that raiser, so we have to be aggressive, but proceed with caution.

Flop: ($4) Jh, 4h, 6h (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, trixter23 bets $3, CO calls $3, SB folds, BB folds.

Probably the worst flop i can get. I dont have a redraw, so I want to control the pot size so it doesnt get too large. I throw a $3 feeler bet out there and i get a insanely quick instacall. This means 1 of 2 things. He already has the nuts and im drawing pretty dead, or he is most likely on a draw with either the Kh or Ah.

Turn: ($10) Kc (2 players)
trixter23 bets $6, CO calls $6.

Pretty nice card for me, but I could still be in trouble and this card will hinder me from getting off the hand so easily. Again i got the quick insta call. I think by now if he had his flush, he would have raised here.

River: ($22) 3c (2 players)
trixter23 checks, CO bets $12, trixter23 calls $12.

Now this is a play I LOVE making. I'm about 90% sure I'm ahead here and i check. You do this because if your opponent was on a flush draw and you bet out again, hes not gonna call. Let your opponent make a mistake by trying to bluff and committ more money in the hand. So i let him bet 12 dollars and i call.

Final Pot: $46
Alchemy1600: shows [Ah Tc] (high card Ace)
trixter23: shows [Ks Kd] (three of a kind, Kings)

And just as we suspected, he shows high card ace with the ace of hearts and we take down a nice pot. Now next time when im in EP i will raise with AA or KK and next time maybe i have a suited connector or small pp ill limp in EP. You always have to mix up your play to keep everyone guessing.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

UTG ($87.05)
UTG+1 ($117)
MP1 ($149.35)
MP2 ($100)
MP3 ($24)
CO ($99.50)
trixter23 ($107.40)
SB ($94.25)
BB ($189.30)

Preflop: trixter23 is Button with 9c, Ac.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $1, 4 folds, Button raises to $4, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls $3.

This hand I was basically playing position with an Ace on the button. We do have to note tho that there was an EP limper.

Flop: ($9.50) 5c, Qc, Tc (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Button bets $4, UTG+1 raises to $8, trixter23 calls $4.

Well, it's always fun to flop the nuts. I have been making continuation bets the entire time so I still do it. I get a nice little surprise from our opponent, when i get insta mini raised. I really didn't know what he had at this point. Either he had the Kc, maybe he hit a set, I just don't know. I don't want to scare him away so i just flat call. Plus if he does have his set I don't want to throw a HUGE raise out there and be faced with a tough decision on the turn. Now remember, we always thought mini raise meant monster from our previous posts. But basically theres no reason to raise this at all.

Turn: ($25.50) 6h (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $15, Button raises to $40, UTG+1 calls $25.

When the turn bricks like this, now we have to pounce. The immediate bet out made me think he flopped a flush to. The odds of that are pretty slim tho. If he does have a set, hes gonna have to pay for it now. So we make a nice little 2.5x raise from his bet, and we get called.

River: ($105.50) 8h (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $35, Button raises to $55.4, UTG+1 calls $20.40.

Ok so we still have the nuts, and hes STILL betting into us, beautiful. This hand should be nominated for worst hand ever played on stars.

Final Pot: $216.30

trixter23: shows [9c Ac] (a flush, Ace high)

AZPatientMan: mucks hand

trixter23 collected $213.30 from pot

AZPatientMan leaves the table - yes u should leave the table

Seat 2: AZPatientMan mucked [Js 9h]

The only mistake i made during this hand was not getting to his name and putting in a note that said GIANT DONKEY quick enough before he left.

A Sit-n-Go with 2004 WSOP Champ Greg Raymer

Today was just disgusting. I was down about $500 in cash games overall. The spots that I got my money in were good and then i would lose to a higher set on the river or a flush etc etc. Here is an example

Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $1/$2
9 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $143.80
UTG+1: $153.70
MP1: $84.25
MP2: $148.20
MP3: $207.30
Hero: $270.75
Button: $177.65
SB: $134.15
BB: $230.60

Pre-flop: (9 players)
Hero is CO with 4♥ 4♠
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, MP1 calls, MP2 folds, MP3 calls, Hero calls, Button folds, SB calls, BB checks.

Flop: 4♣ 2♠ 8♥ ($12, 6 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG+1 checks, MP1 bets $10, MP3 folds, Hero calls, 3 folds.

Turn: K♣ ($32, 2 players)
MP1 bets $10, Hero raises to $24, MP1 calls.

River: T♦ ($80, 2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero is all-in $234.75, MP1 calls all-in $48.25.Uncalled bets: $186.5 returned to Hero.

Results:Final pot: $176.5
Hero showed 4h 4s
MP1 showed Th Ts

Hands like those have just been piling up all day. I dont even want to comment on his play.

So since becoming a Goldstar VIP on Stars(almost Platinum, probably wont get there this month), I decided to take advantage of the FPP store. For 15k FPP's I chose to play in a SnG with Greg Raymer. My choices were Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker, Tom McEvoy and Greg. I chose Raymer because in his previous sng's that hes played it looked like he went out 8 9 or 10th everytime. I wasn't selfish and took the money. The other Team Pokerstars members cashed a considerable amount.

