FML

-$6k to start March.

Down Down

Started off getting coolered by half stacks.
Made a few big calls where I knew there was a slim chance I was ahead.
Ran into a big fish that KILLED me.
Final tally: down almost 12 buyins.

On a good note, I just put $1.6k towards my high interest credit card. Planning on getting out of debt much sooner than later. My goal is to be out of debt by July 1st.

Boring?

I guess this blog is pretty boring, since it's focused on poker and I don't post hand histories any more. I need to start putting them up again for a few reasons. Mainly to remind myself of my bad play--publicly. Also, one of the main readers needs to see some of these to learn some things. I won't post a hand up unless it has a lesson in it to be learned. I'll just post the hand and my basic reasoning.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3885088

Standard pfr on button w/ KQ. Villain is 21/18/7.5 (if not otherwise stated the format for stats will be vpip/pfr/3bet). Villain in BB 3bets and at this point I believe villain is definitely on a resteal. Also his flop cbet % is 78 so I already believe I can float many flops in position if he shows weakness. Remember, I'm a "nit" so my image conveys strength.

So he 3bets to 21 and I call in position. As I expected he makes a standard cbet on Js4h2s board and I call. My reasoning is important here. I had a plan BEFORE the flop, got what was expected, and executed what I set out to do. I am repping a made hand at this point obviously. I can be repping a monster pre or something as small as JT, but I'm repping a made hand. I expect him to give up on most turns, and I expect to take down most turns with a vbet when checked to.

The turn is Kc. Now he checks to me. If he had AA, AK, KQ, QQ, etc he would have put another bet out on turn. If he had AK, AA, KQ it would be a vbet and wouldn't check. Basically when he checks on the turn I expect him to hold things in the range of AQ, TT to maintain pot control, but he MIGHT even use the king as a scare card with those holdings. So why is he checking?

This situation does come up. He has to be checking because he puts me on something solid and doesn't have much to vbet with. Now here's something I may be doing a lot. And SOME have caught on to this (the regs that pay attention), but so many do what this villain does. Well, at the turn my read is that I essentially have the nuts. I'll repeat his stats: 21/18/7.5--these stats are TAG stats and I expect him to play likewise postflop. So when the king hits the turn, what are my options? Check or bet duh.

If I check I give him the opportunity to spike ANYTHING with infinite odds. That's out of the question. So I'm betting. What do I bet? Pot, 3/4pot, 2/3pot? Why not one of my favorites? 1/3pot! Remember I have fairly nitty stats: something around the 16/13 range (I'm working on it relax). So what the hell am I doing betting 1/3pot?

This is what I call my "spaz inducing" bet. To be totally honest, I think I love this play and it makes up for some of my other leaks. Enjoy it and embrace it. So the pot is $111 on the turn and I toss $36 out there when checked to. Now he can fold (I'm happy with that!); he can call (this may be scary, but this happens very little); he can raise!!!

Now off the bat, he can call oop and river me. Yeah it's a LITTLE scary. But what is THE worst thing that will happen? He will call, river me, push, and I will CALL (not fold), and lose. But what will I have lost? 100bb? Charge it to the game! And it happens so infrequently (both the call AND losing 100bb) that I'm prepared to make this play somewhat of a standard for me.

So what does he do? He does what I'm expecting/hoping; he raises. He doesn't know what to raise, and he pushes. The push makes it even more sensible that he has spazzed and is hoping I made a weak bet with a weak hand. He doesn't do what a really big hand MIGHT do and make a "more callable" raise size. And I had to call because it's what I expected/wanted and I didn't get lost in the hand (and it's only 100bb).

So he spazzed with A3dd. He had some equity with 7 outs, but no hit. You can see his thought process when you know his hand and put yourself in his shoes on the turn. He feels I have a weak hand and might lay it down, and if I call at least he knows he CAN suckout.

And what's great about this play is that I can play a REAL monster the exact same way. And I can play this exact hand in the "standard" way and throw in a 3/4pot bet just and be happy to take it down against a fish, tricky opponent, or anyone. So it is disguised fairly well also.

What would I do if the turn wasn't a king? What if it was a queen? What if it was an ace? What if it was a jack? What if it was a (whatever)? How does that change the situation?



http://www.pokerhand.org/?3885162

Villain is 36/21/14.8 over 116 hands. Donking the flop and him calling was key to this hand. Also his post flop aggression is high over those 116 hands. His range is wide, and he just called the flop. Then I showed weakness twice. His river bet was an overbet. Did he have the nuts?


http://www.pokerhand.org/?3885171

See the difference? Villain is 23/15/8.5 over 326 hands. His flop cbet is 76%. Note bet sizes. Why did I do this? Note, that I don't make it a habit of calling too many 3bets. But when I do, I try to have a plan and try to stick to it. Also, if it looks like bluffing is not sensible (for so many reasons) or my read is that I can't win it, I DON'T try to just say "fuck it" and toss my money in and cross my fingers and tilt.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?3885180

