Toro's Blog

6/13-14/08 Live

2008-06-15T01:36:00.002-04:00

Live
Played 21 hours of 2/5 NL and lost $311.

Total for period: ($311)/21 hours
Total since start: ($2,966)/191.25 hours (-$15.50/hour)

MTTs
Played the $340 venetian deepstack and finished somewhere around 130/430 for $0.

Sidebets/games
Lost $100 playing BJ at venetian.

Expenses
I spent $23 (I hope) on a taxi ride.

Total expenses: $2,133

Total for Vegas: ($5,154)

Here's the trip report for this very long period:

I woke up around 9:45am and did morning stuff till I called yanks at 10:00am to make sure he was awake and would remember to come get me to play the deepstack venetian. I then messed around for a while trying to get ITH and my internet connection in particularly to work, I also wanted to download Princess Bride while I was gone but it was really messed up so I gave up. Yanks came by at 11:10am and we were off to the venetian.

We got there at like 11:20am and went to the poker room the tournament wasn't starting for another 40 minutes so we decided to go play some BJ. We sat down at one with 2 people already playing. By the time we bought in which took some time as we were getting scanned in and I was making an entry to remember how much I bought in for. The other people were scared off by this display of superior record keeping so it was just yanks myself and the dealer. The dealer thought he was clever that he figured out that I was staying at the Rio since I was using a Rio pen . . . until I told him how he figured it out. Regardless, we were playing $15 a hand while the dealer was regaling us with his dream of getting a 2nd job dealing so he could build a BR to play poker. He had some strange notions but at least he actually knew BJ strategy and would basically make some decisions for me since I was clueless. One great hand that came up was where dealer had a 5 and I got 88 and split and got an 8 and split and got an 8 and after everything was said and done I lost $17.50 - my original bet. Anyway, as time came we went to go play the MTT.

I sat down to the MTT and didn't feel overly comfortable just cause it was a bit of a new environment and we were outside the actual poker room. The feel and weight of Venetians turney chips are awesome . . . the downside is that it's very hard to tell the color of the chips from the sides cause they have this really gay "this is a tournament chip" written twice with a white background across 2/3 of the chips side.

Anyway, the tournament didn't start off great and at the first break I was at like 9k or so (12k starting stack) while yanks was at 25k. I had one dealer who bummed me out cause I realized that this guy had literally no purpose to being alive outside of dealing (a discussion about this happened about 15 hours later). His name was Carl and he looked like http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001484/ . The other interesting thing that happened was this guy who is half asshole half dick half alright was sat to my left. I've played with him in event 2 and at 5/10 cash and literally see him everywhere I go. And he's got a hot-ass asian girlfriend but that's about it. Anyway eventually I busted at like 4 or 5pm right after yanks and we went to his place.

At his place I was impressed by his 30" monitor and actually had some cereal . . . it was Total with actual whole milk I think. We watched some baseball highlights then drove to the Rio.

At the Rio I sat down and played 2/5NL. I played about 3 orbits playing maybe 1 or 2 hands. I got bored and posted on the BTN. 3 people limped and I looked down at A5o - OK enough for me to raise to $50. Everyone folded except MP who looked like an internet player with his gay sunglasses. Flop comes down K64r MP checks and I bet $60, he c/r to $200 and I go AI for another $271 he calls with AT and wins when turn and river are T/6. Basically, I think we both played it fine for how it played out. Anyway after 2 more orbits I asked for a seat change - mostly because I felt like there was a good chance I'd get involved with a huge pot again with that guy and overthink it (I'm liable to do that sometimes) and since I wasn't playing to improve my game but to hopefully make $$ I felt it was the more +ev move.

I got to this table with husband and wife. The wife was apparently playing $100 at a time while her husband would give random advice . . . only problem was the husband sucked. At first, I thought the guy was just hitting on her (badly) but then realized that they were probably married. After they left, Paul Magriel the 'quack quack' dude sat down. I played with him for a while, he was playing really tight mostly just wasting time while Zolotov was playing the WSOP I think. He raised twice in about 6 orbits and I popped him both times (once with AK and once with KK) I really thought that he'd overthink it a bit and play me when I had the KK but he folded both.

There was also this reeeaally bad old guy at the table who literally looked like he was dying. He was more or less a really bad SLAP player if that makes any sense. He did everything a lot but most of it wrong. Anyway our table broke up and I moved to a game going on.

This game had a very interesting composition. Basically, in seat 3 was a really tilted asian dude who had just bubbled the wsop mtt. In seat 4 was this 21 yo kid from Cali who was a total dick to everyone and couldn't shut up . . . all he talked about was gayness, dick size, and just insulting everyone who came by but he wasn't good at poker. Next to him was a very drunk ski instructor from Aspen who apparently had just cheated on his wife the night before. Then there was an older guy who was ultra tight trying to trap the tilted asian dude. Then me and a couple of random guys behind me.

I basically got really shitty cards and did nothing forever. Eventually, Seat 3 moved to seat 2 and this huge Trucker dude sat down in his spot. 21yo Asshat kept telling this guy who was 3x his size how fat he was, meanwhile to my left sat down a filipino kid in seat 9 who was 26 and a middle-aged bald Israeli guy who I guess thought he was the shit as most Israelis think the are in seat 8. The first hand that the Israeli guy played the filipino kid put him to a decision on the turn or something and he was saying stuff in Hebrew so I asked him if that was hebrew cause I wasn't sure. This dude flipped out and started cursing me out in Hebrew, while the guy to my right called clock and floor came over and this guy basically took the entire minute to curse me out until they called his hand dead. Overall it was a really retarded table and I played till 1:55pm. I was up till 1:30pm by like $400 and then lost 3 hands in a row (I had decided to quit at 2pm before then). So it really sucked.

06/07-12/08 Online/Live

2008-06-12T04:12:00.003-04:00

Online
Played 5,312 hands at 100NL and lost $128.60
Played 141 hands at 15/30 SH LHE at FTP and won $228
Played 14 hands at 50/100 FR LHE at PS and won $219

Also recieved $61 in rakeback on FTP for May.

Total for period: $379.40
Total since start: $28,520.94

Live
Played 10 hours at 2/5 NL and made $806.

Total for period: $806/10 hours ($80.60/hour)
Total since Start: ($2,655)/ 170.25 hours (-$15.95/hour)

Sidebets/games
Played single deck BJ for about 45 minutes and lost $125. BJ is retarded and I also suck at it. But I'm giving the casino a bit of action to hopefully get some free trips later on.

Expenses
$5.50 on food - I bought a banana, some twix bars and a bag of rye bagel thingys which were awesome.
$22.50 on Transportation

Total Expenses: $2,110.15

Total for Vegas: ($4,720)

I'll write up today for those that might actually read this.

I woke up at 8am when my mother called and was surprised I wasn't yet awake at 11am est. as you can expect that conversation wasn't pleaseant and didn't last long (I actually was getting up at 8:30am anyway so it wasn't a huge disruption).

I left at around 9:15am from the house and tried figuring out the busses. I got off at the wrong stop and asked a dude what I should do . . . he told me to either wait for another bus or walk to my connection since it was only a few blocks away. Obviously in Vegas a few blocks means a mile . . . so I walked a mile to my connecting bus and got on and shortly arrived at the Rio at around 10:05am.

I walked to the poker room and saw there was literally 3 tables running . . . I put my name on the 2/5NL list and walked off to go find some BJ some 3 miles away in the main casino, saying hello to this old chubby masseuse lady for the 2nd time in about 5 minutes.