The payouts for this sng are awesome. 1st is 1k, 2nd is 500, 3rd is 300, and 2nd is 200. Plus there is a $250 Bounty on Raymer. Blinds are 15 mins compared to 5 mins for a turbo sng or 10 mins for a regular one. I'm guessing other players in this arent going to know normal SNG strategy so i'm going to look to take advantage of that. Don't get me wrong, its nice to play with Greg, but its the money im after. The sng is December 10th, come rail if youd like and im sure you'll hear about a report the next day

A fun day

I hit kind of a snag in cash games the last day and a half or so. I was getting counterfitted by 4 board flushes and straights. So considering i didnt want to keep spewing money all over the place, i played hte $3 Rebuy yesterday. I just wanted to have fun and keep going all in most of the time, trying to accumulate a big stack. My plan was to just leave the tournament if i didnt have atleast 20k at the first break. I could a guy on rebuy tilt and it was hilarious. He was making it 1500 to go every hand from when i got switched to his table. He was atleast $113 dollars deep.



I was also playing in the $100k freeroll for the VIP's on Stars while this was going on and i had a nice stack while in the money. But i lost 2 huge races with AK vs 44 and 88 vs 66. I wound up cashing but not anything worth mentioning. I'll take free money though.

There was some ridiculous plays that i made on people that made them look goofy. I wound up getting 31st out of 2479 people. Not bad, but if you ever get that deep you want to make it to the final table and get a nice cash.

Next i think im gonna talk about some mistakes i see people make in cash games.

Just tons of hands.

I really haven't had much to post about at all. I think I've only played 3-4 MTT this month. It's been cash games to the max. 4-6 tabling 1-2 NL is where its at. I'm really surprised at how well im doing. Believe it or not, through 10k 1-2 hands im at 20.92 BB/hr. Which makes that even more remarkable is through 15k hands at .50/1 im at 6 bb/hr. That is pretty standard for that many hands, the 1-2 stats are just ridiculous.

The VIP club on stars is pretty cool. I usually was Silver Star when i made it, but I got to Gold Star in the first 2 weeks of the month. I was sick for a good week also and didnt play at all. I'm pretty confident i can get Platinum Star each month and eventually get to supernova next year sometime.

There hasn't been any cool or difficult hands that have come up lately. People play like such robots sometimes its easy to put them on a hand. Getting them off that hand is a different story.

In December the Circuit is coming to Harrah's Atlantic City. I'm thinking about going down for 4-5 Pre-Lim events, then trying to satellite into the Main Event. If anyone is going down let me know.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and with that comes the greatest high school rivalry in the Nation. I played in it, my brother played in it, my cousin played in it. And even some years later my good buddies play for Easton when i played. I can't express how much this game means to the players, community, alumni, fans, just everyone. This is the only game that matters on the schedule every year. If you go 0-11, and win this game, you had an alright season because you beat Easton.

In 2001 during my senior year when we won the State Championship at Rutgers, the feeling was unreal. I'll tell you what though, it was nothing compared to running out in front of 20-25000 fans at Lafayette on T-Day. It was the closest probably 95% of our team would get to play in a big time college football game.

The game means so much that Easton is playing 3 games in 8 days for the 2nd time in 3 years. This isn't basketball or baseball where you can play day after day. These are the 3 toughest games on their schedule each year. They dont put off the T-day game, because its tradition. Even though i went to Phillipsburg, I give Easton all the credit in the world for doing that.

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the storied rivalry. To commemorate that, ESPN2 will be covering the game NATION WIDE. Festivities are running rampant all over the place. There is tons of news about this. Just pop in Phillipsburg vs Easton in google. Here is 1 story

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/columns/story?columnist=gola_henry&id=2670517

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and I'll depart with just 2 words.....

BEAT EASTON!

Royal Flush

I just thought this was cool to show. This was my first Royal Flush on Stars and 2nd ever. Ya gotta love when people are betting into you also haha.

More Cash Hands

As you all know, I'm a huge advocate of knowing where your money is going to come from. Although this primarily comes into play more in tournaments, there are certain people at full ring cash games that you know will pay you off once you hit a hand. In conjunction with that theory, I tend to want to get in more pots with those people and play some speculative hands in speculative spots. Knowing that if i hit, they are going to pay me off. I was playing this morning when i found one of these players. Keep in mind this is one of the huge reasons i only like to play a max of 4 tables at once in cash games. Any more than that and i cant pick up on player tendencies. When i see people playing 8-12 tables in cash games, its so funny how robotic their play is. So lets take a look at 2 hands.

Seat 4: trixter23 ($134.55 in chips)
Seat 7: Villain ($58.65 in chips)

Dealt to trixter23 [Qc Ac]
trixter23: calls $1

I'm utg here and i do NOT like playing hands OOP in cash games. Id rather limp, and call a raise.

Villain: raises $2 to $3
Villain 2: calls $2.50
trixter23: calls $2

*** FLOP *** [6c Ad 9s]
advanced: checks
trixter23: checks
leebaby8: bets $3
advanced: folds
trixter23: raises $6 to $9
leebaby8: calls $6

Lets take a look at what i did here. I chose to show maximum strength on this hand, because i want to find out where I'm at in the hand very quickly. This could get very unprofitable, very quickly. Given his flat call, I pretty much assumed he had an Ace here. I was kind of worried about an A6 or A9, but he didn't seem like the type of player who would raise in EP with that type of hand.

That leaves us with AT-AK. I cant see him having AK, cuz he would have repopped me after i check raised. AJ or AT seem more realistic at this point, but I can still see A2-A9.

*** TURN *** [6c Ad 9s] [5h]
trixter23: bets $8
leebaby8: calls $8

There is $27 dollars in the pot and I want to get to a showdown. I bet a very little amount, less than a 1/3rd of the pot to see if he would raise. When he didn't I was pretty sure I had the best hand.