Villain is 24/19/11.2 over 237 hands and has not folded to a 3bet. I don't want to say too much about this hand, because the mistake is fairly obvious. Pay to take it down and/or observe where I'm at instead of playing the hand in an awkward way forcing him to put me on a big miss or a HUGE hand. It polarized what I was holding. Note that he did tank, but he still had to call obviously. Playing deep, the thought that jumped in my head was "oh no, what if he check raises me? I won't be able to see the river." But that's playing to give him a cooler and not playing smart poker. I fire again and he folds? Who knows, but no matter what I wouldn't have bluffed the river if he called the turn with no hit (right? lol).


http://www.pokerhand.org/?3885188

Can't play it that much worse? Villain is 32/28/16.7 over 60 hands. He also rarely folds to 3bets and has very passive post flop stats. This is THE WRONG villain to do this against. Why'd I do it? This meant time to log off....


I know you can't view these hands at work, but that doesn't mean you can't view em at home right? Stop complaining about "running bad." You're playing at the cooler tables! I'm sure there's some fish there though.

Oh, Ryan Leslie album is nice.

Back to it...

Took a few days off to do Valentiney stuff.

Back at it.

Dropped 6 buyins at a heads up table.

Still doing fine....

Will update more...

Scheduling

When there's a fish at the table, stay there, right? Well, I might try to change that outlook a bit. I've always been concentrating on finding a fish, jumping on the table, learning the fish's leaks, and tried to stay on the table until he goes bust. The problem with that is my sessions have been too long--I used to play LONG sessions.

The new outlook hit me when I read that a fellow FTP regular, who did QUITE well in January, plays two short sessions a day (about 2 hours a piece). Now this guy had such a good month, that there are some things I want to emulate. One of them is the fact that he put in 80 hours in the month, played almost 100k hands, and made a lot of money. The only difference is that he plays 16 tables and I play 8. But if I can play less, earn more, not stress, live life, and so on, then why not just stop concentrating on one fish and relax a bit more?

Also, when I play a long session, I get hungry. I have things to do, and I've been too concerned with getting a large volume of hands in that I miss out on eating enough meals. I DO still have the gaining weight bet going on.....

So we'll see how this works out......

Coolers

Well I got coolered more times than I can count today (around 4-5) and only lost about two buyins. I played a little looser than usual, I need to put the hours in.

Outlook on Play (and January)

I took a decent-sized break from poker at the end of '08. I didn't play at all in October, under 30k hands in November, and about 15k in December. I paid off some debt, spent money on presents, went out (barely), and basically didn't think too much about playing.

So during this little break, the thought kept entering my head that I might be rusty when I got back in '09. What was my goal for '09? Did I want to put the hours in? Would the break have been disasterous for my game? I wasn't playing yet, but I was thinking about what was going to happen if/when I did for '09.

Now this month has come to a close (one day left but I'm not going to play tomorrow), and I did well for myself. I felt like I was "comprehending" what I was doing. There was so much less guessing what the other guy had. There was much more planning per street ahead of time. Things just began to click. I ran good; I ran bad. I ran more good than bad. I ran above expectation this month, and that is DEFINITELY something I have to keep in mind. I have to remember that I need to play better and to appreciate a good month. I need to keep putting the effort in and keep the concentration up as well.

With rakeback included, January was a solid month. $10k month was pretty close.......

PS

By the way, there are much dumber players at night. Either that or I just got lucky to sit with some certain people.

I sat down and there was a guy playing aggressive pre. I saw him 3bet two people. I raised a hand (I forgot what it was) and he 3bet me and I folded. A few hands later, and with only FOURTEEN total hands on this guy, I 4bet/snapcalled-his-shove w/ AJ to see him pushing with A7s. Oh, and it held.

Not many hands later, I was shipped +$350 out of kindness? A guy I only had 24 hands on raised on the button to $7 and I made a LARGE reraise to $38 (we were deep, I'll leave it at that). And this guy pushed over my large reraise allin ($368.75 to be exact). He tabled 44 and my big pair held. So I just sat down at some table and in just a few minutes I had action all around me. For a quick two hours I made nearly $1k--sweet.

Treading Water

Today I got stuck playing a session. I didn't want to play as long as I did, but wanted to get out of the negative. I played pretty good and came out of it a few dollars shy of +$500 over 5 hours. I got burned deep, but it was about time as I'd been the guy burning people deep. I stuck with it and I'm happy I did.