Well, I walked around the casino a bit looking for an empty BJ table . . . finally spot one that's just starting and sit down. This doesn't go so well since the dealer and the other guy at the table make fun of me being a poker player and not knowing how to play a -ev game. Anyway it takes the dealer like 10 minutes of correcting me every hand for me to actually start doing the stuff the way he wanted. I thought you could do verbal sayings so I'm sitting there wanting to hit and say "hit" the dealer goes "you have to move your cards like this" showing me the hit motion. I'm like 'OK' and then say "hit me" and he literally just stares at me for a minute and I'm just staring at him waiting for him to freaking hit me . . . eventually I'm like "Ohhhhh, I have to actually make the motion" It was all quite annoying. Anyway it's hard to get excited about betting $15 a hand and I found all the dealer comments about how the deck was running quite irritating. Luckily he stopped doing all that shit and just dealt when it was just me and him. They also had this stupid sidebet which paid 12:1 on a pair . . . and a pair is like 16:1 how do they get away with such big edges?

Anyway, I dropped $125 and left to go see if the poker was going yet. I got there and there were a good 3-4 2/5NL tables going so I pretty quickly got a seat it was 11:22am by this time.

I only played a few hands of note. My fifth hand was the highlight of the day. I sat down and had made a couple of raises when this old guy to my left says "the next time you raise I'm calling no matter what" to which I just said OK.

On my 5th hand I get AQo in MP so I obviously pop it up to $20. This old dude calls (he's got like $300 behind I have like $550). The flop comes a rather unhelpful 742r I bet $30 and old dude calls. At this point I'm pretty non-committed to the hand but the old guys other comment makes me think he's much more likely to bluff than normal. The turn is another 7 I check and old dude bets $75, he was clearly displaying on the tells that I've recently been looking out for and that I think is way more reliable than other tells I've watched for in the past. I decide to call and peel a card. Pushing crossed my mind but I decided that I wanted to limit the damage if possible. River was a T. I check and old guy bets $150, he's still displaying the tell that I'm specifically looking for and frankly if he had a T or any pair or card other than a 7 he's checking behind. So I think about it and eventually call him, he says good call and the whole table is freaked out by this call saying shit like "he called with no pair I hope he doesn't leave" anyway good start to the day.

Nothing really happened for a long time except that this same old guy imagined a convo where I told him I chop . . . but since I didn't remember it I raised the next time it folded to me in SB (it happens like 1/20 orbits) dude folds and rants about it for literally 3 hours sitting on a $80 stack . . . it was just retarded. I eventually asked for a table change.

I moved to the new table and it seems full of semi-knowledable internet dudes. I was kinda just chugging along when yanks called me and I told him where I was at. He came by and I started talking to him while continuing to play my hands. After a couple of hands I'm still talking to him but I'm the BB, like 3 people limp and dealer calls me to table. I look and see 44, so I obviously raise (though really I should raise any 2) I get 1 caller and the flop is a beatiful Q94 with possibly 2 clubs (yanks said he remembered 2 clubs though I thought it was rainbow). I bet $25 and this asian guy reraises me to $50 and he's only got like $150 behind. I give it a quick think and say All-in the asian dude starts taking his time and I'm getting a bit annoyed so I just tell the dealer I'm going to talk to yanks while this guy makes his decision. Eventually he mucks. Yanks goes away and it's basically a slow grind again. Eventually yanks comes back and tells me that he's gonna go to venitian I tell him I'll come along and make another $30 by just raising after a BTN straddle and a couple of limpers on my last hand with A9s. I cashed out for a profit of $522 after roughly 8 hours of play.

I go with yanks to Venetian where we basically sign up for a $340 deepstack on 6/13/08 and just kinda chill walking around the strip. On the way back to the car these really fugly drunk chicks start hitting on us and apparently they were from Ohio . . . sad but true. We ignore them and yanks drops me off at the Rio before going to sleep. I determine to play to 12am.

I sit at this table and kinda just grind +$100 or so. Apparently the guy to my left lives only 20 or so miles from where I live which was odd. This really crazy dude who was totally an action junky sat and wasted like $400 before leaving cause the dealer sucked and was pumping out like 5 hands an hour. Unfortunately, I missed all that $$. Then right before I left I played just a random hand where a couple people limped and I limped with K4s in CO basically everyone behind me came along as well which is nice. Flop was KQ8 with 2 clubs. Younger guy in EP bets $15 and gets a caller, I'm kinda distracted by this trying to buy back $100 in reds cause I had sold off all mine in anticipation of leaving. So I'm a bit slow when it gets to me and it takes me a while to decide to call. The turn is another K. It's checked to me and I bet $40, EP calls and MP folds. My plan here is basically to check behind on every non-Q-non-K-non-4 river. River is the 4c. Basically my $$ card if he has anything at all. He checks I bet $100 and he takes a longish time and calls claiming he had A high when he mucks I think he had a flush or a K or something A high just can't possibly call unless he's retarded which he didn't seem to be.

We had this older guy with no teeth at the table who was sleeping for several hands at a time. The dealers just took to dealing him then mucking without waking him. Anyway we get this semi-lively dealer and her habit is to call everyone 'baby' cause I guess she thinks people give her more tips or something. She was also a decent dealer. Anyway old toothless guy wakes up long enough to take offence at her calling everyone baby and calls over floor. Where floor then asks dealer to stop calling people 'baby' just really ridiculous stuff.

Oh for those who are into the right rules of dealing cards we had a weird scenario and floor definitely fucked it up. Dealer was dealing the flop but dropped one in the chip rack so basically 4 cards out and you don't know which 3 are the flop (the burn was prob right). Floor comes over and says the right procedure is to show all 4 cards then mix them up choose 3 as flop and the remaining card is an exposed turn burn. There's just no way that that can be the right way to do that. I'd think mixing the cards in and making a new flop is the right way but w/e.

Then I took a taxi-ride home which cost $18.70 aka $20 then ate a rib steak kinda thing which was reaaaaaally good considering that I havn't eaten much of anything all day. Tommorow I'm playing the venetian deep-stack which starts at noon and if I bust out semi-early I'm gonna grind 2/5NL again. If I make the FT it'll be interesting since I'll run into a similar problem I'd have faced in the 2k event I played.

06/04-06/08 Live

2008-06-08T01:21:00.002-04:00

Live
Played 22 hours of 500NL and lost $1,471

Total for period: ($1,471)/22 hours (-$66.86/hour)
Total since start: ($3,461)/160.25 hours (-$21.60/hour)

MTTs
Played the 2k WSOP event (staked for 50%) and went out in level 6.

SideBets
Lost $150 prop-betting the color of the flop, ($25/flop x 20) final score was 13-7.
Made $25 betting on a guy to lose credit card roullete.

Expenses
Spent $40 on taxis.
Spent $3 buying 2 bags of chips.

Total Expenses: $2,082.15

Total for vegas: ($5,373)

6/3/08 Live

2008-06-04T12:10:00.003-04:00

Live
Played 4.5 hours of 2/5NL and made $372
Played 3 hours of 5/10 NL uncapped and lost $1,600.
Played 2 hours of 20/40 LHE and lost $445.

Total for period: ($1,673)/9.5 hours
Total since start: ($1,990)/138.25 hours (-$14.39/hour)

The 5/10 is nowhere near as profitable as the 2/5 so I'll stick to that and away from limit.

Total for vegas: ($2,777)

Expenses:
Transportation: $24.25
Food: $5.00

Total: $29.25
Total expenses: $2,039.15

6/01-2/08 WSOP event 2, Cash

2008-06-03T04:43:00.002-04:00

Live
Played around 3 hours of 2/5NL and made $1,100.
Played around 2 hours of 5/10NL uncapped and lost $660.
Played around 2 hours of 10/20 LHE and lost $90.

Total: $350
Total since start: ($317)/128.75 hours (-2.46/hour)

MTTs
Played event 2 of WSOP and finished in like 430thish which is basically right on the bubble (378 payed).

Gonna be playing an event at ceasars or venetian (I don't remember) and then if I bust out early play some 30/60 I think.