*** RIVER *** [6c Ad 9s 5h] [4d]
trixter23: bets $8
Villain: calls $8

trixter23: shows [Qc Ac] (a pair of Aces)
Villain: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $57.15 from pot
Seat 7: Villain mucked [As Th]

I make the same bet on the river and he calls. He shows AT and I take down a nice little $57 dollar pot. We found our player, time to exploit him.

Our boy has reloaded to $70 now and is ready for a 2nd go.

Seat 4: trixter23 ($177.20 in chips)
Seat 7: Villain ($65.95 in chips)

trixter23: posts small blind $0.50
Big Blind: posts big blind $1

Dealt to trixter23 [9c 7c]
Villain: raises $2 to $3
trixter23: calls $2.50

Ok, so our mark makes another EP raise and I elect to play a pot with him. Cards didn't really matter, I knew if i hit with anything he was going to pay me off.

*** FLOP *** [9h Jd 7h] - Thank you lee!

trixter23: checks
Villain: bets $4
trixter23: raises $8 to $12
Villain: raises $50.95 to $62.95 and is all-in
trixter23: calls $50.95

I wasn't surprised by this push at all by him. I check raised again and he just pushes his last 62 all in. Now all we need is the bored to brick. I thought he maybe had QQ here. Other than that a Jack with a big kicker.

*** TURN *** [9h Jd 7h] [6d]
*** RIVER *** [9h Jd 7h 6d] [8h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trixter23: shows [9c 7c] (two pair, Nines and Sevens)
Villain: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $129.90 from pot

Seat 7: Villain mucked [Jc As]


And that my fellow players, is how you exploit the weak.

Cash Games

Nothing really new to report. I've been playing TONS of hands in cash games the last week or so. It has been very profitable so far, and i hope it continues to be. I purchased PokerTracker and PokerAce Hud mainly for cash games. I like the way they put the stats under the player way better than PokerOffice. I'll post some HH's in a day or so and check back with everything.

Holy Heater

I've been crushing Sit-n-Go's the last few days on Stars. I've played all turbos. Stats are as follows..

#: 35
$Won: $383.40
Net $Won: $155.90
ROI%: 68.53
ITM%: 51.43
1ST: 10
2ND: 5
3RD: 3

I have blown through 365 of the 6 dollar turbo's and want to play them until 500 or more. Just because it would give me a little ceiling for when i move up. I wish Stars had 11 dollar turbo's instead of going right to 15. I'm easily bankrolled for it, but variance is always a bitch.

There has been a lot of talk about Bubble play lately in a lot of places. Well i just finished a sng for the ages. This is probably the best bubble i have ever played. For PXF members heres the link, for everyone else ill post a detailed description after Lost.

Here is the Link

Victory! - Another FT with a win..

It might have been a sign by Lee Jones this morning that got me up and playing on Stars. I was tossing and turning for about an hour until i finally said F it and stopped trying to fall back asleep. We kept playing solid and found ourselves at the 2nd Final Table of the week.



I took out half the players in the final 9 and got heads up with wyatt. I made some nice plays but found myself down a little over 4.5-1 in chips. We played maybe 30 hands before going on a 5 minute break. I re-grouped and devised a nice little strategy for wyatt based on his tendencies. 1st was $920 and 2nd was $579. It was quite a bit difference but i wanted to use that to my advantage to bully him around. Within 20 hands i had a 1 million to 300k chip lead. I won an all in to put me up to 500k and it was just sheer aggression at the end. I'll discuss some hands later this week, but for now we got football on. For those who have a PokerXFactor subscription, my HH is posted on the replayer.



P.S. - Oh yeah I'm 9th on the TLB for this week, considering it just started today! lol

Game 7 - Final Table

I wanted to watch Game 7 of the NLCS with the Cardinals vs Mets, so i didn't want to get into anything to enthralling. Although I still wanted to play. Pizza was on the way and we had a $1 MTT starting. I thought why not. I wasn't really expecting anything much but I still wanted to play my regular game. 4 hours later and with the Mets about to bat in the Bottom of the 9th down 3-1, we arrived here...



The play here wasnt the greatest considering the $1 entry. It was a good chance at picking spots and practicing the end game. My table position was phenomenal. I couldn't have asked for anything more. All the big stacks were to the right of me and all the small stacks were the left. The 2nd hand of the final table was a pretty good one and shows the type of play i encountered through out the night. I had raised pre flop to $10,099, and the big blind just flat called. The flop came coordinated. You definitely can't slow play these types of boards. He had 24k left behind him and i bet $19,999, essentially putting him all in. He made the call and was drawing dead here...



After that hand i couldn't really get anything going. I was up to 113k and just got blinded. I tried making a move and fell down to 60k. Blinds got up to 3k/6k and i had 9 bb's left. I pushed with A4 into a buttom limper and he called with K3 haha. He hit his king and i was out. Oh and the mets lost considering their 100 million dollar man struck out with the bases loaded hahaha.

A Sit-n-Go dissected.

A couple of people have asked how i play sng's lately. I'm going to use one that i won yesterday. I haven't watched it again yet, so i get a fresh perspective to see if i played some hands good or bad. A few tidbits before i begin.

1) Value bets are few and far between in the lower sng levels. I would say about 80 percent of the time you can get all of someones chips if they hold TPTK.