Past Days

The heater has slowed down a bit, but I've still been at it trying to get the hours in. The sessions since have been (in order): +$50.60 in 3.5 hrs, +$378.50 in 1.25 hrs, +$230.25 in 2 hrs, +$920.80 in 2.25 hrs, -$1,240.25 in 3 hrs, +$939.70 in 6 hrs. In a quick estimation, it's been about +$1,250 since the 17th. So I'll still be at it. At the end of the month I'll post a graph of the month of January.

In other news, Justin is doing good as well. Now if we could ONLY get all three on the same page for ONCE. It seems like 2 out of 3 is the best it's EVER been. Justin and I are doing fine, but now Aaron is shuckin.

Facing Reality

I'm winning money, but I'm VERY aware that I'm running good. Today I got it allin on the TURN with AA vs top two for a little over 150bb, and I did it without too much thought. That's obviously not a good thing as I realized, after I snapped, that I didn't even pay attention as I acted. I did catch up on the river to take it down, but it really drove the point through that I'm running above expectation. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely flashes of brilliance (and of course stretches of blank thought), but more homework has to be done before I'm confident enough for the $400s.

This is what I mean, this is for the month of January. As you can also see, I haven't put many hands in....

The Waves

I'm not even talking about the ups and downs of running hot/cold. That's been there throughout. What I am trying to get over is having to dip into my bankroll. Those waves keep crashing down on me.

My bankroll goals are hard to reach because I have bills and debt. The bills are one thing: health, auto, phone, gas, etc. Those are actually manageable. But the debt is always staring me in the face. My ultimate goal is to build my roll (and skill) up to play the $400s permanently, get comfortable, win some, and pay off my debt EASILY--in that order. But the game doesn't wait and I want to knock off some debt in the mean time.

I just paid someone I owed money $2k (of $4.5k). Because I'm in the "business" of needing to have a good cushion to survive and feel comfort to play, that $2k hurt. However, it gave me a lot of piece of mind and I know that person can call in their debt at any time. So now my total poker bankroll is a few pennies under $16.4k. Damn I need to put in more time, that seems so low.

The main debt I am now most concerned with is my Discover card. I owe a little under $4k on that card. My first and foremost goal is to pay that credit card OFF by the end of April, while still maintaining payment on everything else (and buying a few things for myself and others as well). If I was at the $400s, that would be "just" 10 buyins. Where I'm at now, it's more than twice as hard to knock that debt out. We'll see what happens.....

Good Results

I played two sessions yesterday. The first was 1.75 hours @ $331.09/hr for $579.40; and the second was 6 hours @ $389.07/hr for $2,334.40. That totals out to $2,913.80 for almost 8 hours of work. I admit, the results are not typical, but I did play fairly well. And by that I mean I played decent, but had excellent table selection. Other than one $800 pot I was a huge underdog in (where I turned my two-outer when all the money was in on the flop), I was a favorite for, I believe, all the all-in hands. At worst I was a slight dog and drawing to almost half the deck.

So, trying not to expect these results to be the norm, I will strive to keep the hours going and still find time to be productive...

What Goes Down...

Will come up? As I said previously, I've not put in much volume over the last two months. Just playing a little here and there. And right now I think I can say the "vacation" did me good. I straightened some things out, and got some time to get more organized. I still have more to do, and always will, but I feel like things are much more in order.

My first session on the 6th was 4.25 hours @ -$228.44/hr for -$970.85, and I noted that I was "losing 100bb stack thinly." I also felt the first-day-back-so-don't-fuck-with-me tilt and spewed a little. But I definitely didn't play "horribly" and it was a good way to get back to the tables.

My next session was later in the day for 3 hours @ -$116.47 for -$349.40. This actually irritated me more than losing more in the previous session because I actually felt I was winning. I try to do a good job not to check my balance while playing to just concentrate on the hand I'm playing. However, when I checked my balance while unposting I saw that I was actually down a little over a buyin. Oh well, the lesson here was that this wasn't going to be easy to just hop back into it expecting to own.

On the 7th I handled some things and took a trip over the bridge to visit a friend recovering in the hospital. When I got back, I used the free time to start a session. It was for 3.75 hours @ $384.89/hr for $1443.35. That was definitely a nice bounceback for me. I'm not going to credit that to playing great, because I noticed things I was doing wrong right after I did them--not taking down unwanted pots on the flop, not getting into enough hands with the fish, etc.

I'll update as I go, and hopefully my bankroll will continue to go up as well. It's currently near $16.2k. Still having that kind of roll after Christmas and paying bills cheers me up a bit, but I'm also trying to do my best to get to $20k again while paying bills and enjoying some of it.

Happy New Year

Quick post:

Feel like I haven't played in a long time because of the holidays.

Aim is approximately four hours a day.
Will update blog page more often.
Will update bankroll conditions more often.
I'm about to finish a 4 hour session. Noticed I'm rusty and tilty.
Approximate roll is about $15k.