I'm also going to add WSOP event 7 to my tournament schedule, I got a private backer for 50% of the buyin which should be interesting.

Oh, I also got back $46 from Matt Roussos cash so I only lost $1,454 on event 2.

Total For live MTTs: ($1,454)
Total for Vegas: ($1,104)

Total expenses to date:
Housing: $1500
Food/Drink outside of poker tables: $11.90
Transportation: $98
Airplane tickets: $400

Total: $2,009.90

I estimated my total expenses at around 4k for 6 weeks so it'll be interesting to see what it comes out to.

5/29-31/08 200NL cash

2008-06-03T04:39:00.001-04:00

Online
Played 3,084 hands and lost $1,509.60.

Total for period: ($1,509.60)
Total since start: $28,141.54

WSOP

2008-05-28T02:50:00.002-04:00

So I made my arrangements for WSOP, I'll be in Las Vegas from June 1st till July 16th. I'll be arriving early in the morning on June 1st in order to play Event 2 of the WSOP which starts at noon (I should be arriving at 9am).

Here's what I think I'll be playing at WSOP:

Event 2 - June 1st: $1,500 NLHE event which has 2 day 1s so should be a 4-day event starts at Noon
Event 29 - June 15th: $3,000 NLHE 3-day event starts at Noon
Event 31 - June 16th: $2,500 NLHE 6-max 3-day event starts at Noon
Event 32 - June 17th: $1,500 NLHE 3-day event starts at Noon
Event 41 - June 22nd: $1,500 Mixed LHE/NLHE event Starts at 5pm
Event 52 - June 30th: $1,500 NLHE 3-day event starts at Noon.

This is just a tentative schedule. I would plan to play more events but I can't enter events that start or run into Friday/Saturday so it really limits my option . . . I'll only be able to win 4 bracelets :p.

The rest of my time there I will be grinding at NL cash - either 2/5NL or 5/10NL, depending on how I call it when I get there.

I can't believe I'm leaving on Sunday - it's gonna ROCK!!!

5/14-28/08 Cash/MTTs/Live

2008-05-28T02:00:00.002-04:00

Online
Played 73 hands of 50/100 FR and lost $479.50
Played 201 hands of 50/100 SH and lost $2,161
Played 664 hands of 10/20 SH and lost $1,688
Played 665 hands of 5/10 FR and made $729.50
Played 1,784 hands of 200NL and lost $321.55
Played 1,072 hands of 100NL SH and lost $443
Played 16,276 hands of 100NL FR and won $830.40
Played 175 hands of 50NL HU and lost $58.70

Total: ($3,591.85)

MTTs
$33 Turbo 180 PS - 109/180
$33 Turbo 180 PS - 119/180
$33 Turbo 180 PS - 77/180
$33 Turbo 180 PS - 114/180
$25 PS - 794/1378
$69 FTP - 69/558
$24 FTP - 1087/1274
$50 PS - 523/1199
$50 FTP - 717/977
$20 PS - 41/1824 small cash
$24 FTP - 151/655
$20 PS - 131/288
$25 PS - 153/360
$24 FTP - 510/1447
$50 PS - 1023/1821
$24 FTP - 197/1021
$69 FTP - 247/623
$50 PS - 163/1394 small cash
$24 FTP - 623/1152
$69 FTP - 247/632
$69 FTP - 693/780
$69 FTP - 402/516
$25 PS - 873/1465
$24 FTP - 907/1398
$50 PS - 108/1112 small cash
$50 FTP - 435/986
$25 PS - 108/1385 small cash
$24 FTP - 539/1370
$50 FTP - 709/985
$50 PS - 638/1100
$24 FTP - 965/1425
$50 PS - 313/1968
$75 PS - 1002/12000 This was the 1mil Turbo Takedown on stars 5k FPP = $75, I made $150 off this one
$50 PS - 695/1424
$25 PS - 756/1361
$69 FTP - 213/565
$24 FTP - 468/1439
$50 PS - 159/1092
$50 FTP - 377/984
$69 FTP - 127/621
$24 FTP - 991/1596
$25 PS - 357/1370
$50 PS - 674/1174
$50 FTP - 222/993
$100 PS - 59/573 small cash
$150 FTP - 229/669
$100 FTP - 69/201
$200 PS - 1477/3270
$100 PS - 125/1013
$200 PS - 1758/7112
$250 FTP - 12/4750 This was the FTOPS ME and since I sold off 50% of my action I only made 11k off this - but still very nice.
$100 PS - 96/563
$150 FTP - 173/522
$150 PS - 79/934 small cash
$150 FTP - 279/596
$300 PS - 232/717
$200 PS - 1533/3053
$100 PS - 399/880
$240 FTP - 396/1488
$200 PS - 1574/6745
$200 FTP - 2170/3580
$100 PS - 62/558 small cash
$150 FTP - 259/572
$150 PS - 578/918
$100 PS - 134/575
$150 FTP - 7/651 Cashed for 3k on this one.
$150 PS - 506/956

Total: $9,437.27

Stakes/Deals/Misc
I made a small competition with another player and lost $50.
Gave a guy 2k to play 50k hands for me at 50NL 6-max he ended up winning me $39.24 - not the greatest return but not a loss.
Spent $128.10 on staking a player and lost $59.85
Spent $161 staking a player and lost $95.92
Spent $122.30 staking a player and won $55.96
Spent $143.60 on staking a player and lost $72.50
Made $1 buying $215 tournament dollars
Also recieved back $290.07 on an investment made before this blog so I'll just count it as if I made $$.

Total: $108

Bonus
Also recieved a bonus for 1.5k

Total: $1,500

Total for period: $7,453.42
Total since start: $29,651.14

Total for month: $8,264.40

Live
Played 1 session of 1/2NL and lost $300 in about 3 hours. I wasn't feeling well and left.

Total for period: ($300)/3 hours
Total since start: ($667)/121.75 hours (-$5.48/hour)

05/6-13/08 Cash/MTTs/Live

2008-05-14T18:50:00.003-04:00

Online
Played 20,313 hands of 100NL and lost $149.50
Played 54 hands of 30/60 LHE and won $961

Total: $811.50

MTTs
$20 180 PS - 68/180
$20 180 PS - 15/180 small cash
$10 PS - 732/2459
$69 FTP - 310/537
$25 PS - 937/1444
$24 FTP - 594/1240
$50 FTP - 1005/1061
$50 PS - 889/1231
$50 PS - 1431/1542
$50 PS - 315/1412
$69 FTP - 113/535
$25 PS - 476/1448
$24 FTP - 322/1332
$50 PS - 361/1344
$50 FTP - 28/1014 small cash
$100 PS - 220/611
$150 FTP - 663/709
$200 PS - 1219/2788
$100 PS - 315/767
$240 bounty FTP - 484/1329 but earned 1 bounty
$200 PS - 5289/6856
$100 PS - 312/598
$150 FTP - 213/641
$150 PS - 538/1237

So a pretty crappy run.

Total: ($1,846.86)

Total for period: ($1035.36)
Total since start: $22,197.72

Total for month: $810.98

Live
I played 2 live sessions (my tuesday night game): Combined it was a total of 13 hours and I made a combined $290 (lost $80 one session made $370 the next).

Total for period: $290/13 hours ($22/hour)
Total since start: ($367)/118.75 hours (-$3.09/hour)

For those just looking at the negative amount it's important to remember 2 things, 1) this represents about 3.6k hands and 2) it's a mix of 2/5NL in casinos with 1/2NL in home games - so the negative here doesn't mean too much, it's just annoying.

I did play a very peculiar hand in my session on the 6th.

It's 6-handed and everyone has $200+ (don't remember exact stacks).

I'm OTB with TT.