2) I don't raise as often as i normally would because you're getting 3-4 callers no matter how you put it. I'll limp in with almost any hand except for aces or kings. That includes JJ and QQ. They are just a pair.

3) You NEVER want to get down to 5 bb's. You have the minimum amount of flexibility and fold equity when you get down that low. Often when i have 8-10 bb's and its folded to me, i'm pushing with any 2.

4) Bubble play is key. This is where you win and lose the tournament in my opinion. The big stack should be pushing almost every hand. The short stacks can't afford to call with a bad hand because they wouldn't get "paid".

This tournament only lasted 51 hands. So let's take a look at this sit and go.

1) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560732 - Ok, so we get As Qs in the sb with 2 limpers. kplunk mini raises to 40, pete calls. Normally if we were farther in the tournament this would be an easy over the top move for all my chips. We simply don't need to do that on the first hand of the tournament. If i flop an ace, ok i may have the 2nd best hand. If i flop a queen, even better i most likely have the best hand. The problem with this flop is that people LOVE to play ace rag. I decided to check raise in this spot because i belive it shows more strength than just betting out. If i bet out all 3 could possibly call and i would have no idea where i was at in the hand. If i get re raised here than i can easily toss the hand because im not invested at all. Our raise takes down the pot.

2) Jh 3h - Fold

3) 7d 2s - Fold

4) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560746 - We get KK in cutoff+1. I make it 120 to go here. Players at this level don't respect raises what so ever, so it has to be a significant raise for them to fold early on. Brad48 calls and we see a flop. Not a good flop for Kings. We dont need to try and outplay him, we check and he bets right out. Ill fold here almost every time. You just don't need to get involved this early unless you have an absolute monster.

5) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560750 - Now I'm dealt JJ. I had just raised the previous hand. Like i said before i'm usually going to limp here hoping for that 3 J A flop so I can get all my chips in. We didn't hit and there is an overcard on the bored so we fold.

6) 5c 9s - Fold

7) 2h 7h - Fold

8) Jh Tc - Fold

*Blinds are up to 25/50. Now we have to start watching where our stack is in coherence with the blinds. This is VERY important*

9) Kc Qh - In the big blind and we get to see a flop. We miss and fold. 31 BB's

10) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560764 - This is one of the main reasons why i rarely complete in multiway pots like these. Once the jack on the turn comes, it would be difficult for someone to get away from that hand. The 9d Td limp utg is bad and the Jh 5h call from ep is even worse. We lose a person here and we go 8 handed. 29 BB's

11) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560772 - Typical stuff. Virum is actually the only player that i recognize at this table. He knows what hes doing in these sng's and if i dont hit i have to give him respect for a hand. 26 BB's

12) 9h Ts - Fold

13) 9s 5h - Fold

14) Ac Ah - Raise to 300 with blinds 50/100 and everyone folds. 15 BB's

15) 7h 8s - Fold

* So the blinds have snuck up on us pretty fast. We've gone from 26 bb's to 15 very quickly.

16) 2c 6h - Fold

17) 5c 2c - Big blind and we fold - 12 BB's

18) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560780 - I make a 2.5 times raise to get him in the pot. If he has a queen here than gl to him. We don't want to get cute and let cards rattle off. 15 BB's.

19) 3s 5s - Fold

20) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560783 - A key hand in the tournament. My thoughts here were that if he had AJ he would have been all in pre flop. Any ace in the blinds and there is a raise in late position and people love to just throw their chips in. This is as good as a flop you're going to get with 10s here. He doubles us up, and we're in the clear for now. 31 BB's

21) 7c 6c - Fold

22) 4d 6d - Fold

23) 9h 5s - Fold

24) As 3c - Fold

25) Kc 3s - In the big blind. The flop comes Qc 9d 6s, sb checks i bet 150 he folds. If he calls there, im usually done with the hand. In these spots its the first one who bets at these pots usually wins. 33 BB's.

*Ok now blinds are at 100/200. This is one of my main goals to get to this level. If i get to here unscathed(spelling) we have a good shot atleast cashing. Somehow we're still 8 handed. Usually 2-3 people are gone by now.

26) Qd 6c - I mini raise and take the guys blind 18 BB's.

27) Tc 6d - Fold - and we lose 2 players on the hand. 18 BB's.

28) 9s 2d - Fold

29) 9c 6h - Fold - guy to our left doubles up to 800.

30) 6h 5d - Fold - Guy to our left wins another pot

31) Ks Kc - utg and we make it 700 to go. I don't like being utg witht his type of hand so we make it 3.5 times and take the pot which is fine. 21 BB's

32) 8h 5h - in the BB and fold.

33) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560803 - You only need to make it 2 1/2 times the blind here. If he comes over the top, you could argue both ways for a call and a fold. He only has 1520 more behind so it would be getting 2.5-1 to call. But it is half hour stack. How much would me taking his chips help me in winning the tournament. Probably a good deal. But if i lose im down to 2k in chips and pretty much in push fold mode. He folds and we're at 21 BB's

34) Jd 4d - Fold

35) 10d 6c - Fold

36) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560817 - We luck out for once and catch a 4 on the turn to take out probably the strongest player other than me at the table. He could be pushing with any 2 there and KJ qualifies as any 2. It was 700 more to win 2805 so it was a very easy call. Now we're at T5635 and have 28 BB's.

* At this point we're down to 5 players. We really have to start punishing the smaller stacks at this point. Then when we get to 4 players, we could be going all in every hand with any 2. They want to cash so they aren't going to call with bad hands.

