Whoops...

I need to use some discretion when choosing the play a session. So the other night I decided to fire up some HU 200NL with my friend Jason sweating me on Mikogo. We played 200NL for about 400 hands. I got up on him early 2 BI after some nice plays then lost 3 to him after playing very badly once he adjusted to me. I was a bit disgusted and at this point it was about 1am and I was totally exhausted and needed to sleep, but decided to just move back down to 100NL and play some more HU. I played this one guy on 2 tables for the next 900 hands or so and lost 8 BI to him playing super miserably, and running very badly. I lost 2 flips 1.5 and 1.75 stacked to him and got setup a few times but the more I lost and the later it got, I just played worse and worse. I need to learn from this and really use some discretion while playing sessions. I really should not play while I'm tired. I should also make an effort to keep all of my sessions short, I feel that I play at my best more so at the beginning.

At the end of the night I finished about -1100, which included -800 at 100NL, so bad. Here is the graph.

So now Im gonna drop back down to 100NL until I'm able to get 10BI back. I think this has been my achilles heel for a long time; play well for a long time then blow a lot during a long and poorly played session. Hopefully I can take something away from this.

Getting Fat

So I've been doing nothing but school work, programming flash work, and playing poker lately. I play on the club tennis team but since it has gotten cold and nasty outside we haven't really played much. I've basically just been sitting on my ass all day with no physical activity at all. I've gone to the gym and played sports my entire life and I've always considered myself very much in shape, but I've noticed that I'm getting a little gut. I really should not neglect my body like this, I need to keep myself in shape. Since your body and mind is at the root of all you do, keeping them in shape subsequently helps everything else you do. Also a healthy body promotes a healthy mind and vise versa.

I haven't really been playing much poker as of late since work has piled up and I am amidst finals week at the end of the semester. Every time I have actually sat down to play a session, it has always been at the expense of something else, such as schoolwork, so I feel particularly guilty every time I do. From what I have played there hasn't been anything all that interesting but I've been running pretty well and I'm up 1250 so far in December thanks a lot in part to my session today that I finished ahead 460.

I ran into one player who was 3betting preflop 35% over 280 hands so but he was somewhat passive postflop. Then this hand came:

Hero (BTN/SB): $315.80
BB: $106.70

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN/SB with 7 6
Hero raises to $3, BB raises to $10, Hero calls $7

Flop: ($20.00) 8 7 8 (2 players)
BB bets $13, Hero calls $13

Turn: ($46.00) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $34, Hero calls $34

River: ($114.00) K (2 players)
BB bets $49.70 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $49.70

Final Pot: $213.40
Hero shows 7 6 (two pair, Eights and Sevens)
BB shows 5 A (a pair of Eights)
Hero wins $212.90
(Rake: $0.50)

Given how often he was 3betting me, I took him off of overpairs and his double barreling range of club draws and strait draws just blanked the river. Moreover I just "felt" like he really wanted this pot given the rythym and psychology of the match thus far.

Messin Around with some videos

So I made two 30 minute 2-tabling videos, but they arent all that interesting. Instead I got pissed off at a few short stackers who hit and run me until this guy sat at my table.

Figured it was a great note to conclude my session.

Foxwoods Trip

So my friend Jason and I went to foxwoods today. We tried to get up early to make the 180 dollar tournament they were having there at 10am, but we got there at 10:40am instead. This was mainly because of me and how late I set my alarm for. Another thing that sucked was that the banks were closed until 9am, and we left at about 8:30am so I was only able to withdraw 500 from the ATM. This would come back to bite me a bit later on. But anyway we got there and were pretty happy to get put onto a newly created 1/2NL table and I set 1 seat to the left of Jason. I bought in for the maximum 300 Jason bought in for 200. First hand we play I'm dealt QQ. I hate getting a good hand on the first hand, I like to have some time to loosen up first. But nonetheless I raised it to the standard 15 preflop and 2 callers, one of whom turned out to the quite terrible, something I didnt know at the time. Flop was like AT9 or something, I know the Ace was there. Anyway we all check, then turn blanks and the terrible guy leads, I call, fold. River blanks, he leads again about 1/5 the pot, so I just obv call and he shows T7 and I take it down.