PF: UTG straddles, it folds to me and I decide to call, SB calls, BB calls, UTG checks

Flop ($16): 642r
SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets $8, I call, both blinds fold

Turn ($32): 7d (2 diamonds out now)
UTG bets $8, I reraise to $25

Now at this point for some reason I start to laugh uncontrollably for no reason (it happens very rarely maybe 2-3 times in all my live play) UTG asks me why I'm laughing and I manage to spit out 'no reason', at this point UTG is still mulling over his decision he then picks up his cards shows me 42o thinks some more and calls.

Turn con't: UTG calls

River ($82): 9d
UTG checks, I bet $60

UTG takes forever (literally like 3-5 minutes) before eventually folding.

Just one of those ultra-bizarre hands you never see online.

05/1-5/07 100NL/MTTs

2008-05-06T10:17:00.003-04:00

Online
Cash
Played 8,123 hands and lost $87.05.

Total: ($87.05)

MTTs
$50 PS - 828/1586
$69 FTP - 13/505 Bubbling FT second time in less than a week isn't fun. Made $222.50 on this.
$25 PS - 141/1426 small cash
$24 FTP - 125/1229 small cash
$50 PS - 418/974
$50 PS - 537/1131
$24 FTP - 795/1082
$200 PS - 26/3107 Got lucky to get this far but coulda gotten farther - made $2,332.74
$100 PS - 308/900
$200 PS - 620/7001 small cash in million
$200 FTP - 594/3546 Bubbled 750k
$100 PS - 176/520
$150 FTP - 269/516
$150 PS - 638/920

Total: $1,846.34

They really need to get rid of this shit where you cash and get less than 2x your buyin back.

I also lost $59.85 buying 10% of a guys action for a sunday.

Total for period: $1,699.44
Total since start: $23,223.08

Going to go play live today, and might drive down to a casino tommorow.

Also made a staking arrangement with a guy to play 50k hands of $50NL 6-max for me - we'll see how that goes.

4/7-30/08 Cash/MTTs/Live

2008-05-01T15:29:00.002-04:00

Online
Played 25,755 hands at 100NL and won $1,908.40.
Played 2,741 hands at 5/10 LHE FR and lost $109.
Played 416 hands at 30/60 LHE FR and won $566.
Played 285 hands at 15/30 LHE FR and lost $882.
Played 273 hands at 15/30 LHE SH and lost $1,854.
Played 214 hands at 10/20 LHE FR and won $156.50.
Played 136 hands at 50/100 LHE SH and lost $499.

Total: ($713.10)

Online MTTs
$10 PS - 1867/2722
$69 FTP - 11/585 bubbled FT won $369.02
$24 FTP - 1409/1474
$25 PS - 711/1537
$50 PS - 415/1185
$50 FTP - 189/968
$24 FTP - 913/1214
$60 FTP - 149/229
$15 PS - 292/727
$60 FTP - 97/219
$10 KO FTP - 73/304 got 2 bounties
$69 FTP - 363/550
$24 FTP - 204/1278
$25 PS - 164/1452 small cash
$10 PS - 60/2685 small cash
$50 PS - 363/1189
$50 FTP - 559/983
$24 FTP - 1090/1108
$15 PS - 546/603
$150 PS - 249/979
$150 FTP - 284/595
$100 PS - 280/561

Total: ($644.45)

Bonus
Got a $1,500 bonus.

Total online for period: $142.45
Total since start: $21,523.64

Total for April: $2,785.35

I also missed my 100k FPP goal for this month.

Live
In 3 sessions that lasted only about 16 hours I lost $2,300.

Total Live for period: ($2,300)/16 hours
Total Live since start: ($657)/105.75 hours (-6.21/hour)

So that blows but I know I'm +ev in live cash just hit a bad run - nothing much I can do.

4/6/08 LHE/100NL

2008-04-07T02:54:00.002-04:00

Online
Played 38 hands of 50/100 SH and won $1,061
Played 104 hands of 30/60 FR and won $1,266
Played 104 hands of 15/30 FR and won $262
Played 273 hands of 15/30 SH and lost $1,854
Played 1,696 hands of $100NL and won $104.35

Total for day: $839.35
Total since start: $21,381.19

Total for april: $2,642.90
Total VPPs for april: 4.9k

I'm not really sure if I'm a winning player at 10/20+, I guess there's only one way to find out.

I'm also about 1.1k VPP short of where I want to be so only 100NL for the next couple days.

04/3-5/08 LHE/100NL

2008-04-06T03:46:00.002-04:00

Online
Played 120 hands of 30/60 SH and lost $1,883 - ran totally bad
Played 126 hands of 10/20 SH and lost $781 - again ran amazingly bad
Played 349 hands of 15/30 FR and lost 768.50
Played 775 hands of 100NL and broke even.
Played 91 hands of 15/30 SH and won $293.50
Played 170 hands of 30/60 FR and won $2,452.50

Total for period: ($686.50)
Total since start: $20,541.84

I ran really crappy at the 30/60 SH and the 10/20 SH and extremely hot playing the 170 hands of 30/60 FR.

I'm really behind on the # of VPP I want to earn this month. I want to make about 28k VPP (which is roughly 1k vpp/day) and I'm only at 3.5k vpp right now. Basically I'm behind by 1.5k vpp which is a lot right now. Luckily later on in the month I'll have a week or two where I can play non-stop and makeup any vpps that'll need to be made up.

4/2/08 100NL/LHE

2008-04-03T02:04:00.003-04:00

Online
Played 9 hands of 50/100 SH and made $822. I had chased the fish up from 15/30 and when I sat it was 4-handed, however it shortly became 3-handed and I decided I couldn't stand the variance at this level so I left (I probably shouldn't have sat down to begin with.
Played 68 hands of 30/60 FR and lost $599, I played pretty bad (i.e. started making retarded bets and calls) and left.
Played 4 hands of 15/30 FR and lost $45.
Played 319 hands of 15/30 SH and won $1,283.50
Played 1,389 hands of 100NL and won $210.65

Total for day: $1,672.15
Total since start: $21,228.34

Total for April: $2,490.05

here's the hand I made most of the $$ at 50/100 with:

PokerStars 50/100 Hold'em (4 handed) Poker Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9h, 9s.
UTG raises, Button 3-bets, 1 fold, Hero caps, UTG calls, Button calls.

Flop: (12.50 SB) 6h, Td, 5d (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG calls, Button calls.

Turn: (7.75 BB) Jh (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG folds, Button calls.

River: (9.75 BB) 7h (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks.

Final Pot: 9.75 BB

Results in white below:
Button has Ac 9d.
Hero has 9h 9s (one pair, nines).
Outcome: Hero wins 9.75 BB.

Basically total spew here.

4/01/08 100NL/LHE

2008-04-02T03:57:00.002-04:00

My session today stretched past 3am so I'll only blog what happened on April Fools. The rest will be blogged for tommorow. It was a real pain with the mess of the post from the last week of March so I'll try to post more often to avoid that confusion.

Online
Played 1,385 hands at 100NL and lost $46.10
Played 77 hands at 15/30 and won $37
Played 185 hands of 15/30 SH and won $122 - there was a huge fish to my right but I just couldn't get the hands to really punish him, I'll discuss what happened after he left the table tommorow.
Played 68 hands of 30/60 FR and won $705.

Total for today: $817.90
Total since start: $19,556.19

Total for April: $817.90

I tried mixing 30/60 FR with a bunch of 100NL (13 tables) - that went OK and I think I was probably +ev in both but I ran bad in 100NL. I'm not sure I want to do that in the future though.

03/26-31/07 100NL/LHE

2008-03-27T04:21:00.006-04:00

I'm totally confused by how I split up the dates. This post will be from 3/26/07 onwards . . .