37) Ad 3s - Fold

38) As 3c - Fold - We lose another and are on the bubble.

*Lets look at the stacks right now. To my left there is T2245. 2 to my left is T610. 3 to my left is T1715. And to my right we have T3520. This is the ideal chip position you want to be in. The biggest stack other than you on your right and all the small stacks on the left.

39) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560832 - Personally i didn't like the play here by either player. They both are in push fold mode. Even if you have a monster like KK you have to play like you have any 2. Say I'm in the bb here. I call with 36 and the flop comes 3 6 T. You're getting your money in either way with KK and your game is over. If you raised i wouldn't have entered the pot and you would have lived to see more hands. This is one of the biggest flaws i see in these sng's.

* Now we're 4 handed and the bubble play begins. We have Pete with 3520 to our right, debt with 4120 to our right and road with only 585 chips. This is looking like a poor bubble. What i would normally do is double up roadking so i can really abuse the bubble and be set when we get 3 handed. Blinds have also got up to 200/400 so we only have 13 BB's

40) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560839 - Ok so here we go. debt CAN NOT call my all in with a shortstack to his left unless he has Aces. That's the only thing he can all with in that spot. Roadking pretty much has to call with any 2 here considering 90 percent of his stack is in the middle. I was hoping he would win the hand just so i could get more chips from the bubble. 15 BB's

41) Qc Td - In the BB, we still play the same way we always do. No need to get crazy and be calling all ins with overs. UTG makes it 1600 to go with 3s and has 2285 behind. It would be a race but a race we dont need to get involved in. 14 BBs

42) Jc 5d - In the sb, i push because he sees pete has a lower chip stack than he does so hes going to try and stall to get more money. 15 BBs

43) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560854 - We are the big stack, so we're going to be the aggressor. I'm raising every hand until they figure out what im doing. It doesn't have to be a big raise because we arent calling an all in with 10c 5h. You want to be able to get away from the hand if you want to. With smarter players you would have to switch it up every time, but at this level they dont know any better. 17 BBs

44) We get a walk in the big blind with Q7. Thats what you get when you're big stack.

45) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560865 - No reason to call here, we move on to the next hand.

46) 8d 3d - Fold - I give them a break to show that i wont be pushing every hand even tho i will be. Good thing i didn't because debt doubled up pete when pete's A6 flopped a 6 against deb'ts A5.

47) Jh 2h - Fold - 2 all ins in front of us, easy fold. pete flops a set and we're now heads up.

48) All we do here is watch his stack and ours. Under Ten and its all in any 2. Same for him. Right now we're outchipped 7330 to 6145. Not that big of a deficit.

48 - a) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560879 - I'm gladly getting my chips in here. We have 16 outs and not going anywhere. We hit 2 times and the sng is pretty much over. We just have to avoid being unlucky.

49) T7 vs Q7 he wins. My stack is at 10,265 he has it 1210.

50) He folds for some reason my stack is at 12290 hes at 210. That was a really bad fold by him. He has to be pushing with any 2.

51) http://www.pokerhand.org/?560885 - And thats the end of that.



Well we got lucky once and the bubble was easy. I will try and find one of these where i really attack the bubble and get up to 9 or 10k when we get 3 handed. If you have any questions leave em in the comments section or shoot me an email.

Downfall....to Recovery

I'm pretty sure lucko passed his downswing over to me because last week i was completely off. It wasnt that i was playing bad, the cards weren't just going my way. You can't really do anything about it. When you flop middle set with Jacks, on a Kd Jc 6s board, then your opponent check raises you for all his chips with As 9s and catches runner runner to get his flush and knock you out, what are ya gonna do? No matter where i went on pokerstars i didnt stand a chance. Whether it was my bread and butter $10 sng's, turbo's, or cash games. I didn't have a chance in hell.

The problem was that i wasnt dropping limits, i was playing the $16 turbo's. Now i am easily bankrolled for these but i dont want to start playing them. So what did i do you ask? I cashed out all my money except for 50 buyins to play the $10 regular sng's exclusively. I have always been a player who can obide by great bankroll management. Well that didn't work out so well, considering i played the $30 deepstack and a few $20 sng's and found myself down to $417.

This is where you find out about yourself. You're in the worst downswing of your life, how are you going to react? Are you going to blow the roll? Are you going to keep playing and work through it? I chose to drop down limits once again to the $6 turbo's. This time i switched something around though. Instead of playing 3-4 i started playing 8-10 games at a time. This actually turned out to be a +EV decision. If you looked at my sharkscope stats last week, it was all - scores. Now everything is looking up again.

I'm not going to post stats, because they are good, but its a small sample size and i dont want to get ahead of myself. Everyone has their way of coping with a dowswing, hopefully yours wont be the end of your poker career.

Couple Different Things

Hey everyone. I have been playing a little bit of everything the last 2 weeks or so, to try and get a definitive answer on what the best way to make a consistent profit online is. MTT are pretty tough at the limits i play. Its much harder to go through a minefield of people who have no idea what they're doing.

I was playing $.50/$1 and was beating the game pretty easily but my sample size is too small. The next day i wound up giving $200 back of the $500 i had one the day before. I think i need a larger bankroll to be playing cash games online.

Then we have sng's. I took a shot at a $30 regular sng and got 4th. I bubbled when my 55 got outraced by AT when he hit his 10 on the river. So i was tryin the $6 speeds again, and i think i finally got how to play them down. My last 8 results look like this.