Basically the play was horrible, in particular this one degenerate who was down about 600 or 700 in about 3 hours. I got it in preflop AK vs 88 vs KJ (the degen), lost, got it in JJ vs K9(the degen) preflop, lost that too. The JJ hand was funny, I was in the BB and I had just taken down a few pots in a row and been somewhat vocal about it. Then when I raised all of the limpers with JJ, the degen tilts his head back, rolls his eyes, and in frustration just shoves it in and I snap called him. It was unfortunate It couldnt hold, it really would have been satisfying to bust him. I actually think I played pretty well on the day but at this point I only have about 100 left which is the part that I'm really tilting about since it's the one time I didnt bring at least 1k in cash and it's the one time I actually needed the extra cash. Luckily it's about lunch time and me and Jason hit up some italian place in the resort. While waiting for food I called bank of america to get them to increase my daily withdrawal limit and proceed to get hosed by the ATM fees as I take out 600 more. We head back down and I proceed to play pretty badly but get lucky as I went from -400 to -200. So in the end I ended down 200, overall I'd say I ran pretty badly though which always seems to happen live. As we were leaving Jason was down 97 so he put 100 on red on the roulette wheel and luckbox'd his way back to +3 dollars on the day.

Playing live can be a lot of fun and a nice break from the normal online grind. It's very refreshing to be reminded just how many bad players there are who are willing to play for significant amounts of money. Players who are completely incompetent and have no idea what they are doing. I've heard the play at 5/10 NL is pretty much just as bad as 1/2 NL, I would love to someday take a shot up there. Hopefully I will be able to someday after my little HU

Big turn around on day 2

So day 2 of this little adventure took an extreme turn around. Went up 800 today at 100NL, hah. I played extremely well today, picked off a few bluffs, made a nice bluff of my own, and just played real solid. I ran pretty good today as well hitting some big hands when i needed to, and was able to win a coinflip with my draw + gutter vs top and bottom pair, for a stack.

This was the bluff I called

Hand 1

He was reasonably tight overall but play had just started to loosen up. Flop call was somewhat standard imo. On the turn i thought back to the flop and figured he probably wouldnt bet the flop with an ace (unless it was AT), a somewhat shaky assumption, it also just looks like a really nice double barrel card to him. And I called river on that same assumption, if he showed me AT there, oh well, and i highly doubted he could have some sort of 4, his pf raising range was somewhat narrow.

Nothing else was really that interesting, i just ran pretty well. I also tightened up my pf raising range and i think that helps a lot. I think i was playing a pf style that did not match my postflop style, loose pf and tight post flop. When playing HU, you generally dont need to worry about getting action. Lots of the regulars are obsessed with keeping their aggression up and play somewhat loose. And speaking of aggression i ran this bluff on a guy today I thought was pretty solid and intelligent enough to understand it:

Hand 2

He was playing very tight aggressive and 3betting be very liberally. His river bet represents AK but I think it also could be a bluff, the K is a great bluff card for him. Knowing how wide his 3bet range was I decided to do this. I think he may even be tight enough to fold AK to me in this spot. I took him off of any kind of overpair JJ or higher, he would have bet the turn with it. Put all these together and I think this is a decent spot to make a play.

Well in just two days I had a -11 BI day and then a +8 BI day. HU is going to be swingy.

More epic fail

So now I'm really done, -1,100 today, -11 BI. I guess I sealed my own fate by opening this blog... doomswitch *CLICK* ON please. I dont think I played particularly well today but one hand I'm not sure about is here against an unknown villain in the 8th or 9th hand in.

Hand 1

I just felt like he would show up with a pair and/or draw or an overpair a lot of the time, enough to make this profitable.

Well I hope things get better, I'm sure they will, I've been a consistent winner at HU NL. I cant let one bad day get to my head. I need to constantly self evaluate w/o ever doubting myself while I play.