Online
Played 9,432 hands of 100NL and won $680.10
Played 599 hands of 10/20 SH LHE and made $618
Played 130 hands of 10/20 FR LHE and won $293
Played 94 hands of 15/30 FR LHE and lost $276 - it was mostly Short for the time that I played, and I didn't like the way I played here in general.
Played 293 hands of 15/30 SH and won $1084
Played 226 hands of 30/60 SH and lost $676.50
Played 129 hands of 30/60 FR and won $805
Played 185 hands of 50/100 FR (it was short for the first 100 hands or so) and lost $43.50
Played 20 hands of 5/10 2-7 TD and lost $50
Played 89 hands of $5NL and lost $4.86 (teaching a guy how to play)

Also lost $36.74 on a staking deal.

Total for today: $2,392
Total since start: $18,738.29

Total for month: $6,307.79

Made the vpp/fpp for the month. Also figured out the rakeback I'm getting at 100NL is about 36% which is way better than FTP.

03/25/07 100NL

2008-03-26T10:36:00.002-04:00

Online
Played 6,275 hands of 100NL and made $217.15.
Played 9 hands of 15/30 SH LHE and made $63.
Played 9 hands of 10/20 FR LHE and made $114.
Played 9 hands of 10/20 SH LHE and lost $105.

Forgot to write in before that I staked someone for the million: -$215

Total for period: $74.15
Total since start: 16,346.29

03/24/07 Bunch of 100NL and some LHE

2008-03-25T04:37:00.002-04:00

Online
Played 4,634 hands of 100NL and made $258.35
Played 20 hands of 10/20 SH LHE and won $106
Played 26 hands of 15/30 FR LHE and lost $72 (very good game but I had to go)
Played 111 hands of 30/60 SH LHE and won $242 (also a very good game for like 80 hands then the game sort of deteriorated and I'm also exhausted so I left).

Total for day: $534.35
Total since start: $16,272.14

03/01-23/07 Everything

2008-03-24T00:36:00.002-04:00

Online
100NL - Played 40,669 hands and made $3,689.25
.02/.04 LHE - played 66 hands and lost $1.11
100NL 6-max - played 303 hands and lost $132
100NL HU - played 65 hands and lost $110.10
100PL - played 19 hands (mistakenly) and made $42.65
200NL - played 2,645 hands and lost $1,515
3/6 LHE - played 13 hands and lost $37
10/20 SH LHE - played 179 hands and lost $376
15/30 SH LHE - played 18 hands and made $533
2-7 TD (various limits) - played unknown # of hands made $250
200NL Short stacking - played 845 hands and lost $110.40

Total for cash games: 2,233.29

MTT
$300 PS - 500/739
$50 PS - 380/1194
$10r PS - 1082/1845 (4 r+a)

Total for MTT: ($426)

Also earned a $1,500 bonus.

Total for online for period: $3,307.29
Total since start: $15,737.79

Live
Played a 24-hour session at Foxwoods at $500NL and lost $240 (somehow)
Played 6-hours in a 1/1 $40 buyin and made $280

Total for period: $40/30 hours ($1.33/hour)
Total since start: $1,643/89.75hours (18.64/hour)

02/27-29/08 100NL

2008-02-29T15:46:00.002-05:00

Online
Played 11,655 hands at 100NL and made $766.20.
Lost $120 playing 3/6 2-7 TD.

Total for period: $646.20
Total since start: $12,430.50

Total hands played in February: 75,784

Goal for next month:
Gonna try out 200NL for 10k hands 8-tabling. If I'm doing well I'll add another table for 10k hands and so on till I get to 12 tables. If I don't like the way I'm playing I'll languish at 100NL for 2 weeks or w/e. Gonna play in a live game tommorow night - should be entertaining.

Total for month: $4,691.98

02/25-26/07 100NL

2008-02-28T14:56:00.002-05:00

Online
Played 6,214 hands and won $264.25.

Total for period: $264.25
Total since start: $11,784.30

Total hands for month: 64,129

I think I figured out how I can put in like 3-4.5k hands daily without messing up my schedule too much. In the works I think I’ll try developing a short-stacking strategy that is impossible to adjust to (i.e. perfect) I’ll give it a good shot then just attempt it, we’ll see how that goes – probably do that within the next 3 weeks. I still need to play like 7 or 8k more hands this month which I think shouldn’t be a problem. I’m still about $700 short of my target for this month, we’ll see if I can get it – I’m not too worried about it though.

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players

MP1: $39.20
MP2: $107.35
Hero (CO): $115.60
BTN: $103.50
SB: $19
BB: $102.60
UTG: $167.35
UTG+1: $109.35

Pre-Flop: A 8 dealt to Hero (CO)
4 folds, Hero raises to $4, BTN raises to $12, 2 folds, Hero raises to $30, BTN raises to $103.50 and is All-In, Hero calls $73.50

So this whole hand looks completely retarded on my part – and it kind of is. What happened was is that I have about 1k hands on villain and I’m playing him on 4 or 5 tables simultaneously (I think he had position on me on most of those tables). In the span of like 150 hands he reraised me at every opportunity which he got (at least 5) – so that did 2 things, 1) it annoyed the hell out of me, and 2) made me realize he’s probably 3-betting really light. On this hand the chances that he’s 3-betting light go way up (since he even has position here) I decide to 4-bet him. It’s a smallish 4-bet but it’s not like I’d just push AA/KK here (occasionally I do but probably not against this particular individual).

Obviously, if I’m going to call his push here I should just push myself. There are a couple of problems with that play though. First off he’s only calling with hands that totally dominate me – say something like AA-QQ, AK (maybe JJ/TT depending on how he’s reading me). Secondly, I end up risking $91.50 to win $17.50.

After I 3-bet to $30, he pushes – I hate this push by him for a few reasons – none the least of which is that up to now I haven’t really been playing back to hard against him. Once he makes it I have to determine what his range is. If I think that he’s only pushing the top 10% of hands or so I’m a 35% underdog. If I extend that to the top 15% of hands I’m a 41% underdog. I’m getting about 1.8:1 to make the call which isn’t so good. However, add to the numbers involved in this hand that it’ll probably slow him down a lot (in terms of playing back at me), and other intangible variables it’s probably not too far off of being a call. I’m not necessarily happy with how I played this hand but those were a lot of the thoughts going through my head, and I was very annoyed/frustrated with this guy which made the borderline decision into a call.

Flop: ($208.50) A 8 Q (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($208.50) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($208.50) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $208.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed A 8 (two pair, Aces and Eights) and WON $205.50 (+$102 NET)
BTN mucked J K and LOST (-$103.50 NET)

02/22-24/08 100NL

2008-02-25T14:58:00.002-05:00

Online
Played 9,196 hands at 100NL and won $174.25.

Total for period: $174.25
Total since start: $11,784.30

Total Hands this month: 57,915

I have to earn another 20k FPP in order to buy a bonus for March, basically that means that I have to play an additional 13k hands above my 60k goal. Considering how close I am to the 60k goal I don’t think this will be too difficult – but as usual just a grind. I was expecting this to be a $5k month but I’m about $950 short of that, so I guess I’ll actually try to win $$ while grinding.

Two hands from the last couple days:

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players

UTG+1: $130.90
MP: $114.80
Hero (CO): $300.60
BTN: $105.55
SB: $58.55
BB: $53.45
UTG: $25.65

Pre-Flop: A A dealt to Hero (CO)
3 folds, Hero raises to $4, BTN calls $4, 2 folds

I make my standard raise and get a single caller behind me who is the BTN (58/7/0.6 after 114 hands I probably had a lot less hands at the time).

Flop: ($9.50) 6 T 5 (2 Players)
Hero bets $6, BTN calls $6

The flop comes a completely mundane T65r – quite a few hands hit this flop but few actually connect strongly. I make my standard con’t bet and the BTN calls – not exactly the scariest thing to see from this opponent.