Type Entry Entrants Profits

Turbo $6 9 $20.50
Turbo $6 9 $20.50
Reg $4 180 $4.24
Turbo $6 9 $9.70
Turbo $6 9 $4.30
Turbo $6 9 $20.50
Turbo $6 9 -$6.50
Reg $20 9 $14

I am currently easily bankrolled for the $15's and almost the $27's but i want to get my technique down before i move up. This graph is from sharkscope. Note from the 700th Sng on is when i joined PXF. So i guess im making huge strides in my sng play. Because the Regular sng's take so long if i master these turbo's it will be a great thing. Good luck everyone.

Well Played

http://www.pokerhand.org/?542251

The Re-Squeeze

I was playing a 6 man Pot Limit Hold-em tournament on stars the other day when this hand came up. There is a few cool tidbits in this hand that i can talkin about. Lets set up the situation. It's the 4th level of the tournament and we need to start accumulating chips. My table image is Semi-Tight Aggressive showing down some hands that are good and others that i had re raised in spots with suited connectors and cracked some people hands when they flat called. The blinds are at 50/100. Here are the chip stacks.

Seat 1: JSharpton (4615 in chips)
Seat 2: Tristsomfaen (1810 in chips)
Seat 4: XT@TX (2205 in chips)
Seat 5: trixter23 (6720 in chips)
Seat 6: J . Be Good (2235 in chips)
trixter23: posts small blind 50
J . Be Good: posts big blind 100

JSharpton: raises 100 to 200

I'm in the small blind and UTG mini raises to 200. Unlike in some of my previous posts' this mini raise is a little bit different. Im not reading strength from this guy because he plays an extremely laggy style. I could put him on a very wide range of hands. It's folded around to me and i pick up

Dealt to trixter23 [Ac Ah]

Now i have some deciding to do. Lets eliminate the over the top push from consideration because hes not commited to the pot and he has a deep stack, so he can get away from the hand very easily. Also he may be raising on air. Now lets look at the big blind. What do we know about this player? Coincidentally we've been in this spot before. UTG has mini raised, ive flat called and the big blind has raised it up the size of the pot or gone all in. We both folded and he showed rags. I do this play also, but you better be sure i have a hand the next time i do it. My job is to get someones chips in the middle, hopefully pre flop, and if its not a scary board, on the flop. I really want to play my aces against 1 person and not 2. So i elect to flat call in the small blind hoping that the BB will try another squeeze play. If the board comes and i get resistance i may have to fold. Don't overplay your aces in a multi-way pot, remember its just a pair.

JSharpton: raises 100 to 200
Tristsomfaen: folds
XT@TX: folds
trixter23: calls 150
J . Be Good: raises 600 to 800

Excellent. Now we're pretty sure we're gettin J. Be Good's chips in the middle considering he has 1/3 his stack in the pot. If im in that situation i either go broke or win the pot. Lets see what sharpton does. If he raises, i could win a huge pot. If he folds, thats fine also. If he calls then what? He could flop a flush draw, or a set or whatever else he could be raising with.

JSharpton: calls 600

So he flat calls. A flat call shows strength to me. If he had a weaker holding he probably would have re raised to isolate him and the big blind. So we go ahead and re raise the pot.

trixter23: raises 2400 to 3200

Now im tellin sharpton that if he wants to see a flop hes playing for all his chips. I created a 2nd squeeze play in the small blind. We got pretty much what we wanted, maybe even a little bit more.

J . Be Good: calls 1435 and is all-in
JSharpton: folds

J. Be Good gets his chips in but unfortunately sharpton folds. I'm not sure what he could have had there. He saw be good shove 1/3 his chips in to.

*** FLOP *** [Qd Kh 4s]
*** TURN *** [Qd Kh 4s] [As]
*** RIVER *** [Qd Kh 4s As] [5s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trixter23: shows [Ac Ah] (three of a kind, Aces)
J . Be Good: shows [8h 8s] (a pair of Eights)
J . Be Good is sitting out
trixter23 collected 5270 from pot

By paying attention and watching how my opponents play, I took down a very nice pot. They put you here...

Party Final Table

I've actually been playing more steadily on party poker this week then i have at stars. Its so donkilicious over there. I entered a $5 freezeout and eventually made it to the Final Table, and in good shape for that fact.



The table was tight all around except for jwttw. He was the definity of USLAM(Ultra Super Loose Aggressive Machine). He was calling players all ins with 78 and hands like that, which was a significant portion of his stacl. I managed to stay away from him the whole time. There was 1 hand though where he mini raised and i had KQ in the bb. He would play Ax in any position on the table. I flopped a King and he rivered an ace after just flat calling my bets on the flop and the turn with no pair no draw. I lost a 1/3 my stack there. I got right back into the swing of things tho and was stealing blinds and antes left and right. Then doubled up with AA to USLAM's A9. I stayed out of trouble and just kept climbing. The problem was, party's blind structure is glitched. We got to break and Blinds were about to be 40k/8k.

It was the Final 4 and one of the guys asked to look at numbers. I said sure and went into the deal box. As soon as i saw the numbers i laughed and was like, "OK, lets get back to playing so i can raise 1/2 my stack when i have a good hand". Heres what the chop looked like.

In my opinion, the chip leader and 2nd in chips got the bad end of this deal. I took the +EV move considering the blinds. 2nd turned out to be $630. I wound up taking $544. Risking gettin sucked out on by USLAM wasnt my idea of going out in a good way. If you could comment on the chop that would be great.