Day 1 blog results - epic fail

Well things could not have gone any worse, to start this blog. I just finished a 3-hour session -850 on the day. It started off well, for the first 400 hands or so i was able to get +200 against a few regulars then a player bautotrimm sat at my table. It was evident he wasnt very good right from the start. Then this hand happened:

Hand 1

No big deal, pretty common, then this

Hand 2

Then this

Hand 3

I probably could have / should have just raised the flop. His c/r on the turn is just horrific. This is probably a good hand to exemplify the caliber player he is. Despite me laying down a constant stream of agression, he seemed to lay down the hands where i was strong. Considering he was willing to go all the way w/ A5 semi-deep, i found this hard to believe. Then there was this gem:

Hand 4

Overall i ended the session down 7.5 BI to him over 868 hands. I run bad, very bad.

Graph

Cool so here is my graph so far, this is basically from mid November, 2008, until today, November 24th. This is all .5/1 NL which is where I want to spend some time learning before playing stakes I really care about.

OK, Real First Post

So this is my blog to to record my poker endeavors. I may or may not record anything in here, I have been playing for roughly 4 years w/o ever having something like this. I have hat my hot and cold periods however, and lately i have been somewhat hot again. I also anticipate playing lots of hands over this winter break so I will use this blog as a memoir to myself and anyone else who wishes to read.

I've basically been stuck playing 1/2NL 6max for the last few years despite having more than enough to be playing 2/4 or even 3/6 if I wished. However I was a net loser at 2/4 over ~25k hands and I let the the monetary amount get to my head, I just couldnt stomach losting over 4k in a matter of days. So due to this phobia I remained at 1/2NL and grinded out enough money to pay for my living commodities like rent, gas, basically whatever. I have never made enough to live off of my winnings completely, so for the past year I've been free-lance flash programming from home which is a nice job to have where I can make my own hours just as I do in poker. Now I am a graduate student and I have a research assistantship with the computer science department here which is nice because I get paid on a regular basis for the work I do with them. Having a steady income is great and I know that if I'm ever in a jam for some money, I can always withdraw from my poker account, it's a nice sense of security.

For me poker has always been a hobby/semi-professional. I'm sure there are people out there who play 1/2NL for a living, and based on my statistics, I could probably do it as well, but it sure would not be a very good living. I figure once I am done with grad school, I will get some sort of job, either full time or part time, but some sort of job none the less. No matter how much money I made, given that it wasnt some absurdly large amount, I would always try to maintain some sort of regular income job. I think it's silly to be a full time poker player, it's just an excuse to be lazy. Full time players have plenty of extra time on their hands that they just do nothing with.

In any case, it would be nice to graduate college and know that getting a full time job was not a necessity. I would like to be financially secure enough to browse the jobmarket at my leisure and never be stuck doing something I absolutely dreaded in the name of making money to support myself. I already know plenty of ppl, first hand, that are in such a position. I myself have had an experience with a job that I hated very much, it was awful. In that case it was only a summer internship and I knew once summer was over, the job would be over. It is a real fear of mine that I may become stuck, indefinitely for financial reasons, in a job I loathe.

This brings me to the present. This is probably just another futile attempt to move up the ranks but I need to try something. I recently have gotten into HU poker. My plan is to play HU poker starting at .5/1NL using a 20 BI (buy-in) scheme. That is, I will move up to the next highest stake once I have 20 buy-ins for that level. If i get to the next highest level, and I lose 4 or more BI's, I will drop back down until i have 20. I generally don't withdraw large sums of money, so I dont see it as being an issue. And considering I am already over-rolled for this, I think I can generally ignore the effects of a withdrawal from my account unless my total BR gets so low that the risk of ruin becomes very possible. I will try and follow these rules as strictly as possible to force myself to become comfortable with winning and losing large(er) sums of money.

I just bought Poker Tracker 3 and I started my new database for my HU .5/1. Ill try and post my graphs from it along with some hands here and there. But as for now, I think im satisfied with my intro to this blog.

First Post

This is just a test to see what my first post looks like.