Turn: ($21.50) J (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $12, Hero raises to $30, BTN raises to $95.55 and is All-In, Hero calls $65.55

This opponent actually had a fairly high turn bet % number (around 40% - a lot of people just look at the overall AF # and forget that it’s actually a combo stat that is very heavily weighted towards the flop). I decide that a check/raise here will allow me to extract the most value/get away from my hand. Unfortunately, I don’t follow through with my plan of getting away from the hand facing ‘extreme’ resistance and I call anyway. Really there’s no hand here that will push after I c/r that I am ahead of and I got pretty lucky in that he only had 2-pair and I had a lot of outs – though none of them hit.

River: ($212.60) 9 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $212.60 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed A A (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$105.55 NET)
BTN showed 6 J (two pair, Jacks and Sixes) and WON $209.60 (+$104.05 NET)

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players

SB: $25
BB: $100
UTG: $95.45
UTG+1: $69.20
UTG+2: $51.85
MP1: $103.80
MP2: $41.45
Hero (CO): $98
BTN: $369.95

Pre-Flop: K T dealt to Hero (CO)
4 folds, MP2 calls $1, Hero raises to $4, BTN calls $4, 2 folds, MP2 calls $3

I raise here to isolate the limper since I’ll have position the rest of the hand, I don’t like the button calling behind me – but the more the merrier I guess.

Flop: ($13.50) 8 6 K (3 Players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $7, BTN raises to $14, MP2 folds, Hero calls $7

It checks to me and I make my STD con’t bet in this sort of pot (the pot is actually ~$12.70), while this bet may seem small I think it gives me the most flexibility and is the right balance between pricing people out/getting calls/ allowing me to spend as little as possible finding folds on the hands where I miss. I get min-raised by BTN, which I don’t really like – if I reraise I’m basically only getting played with by hands that destroy me and getting everything else to fold. I choose to call even though I’ll be OOP. BTN only raises the flop ~4% of the time and only bets turn ~21% of the time (after 164 hands) so it seems that if this is a complete bluff he’d be much more likely to just check behind on the turn and let me know where I’m at – potentially letting me value-bet my pretty weak hand on the river.

Turn: ($41.50) 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $22, Hero raises to $80 and is All-In, BTN calls $58

This card is fantastic for me, I now have TP with a FD and a gutter. BTNs bet basically means he likes his hand – but it’s also small enough for me to have plenty of FE. I kinda put his range here on something like AA, KK, AK, 88, 66, Kx down to like K8, 86, 97, 77. Against this range I’m about a 48.2% underdog. So this is a fairly easy push, eliminating the weaker Kxs I’m still a 43.8% underdog – which with the dead $$ is more than enough to push in this spot. (Oh the reason why hands like AA-AK are included is that the BTN in this hand is 25/2.5 so they’re well within his range). Against what BTN actually had, I was only a 36.36% underdog, but obviously this move is +ev. I happened to get lucky and hit my flush.

River: ($201.50) J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $201.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed K T (a flush, King high) and WON $198.50 (+$100.50 NET)
BTN mucked A A and LOST (-$98 NET)

Hmm I actually like doing these analyses I’ll try doing some more in the future. Since I’m usually playing anywhere between 12-14 tables a lot of my ‘reads’ of non-regulars are based purely on stats. However, stats coupled with experience and hand reading at this level are good enough to make me winner.

2/15-21/08 Bunch of stuff

2008-02-21T20:40:00.002-05:00

Online
Played 41 hands of 10/20 LHE HU and lost $800.
Played 16 hands of 10/20 LHE 6-max and won $304.50
Played 386 hands of 5/10 LHE HU and won $185.50
Played 337 hands of 3/6 LHE 6-max and lost 67.50
Played about 60 hands of 2/4 Limit HORSE and lost $4
Played 5 hands of 1/2 LHE HU and won $5.20
Played 18,270 hands of 100NL and won $523.95

Total: $147.65

MTTs
$200 PS - 1809/7900 lost a flip QQ vs AK
10k FPP PS - 1300/9500 misplayed the turn on a hand but it's probably marginal won $277.50

Total: $62.50

Total for period: $210.15
Total since start: $11,610.05

Total hands: 48,719

02/9-14/08 100NL, MTTs

2008-02-14T23:47:00.002-05:00

Online
Played 7,704 hands at 100NL and made $738.25.
Played 20 hands at 3/6 2-7 TD and lost $4.

Total: $734.25

MTTs:
$50 PS - 25/2121 profited $422.23 on this one messed up on 1 hand with like 30 left and that basically screwed me
$200 PS - 2305/7786
$300 FT - 5058/5637

Total: ($92.77)

Also finished clearing the $1,500 bonus.

Total for period: $2,141.48
Total since start: $11,399.90

Total % of goal completed: 18.05%
Total % of time passed: 45%

So I'm basically way behind schedule, but it's looking like June/July will make or break my target #'s.

Total hands for month: 30,449

02/6-8/08 100NL

2008-02-08T14:56:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 8,889 hands at 100NL and lost $267.90. The first 2.5k hands went really well and I won about 4.7 buyins. Then I just dropped 10.5 buyins in the next 3k hands and worked it to only be down 2.7 buyins over the next 3.5k hands or so.

Total for period: ($267.90)
Total since start: $9,258.42

Total Hands: 22,745

The bonus is coming along nicely and I only need to play about 5k more hands to get it. The bonus adds between $13-18/hour onto my earn rate I think.

02/3-5/07 100NL

2008-02-06T01:39:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 6,483 hands at 100NL and made $1,135.30.
Played ~80 hands at 3/6 and 2/4 2-7 TD and lost $70.50

MTT
$200 PS - finished around 1300/6600 didn't cash

Total for period: $849.80
Total since start: $9,526.32

Total hands for month: 13,856 hands

2/1-2/08 100NL

2008-02-03T01:22:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 7,407 hands at 100NL and won $913.90

Total for period: $938.00
Total since start: $8,676.52

Total Hands: 7,373

Goal: Play 60k hands this month.

1/21-31/07

2008-02-01T01:31:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 1,127 hands at 5/10 6-max and lost $909.50
Played 58 hands at 3/6 LHE HU and won $17.20
Played 19,269 hands and lost $9.80
Played 39 hands at $50NL HU and won $11.50
Cleared a $1,500 bonus

Total for period: $690.40
Total since start: $7,738.52

Total hands played this month: 40,024

Not a good month next one will hopefully be better.

1/9-20/07 Limit/NL

2008-01-20T02:25:00.000-05:00

Online
5/10LHE - played 2,071 hands and lost $1,603
100NL - played 1,631 hands and won $541.90
15/30 2-7 TD - played 30 hands and lost $300
10/20 LHE - played 50 hands and won $146

Total for period: ($1,215.10)
Total since start: $7,129.12
Total for month: ($898)

Total Hands: 19,319

I currently have a $1,500 bonus pending that needs an additional 9,836 base points. Going at a rate of roughly 2 hands/point that's about another 19.6k hands at 100NL.

01/7-8/08 Bunch of different stuff

2008-01-09T00:47:00.000-05:00

Online
5/10 SH LHE - Played 1,918 hands and won $773
1/2 FR NLHE - Played 2,724 hands and lost $975.45
2/4 2-7 TD - Played 30 hands and lost $16
5/10 2-7 TD - Played 50 hands and lost $265

Total for Today: ($483.45)
Total since start: $8,344.22

Total Hands: 15,537 (I'm including the 5/10 SH LHE hands because they get points at an equal or faster rate than the 200NL hands. I'm currently 3.5k hands ahead of my 40k hand goal, but 500 hands behind the 60k hand goal.)