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG-MEN!!!!

Prediction
Giants 17 - Eagles 14

Party .10/.25 Cash Games

I always knew about the gold mine at party, i just never found it. Well last night i believe i did. I wasn't in the mood to play any sit and go's so i went cash games. I don't have that much money on party since i always take it out of there. Thats all my bankroll on there can allow.

Anyway, i fire up 4 games and go to work. I started out fairly tight as always, just seeing how people are playing. Premium cards started to come and i would raise it up, and probably about 75% of the time everyone would fold to a continuation bet. After that i pretty much was playing any 2 in position. Everyones play was so predictable and it was easy to take pots.

Last night i played for approximately 2 hours. Without hitting any flops i was happy about my results.

Table 1: 1 hr 56 mins - $Won +$17.23 $Won/Hr +$8.91
Table 2: 1 hr 59 mins - $Won +$18.08 $Won/Hr +$9.12
Table 3: 1 hr 58 mins - $Won +$14.85 $Won/Hr +$7.93
Table 4: 1 hr 55 mins - $Won +$3.15 $Won/Hr +$1.64

I forgot to mention im playing full ring and not 6 max. I got up this morning and as you saw in my previous post, its a HUGE college football day. Cash games are perfect because you can get up and leave whenever you want. So i fired up party and got to the cash games. I hit a sick run of cards and i left up 60 bucks in 75 hands.

Table 1: 14 mins - $Won -$.40 $Won/Hr -$1.71
Table 2: 15 mins - $Won +$5.20 $Won/Hr +$20.80
Table 3: 17 mins - $Won +$11.76 $Won/Hr +$41.51
Table 4: 20 mins - $Won +$42.15 $Won/Hr +$126.45


This is only through 693 hands and i imagine ill hit a bad patch. I had a few other sessions also in between there and here are the rest of the stats.

Hands: 693
WonHands%: 14.43%
SawFlop%: 24.1%
$Won: $111.54
$Won/Hand: .16
BB/100 Hands: 32.19
WonSawFlop%: 59.88%
Showdowns%: 3.61%
ShowdownsWon%: 72.0
PreFlopRaise%: 12.82%

Good luck on the tables!

Good Night

I had a pretty good night. I was in the $5 rebuy, and 2 $7.70 PLO 300 Max Tournaments. The $5 Rebuy i couldnt really get anything going during the first hour. During the second hour i managed to triple up on 1 hand when i had aces. I wound up just cashing after going card dead. I think i got like 178th which is pretty bad, but i took about 55 dollars and i was in for 15.

The $7.70 PLO's were pretty easy. I did forget to mention it was PLO HI/LO. I was just card dead in the one and finished 18th of 300. The other one i managed to Final Table and got 7th. I could have gone deeper, but i was bludgeoning my table while we were 12-10 handed. The last hand before we went to the final 9, i had my whole stack in the middle with AAK3 double suited, but of course i got drew out on. I wound up going out a short time later. Overall a decent night though.

We have season tickets for the Giants and i was at the game sunday night. I'll tell you what, that please was L-O-U-D. I've been to lots of games, including the nfc championship game and a couple other playoff games, and this was by far the loudest its been. It was a very tough loss. But the G-Men shot themselves in the foot not once but several times. Yes there was a phantom pass interference call on Tim Carter, but it could have been avoided. 3rd and 2 with 4:34 on the clock and they are throwing the ball for what reason? Get the first down then come out gunnin. You miss there and what you're going to go for it on our own 35? It was a bad play call. Next up for us are the Eagles on Sunday.

This saturday is going to be awesome. We have several HUGE matchups.

#3 Auburn vs #6 LSU
#2 Notre Dame vs #11 Michigan
#12 Louisville vs #17 Miami
#15 Oklahoma vs #18 Oregon
#20 TCU vs #24 Texas Tech
#19 Nebraska vs #4 USC
#7 Florida vs #13 Tennessee

On another note i got yet another new monitor. This Samsung 20" LCD Widescreen. I can 4 table on this one w/out overlap which will be key.

We'll Never Forget

September 11th, 2001. Everyone remembers where they were on this fateful day. Some were at work, others at school. No matter where you wound up on this day, by the end of it, our country would be changed forever.

At this time i was a Senior in high school. The day started off like any other. Then i walked into my 2nd period Photography class and seing my teacher just staring awe-struck at the television. It was 8:49 am. Apparently a plane had just hit the World Trade Center in New York. No one at this point knew what else would unfold. Some said it was just a freak accident, but questions were already starting to fly. At first most students werent that worried. It was more about the fire than anything else. Then approximately 25 minutes later as we were still watching the 1st tower burn, another plane came out of no where and struck the 2nd Tower. Another half hour goes by, now the Pentagon has been struck by a "plane". This is when everyone knew, something was terribly wrong.

Reports keep flowing in about possible hijackings from terrorists. Everyone at the site is in complete panic, not knowing what to do. You see people running with wounds on their heads through the streets of New York. Then another plane crashes into a field in Pennsylvania. As i look around the room at my friends, the same fateful look on each and every face, I didn't know what to expect next. One thing we all knew though, America was under attack..or were we?

I'm going to link everyone to a video at the end of this post that i STRONGLY urge everyone to watch. The evidence and coincidences that arise in this film are just absolutely astounding. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so you can draw your own conclusions. I do believe the video speaks very strongly for itself.