Some thoughts:
After playing 200NL for the last little bit I think my edge is pretty small currently. I don't think I have the experience that I need to destroy this level. I havn't decided what I will do about this. As regards the 5/10 SH I played 2k hands and the games are unbelievably soft. They might be as good as 1.5 years ago (for different reasons though). So I'm adapting my current play to include both NL and LHE hands not just NL hands. I like playing LHE because I learned how to play doing it so I'm very comfortable playing it. It'll also be a good change of pace switching from one to the other rather than just grinding one version all the time. I'll have to figure out exactly how I will want to break up my time though.

1/06/08 200NL, 2/4 2-7 TD

2008-01-06T20:56:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 2,314 hands and won $197.65.
Played 81 hands of 2/4 2-7 TD and made $135.

Total Today: $332.65
Total since start: $8,827.67

Biggest net win: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1904901
Biggest net loss: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1904914

Total hands: 10,895

1/4-5/07 200NL

2008-01-06T01:31:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 5,766 hands at 200NL and lost $286.15.

Biggest net win: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1901547

Biggest net loss: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1901557

Total for period: ($286.15)
Total since start: $8,495.02

Total hands for Jan: 8,581

1/2-3/07 200NL

2008-01-03T11:34:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 1,358 hands at 200NL and won $95.70

Biggest net win: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1888820
This is a pretty simple hand, I raise AA PF and get 2 callers.
I flop an overpair and con't bet, though the flop isn't great with a pretty drawy board, the caller is pretty tight so I'm not happy about him calling me (for some of these guys a call here is similar to a raise by others).
The turn makes me a set and puts me ahead of everything except QJ, so I bet again.
The river bring a boat, I bet out and it's obviously an easy call of the AI.

I don't really like my opponents push on the end. There's only really 3 hands that I might have that will call him. After firing on all streets and raising PF I think you have to put me on a legit hand. Of the legit hands there is 99, TT, AA, AK, AQ, AJ, QJ. TT is unlikely since he already holds a T. AA and AK beat him. I'd fold AQ/AJ. That leaves 99 and QJ, 99 I'm probably not folding and QJ it's like a 50/50 shot. Overall I think it's a very close play.

Biggest net loss: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1888821
I pretty much completely misplayed this hand, because of a self-image that I wasn't two-barrelling enough and that this opponent was half-retarded (which isn't too far off).

PF: I 3-bet here, this oponent is very loose and the 3-bet is fine.
Flop: I con't bet, he calls. However, he calls very many con't bets with very little - I decide to 2-barrel.
Turn: I bet again. Notice I'm only betting 1/2 the pot this is probably why I didn't win the hand right here, or alternatively save myself the extra $96 on the river and instead spend an extra $20 right here.
River: I check, he basically raises $100. My problem here is that I'm getting 3:1 on the call. Meaning he has to have worse than A high slightly more often than 33% of the time for the call to be correct. I felt the way this hand played out that he either had absolutely nothing or a huge hand. I decided that he has nothing often enough for me to call.

Played 58 hands 2/4 2-7 TD and made $162.50

Total today: $258.20
Total since start: $8,781.17

My goal this month is to play at least 40k hands at 200NL. If I manage to play over 60k hands I'll give myself a 5% bonus on the profit withdrawal.

Total hands in January: 2,815

1/1/07 200NL

2008-01-02T10:13:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 1,457 hands at 200NL and won $513.30

Total today: $513.30
Total since start: $8,540.42

12/26-31/07 Bunch of Online Stuff

2007-12-31T19:03:00.000-05:00

Online

MTT
$50 FTP - 214/980
$50 PS - 644/1196
$150 PS - 408/783

Lost a total of $272.

Cash
$100NL - played 2,179 hands and lost $166.65
$200NL - Played 10,348 hands and lost $29.15
5/10 6max - Played 20 hands and lost $35
3/6 2-7 TD - Played 6 hands and won $1

Total for period: ($501.80)
Total since start: $8,027.12

12/25/07 200NL, 3/6 2-7 TD

2007-12-25T21:24:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 608 hands at 200NL 10-tabling and made $438.10.
Played 11 hands at 3/6 2-7 TD and made $78.

Total Today: $516.1
Total since Start: $8,528.92

12/22-23/07 100NL, 50NL, 5/10

2007-12-24T19:01:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 2,591 hands at 100NL and lost $13.20. Played 1 hand at 50NL (opened it by mistake while playing 100NL) and won $12.80. Played 209 hands at 5/10 - to finish off the race to supernova and won $16.

Total for period: $15.60
Total since start: $8,012.82

12/20-21/07 100NL

2007-12-21T14:38:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 6,531 hands at 100NL and won $809.45. I'm about 2 hours of playing time away from supernova.

Total today: $809.45
Total since start: $7,997.22

12/19/07 100NL, 200NL

2007-12-19T17:04:00.000-05:00

Online
Played a total of 3,276 hands at 100NL and made $180.85. I got really tired in the middle cause I didn't eat today, I also lost a couple of big hands and made a bad decision so I took a break. During the break I decided to play a little 200NL to get used to the bet amounts up there so I 8-tabled it for like 50 minutes. Ended up playing 432 hands at 200NL and making $389.55. I went on a sick run of cards and don't think I lost any big hands.

Total Today: $570.40
Total since start: $7,187.77

12/17 - 12/18/07 100NL, 25NL

2007-12-18T21:38:00.001-05:00

Online
Played 8,240 hands at 100NL and made $266.90. I aslo played 9 hands of 25NL while checking something out and lost $15.

Total for period: $251.90
Total since start: $6,617.37

I'm going for Supernova which is about another 5k VPP away (roughly 10 hours of play 14-tabling 100NL), it's actually pretty important for me to get it since it should increase my earn rate on stars via the vpp store for all of next year. I'm going to try to accomplish this before the 26th. It should be easily done. Tommorow I think I'll play some tournaments mostly because I should have the time available to do so.

12/16/07 100NL

2007-12-16T20:22:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 3,535 hands and made $145.4

Total today: $120.50
Total since start: $6,365.47

12/15/06 100NL

2007-12-16T03:10:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 5,940 hands at 100NK and made $279.40

Total today: $279.40
Total since start: $6,225.07

I'm going to try to get supernova before the year is out. I need 1,276 VPP for platinum this month and another 8,449 VPP for supernova. I should be able to do it, especially if I'm able to put in a couple more days like today. It'll also make next year a lot easier and more profitable.

12/13/07-12/14/07 100NL

2007-12-14T15:19:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 2,424 hands at 100NL and made $85.90. Also played 70 hands of 3/6 LHE while working on a problem with PAHud and made $27

Total today: $112.90
Total since start: $5,945.67

12/12/07 100NL

2007-12-12T23:21:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 2,456 hands and won $131.35

Total today: $131.35
Total since start: $5,832.77

12/11/07 100NL

2007-12-11T12:22:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 1,749 at 100NL and made $528.40 got lucky in some pots.

Today: $528.40
Total since start: $5,701.42

12/10/07 100NL, 15/30 td

2007-12-10T16:03:00.000-05:00

Online

I think I played like 2.5k hands at 100nl and lost $5

Lost $1,570 at 15/30 because apparently everyone gets dealt the nuts every hand and I miss nearly every draw.

Today: ($1,575)
total since start: 5,173.02

12/09/07 500NL live, 100NL online, 15/30 TD

2007-12-10T01:40:00.000-05:00

Live
Went to play at Mountaineer today and did not do well. The room is really nice and the drive isn't terrible (though driving back at night isn't so fun since there's no lights for like 40 miles and very hilly so a bit dangerous). I lost $1,700 in 7 hours got unlucky a couple of times and probably misplayed a few hands. I'll definitely go back though.