Everyone says another attack is imminent. Are we going to be prepared this time? Or can the government not prepare the nation for their own attacks?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501&q=9%2F11&hl=en

http://www.loosechange911.com

For now thats all, to all the families who lost loved ones, the fireman, policeman, every live that was lost..God Bless you.

Different way

Im going to have to post my stats in a little different way. It would be too confusing if i posted in sets of 20 instead of just doing it for the day. My stats are going to be a little flawed because of it. I'll still do for the day, then overall. Considering i have to start this over, its showing 30 sng's played. I actually played 14 today so far. I've gotten 2nd so many times its disgusting. A few i could have avoided, the others were just bad luck. But i cant control everything.

Today

Played: 30
$Won: $253.80
Net $Won: $58.80
ROI%: 30.15
ITM%: 56.67
1ST: 2
2ND: 7
3RD: 8

Overall

Played: 66
$Won: $567
Net $Won: $138
ROI%: 32.17
ITM%: 54.55
1ST: 7
2ND: 12
3RD: 17

An OK day..

I only played 16 sng's today because i was doing other things. I got unlucky in 3 with pre flop all ins with AA or KK in the first 5 hadns and people called with small pairs or connectors and got lucky. So my ROI hurt because of it.

Today

Played: 16
Total $Won: $129.60
Net $Won: $25.60
ROI%: 24.62%
ITM%: 50.0
1ST: 2
2ND: 2
3RD: 4

Total

Played: 52
Total $Won: $442.80
Net $Won: $104.80
ROI%: 31.01%
ITM%: 51.92%
1ST: 7
2ND: 7
3RD: 13

Bankroll Building

So i haven't written on the blog in a good week and couple days. I've been brainstorming and playing different MTT's and tournaments and even on a few different sites. For some reason i cant get anything going on Party. I would love to be able to maximize the fishyness there but it's just not happening. Full Tilt might be profitable in the long run. I really like their $6 18 man tournaments where the top 4 get $24+2 tournament tokens. Then you play any $24 dollar tournament for 6 bucks. I wish you could trade or sell these tokens for cash.

Then we have Pokerstars. I'll never leave their site. Everything all around is high class and thats the reason why they are number one in the industry. The problem is, i don't know what i want to play to start building. I've been playing various levels of SNG's and some MTT's. You cant really build a good bankroll by playing the low limit MTTs. This is where variance is the greatest. I would love to do cash games, but for some reason im not as good as when i play them live. I did grab a subscription to cardrunners to help that out. They have some great videos along with PXF.

That pretty much leaves me with SNGs. Like I said, i did play various levels and i think im going to stick with the $6 Turbo's for the time being. The $3 turbo's i can play 8 at a time, but my ROI isnt the greatest. Although my ITM% is still around 47%. I might also try the $10 non turbo sng's also. My stats in those are freakishly good. I'm going to keep progress on this blog with all my stats for them. I want to play atleast 20 a day and i only 3 table them. From what ive seen i play my best, can still stay attentive and know what other players are doing at the table. I've played 8 today so far and here are my stats.

Total SNG Played: 8
Total $ Won: $118.80
Net $ Won: $66.80
ROI% : 128.46%
ITM% : 75%
1st Place : 3
2nd Place : 1
3rd Place : 2

When i accumulate all my $6 sng's my stats look like this. Keep in mind this is a very small sample size and dates back from before i went to vegas.

Total SNG Played: 36
Total $ Won: $313.20
Net $ Won: $79.20
ROI%: 33.85%
ITM%: 52.78%
1st: 5
2nd: 5
3rd: 9

My ROI could be better, but like i said i didnt implement some of the strategies i used today back then. Also i was 8 tabling them before so my ROI should go up. These sng's usually average about 35 minutes, so if im 3 tabling them and want to play 20 a day im lookin at 3 or 4 hours or so.

Home

I flew back home from Vegas Wednesday night. It does feel good to be back at home. But i did like making tons of money while I was there. I didn't blog at all the final 2 days i was there because i never got the time. I did manage to avoid the long lines that stemmed from the terror plot stuff that was over in britain. My cousin who is coming home tomorrow unfortunately will not.

I was up a solid 4k in 13 days. Im not sure whether it was luck or I'm actually a better cash game player than i thought. I did only have 2 losing sessions in those 13 days, with the largest sum of money lost was $400. Maybe its just that considering im playin live i can get a better read on the people im playing with. Considering that is a very small sample size, im actually thinking about renting an apt out in vegas for a month or two and seeing how i do playing. 4k cash in 2 weeks isnt shabby at all. If you walk up to most people and ask them how much they make a month after taxes, ill guarantee you 60% are going to say its under 8k a month.

Another option that i have, which is probably the best one, is to try and get into UNLV. This way i can get an education and play at the same time. I was very good with actually setting a schedule when i would play out there. If i was losing, i would get up and leave. If i was winning i would stay but i wouldn't play more than 8-10 hours. That schedule went into place as i was there for a little bit. In the beginning i just wouldn't leave.

Of course i'll try to play some cash games online to see how i do there. Ill keep track of my stats via PokerOffice. I did manage to make $260 today playin 1-2 for about an hour and a half, so thats not bad at all.

Back in Action

I was back to my normal self tonight. I was hitting cards and making nice plays. I'll write about the plays later, for now im tired. I did have a stack of around $990 till this old guy check called all the wya down on a board of J 3 3 4 4, when i had AJ. He had KK and i doubled him up. Oh well, what are ya gonna do?

Days in Vegas: 11
Net Winnings Today: $597
Net Winnings Total: $3023