Total for session: ($1,700) in 7 hours (-242.86/hour)
Total live: $1,633/59.75 hours ($27.33/hour)

I also noticed a couple of things that I was doing wrong so I came home and started working on them:

Online
Played 1,572 hands at 100NL and made $639.15 this is probably just a ridiculous run and has little to do with the things I was working on - still nice though.

Noticed a 15/30 2-7 TD game going so sat in, won $194 - pearljammer was playing won some pots off him.

Total for period: $833.15
Total since start: $6,748.02

I'm going to put a running total in each post.

Running Total: $8,381.02

12/08/07 100NL

2007-12-08T22:27:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 1,921 hands at 100NL made $42.30

Total today: $42.30
Total since start: $5,914.87

12/07/07 100NL, 5/10 TD

2007-12-07T13:12:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 2-7 TD 5/10 lost $62
Played 387 hands of $100NL and made $304.60

Total for Today: $242.6
Total for Period: $5872.57

Goal Update

2007-12-07T00:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple of months and I'm more aware of my situation so I'll reexamine my goals.

Goals:
1) I want a 150 buyin BR for the $215 turneys (BR = 10/32.2k)
I'm not really playing tournaments but I still think I should reach this goal (15.5/32.2k).

2) I want to withdraw ~20k for personal use (32.2k+20k = 52.2k)
I think I've withdrawn like $2k for personal use. (2/52.2k)

3) I want to get more proficient at NL cash games.
Still Working on this

4) I want to play more live and get my live BR up to 20 buyins for 5/10 (8/20k)
Working on this. The 2k came from this $$ so I'm at 9/20k.

5) I want all of this accomplished within a year (9/31/08).
Still have about 10 months to accomplish this.

6) Total $$ won goal: $72.2k
According to the count I am +~9k. So I am roughly 12% of the way there after 16% of the time has passed.

7) This goal is just a whimsy - FT the million again in the next year.
This is looking unlikely seeing how infrequently I'm currently playing MTTs but it's possible.

12/03/07 - 12/06/07 Online, deals

2007-12-07T00:30:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 5/10 2-7 lowball today rough estimate of 300 hands made $403. Also played 613 hands at $100NL and made $58.50.

Deals
Deal with JM on UB (or w/e initials I originally put forth) didn't go great he ended up losing $204.33. A little dissappointing but that's how it goes. The deal with MT didn't go great either he ended up losing $543.26.

Total for Period: ($286.09)
Total since start: $5,629.97

Live
I'm planning to go to Mountaineer on Sunday, we'll see how that goes.

11/29/07 - 12/03/07 Online, Live

2007-12-02T15:30:00.000-05:00

Online
made $92 playing 2-7 TD. Played 3,249 hands at 100NL made $365.75

Total for period: $457.75
Total since start: $5,916.06

Live
Played in the $250 max buyin game on sunday, made $483 in ~4 hours. It kinda sucked cause for the first 1.5 hours there were no spots so I had to just wait around for one. The setup there sucks and the rake is a bit high I think (though better than before) I ended up getting them to run 3-handed with no rake :), but there was no $$ there. Heard about a game that was 2/5
$250 min buyin no max, when I get back from home I'll try to get more info.

Total for session: $483/4 hours ($120.75/hour)
Total live: $3,333/52.75 hours ($63.18/hour)

11/27/07 100NL

2007-11-27T20:38:00.000-05:00

Online
Played 2,587 hands at 100NL made $256.10

Total Today: $256.10
Total since start: $5458.31

11/21 - 11/26 LHE online, Live cash

2007-11-21T19:42:00.000-05:00

Online

I'm an idiot played ~250 hands at 10/20 and dropped $577, lost $35 at TD, won $42.35 in 2,053 hands at 100NL.

Total for time period: ($569.65)
Total since Start: $5,202.21

Live Cash

Played a .5/1 $50 game (it sucks but at least no rake) ended up winning $70. Played a sick hand (last hand of the night):

.5/1 blinds 7 players
Hero is in MP with 2d 4h

PF action:

everyone limps, I limp, everyone behind limps, BB makes it $7, 3 callers, I call, everyone else folds.

Maybe not the greatest call, but BB shows his cards to UTG (after he folded) and UTG says "I had one of those" - i.e. BB doesn't have a pair and the way he plays he has AQ/AK.

Flop ($32): 2h 5h 8c

BB bets $15, everyone folds, I call

Turn ($62): 3d

BB pushes AI for $45, I insta-call I think I had only like $40 or something.

River ($142): blank

BB flips over AQh my deuces take it down.

$70/4 hours

Played another session last night and made $274 in 2.5 hours. I was feeling really sick so I left early, ended up throwing up in my car on the way home - luckily I was able to clean it up with no problem so I don't have to take it to the cleaners. My clothes were soooo nasty though.

Total for period: $344/6.5 hours ($52.9/hour)
Total live: $2,850/48.75 ($58.46/hour)

11/05/07-11/20/07 Online Cash, Live Cash

2007-11-20T19:20:00.000-05:00

Online Cash
I played maybe 600 hands at 5/10 LHE and lost $170

Total this period: ($170)
Total since start: $5771.86

Live Cash

I played live on 11/15 for 4.25 hours and made $3.00. 0.70/hour. This was only a $50-$100 buyin with blinds at .5/1. Not a lot of money on the table so I probably won’t be going back.
Played another game on Sunday, this was a $40-$250 buyin with 1/2 blinds. I played alright though nowhere near as good as I should have been playing (I was spacing out a lot). I was also card dead like the entire night and got AQs once and 99 as the best hands. I ended up making $398 in 4.5 hours. $88.44/hour. Lots of money on the table so that was a big plus. Guys would come in wait like 30 minutes to play, sit down with $100 then go all-in with KTs PF – pretty retarded. I couldn’t get a str8 answer on the rake which is a huge negative but it was either 5% or 10% all the way up. I still want to find a $500-1k buyin game but that looks to be semi-difficult as the guy who’s looking for these games for me can’t seem to find one. I also want to get up to AC if possible, but we’ll see. When I’m back home I think I’ll definitely take a trip down to Mountaineer for a day.

Total: $401 in 8.75 hours ($45.83)
Total live: $2,506/42.25 hours ($59.31/hour)

Hopefully I can set-up an internet connection soon cause it sucks not being able to play and not having anything else to do. It seems that I may have to dish out the ~$900 to get a verison wireless card that works anywhere a cell phone gets a signal. That’s prety much it.

10/30/07 - 11/04/07 Cash, MTT, Live

2007-11-04T01:07:00.000-04:00

Cash
Broke even playing 2-7 TD over maybe 500 hands or so. Played 7,564 hands at 100NL and won $923.95. I've started 15-tabling (stars upped the limit) in order to get 1k hands/hour. Oh yeah just remembered I lost like $70 playing stud H/L on UB.

MTT
$10 PS - 19/36 2-7 TD MTT kinda stopped caring at the end.

Total: $842.95
Total since start: $5,941.86

Live Cash
Played 3 hours of 1/2NL and won $116. Started off by getting stacked on the 3rd hand with top 2 pair vs 2 str8s, then lost another $100 but managed a comeback - don't remember any huge hands but it was a few days ago.

Total: $116/3 hours ($38.66/hour)
Total live: $2105/33.5hours ($62.83/hour)

10/27/07-10/29/07 Cash, Live play

2007-10-29T17:08:00.000-04:00

Cash
Played a bunch of 2-7 triple draw lowball which is surprisingly a very fun game. I made $9 on the 28th at 3/6 and $533 at 10/20 today. Lost $273.80 playing TD.

NL sucked. Lost $432.30 at $100NL 6-max and $263.85 over 3.1k hands at FR.

Total: ($427.95)
Total since start: $5,098.91

Live
Drove like 50 minutes to get to this place so it's a hassle and I'm not going to play there again. It's a 1/2 game with a $300 buyin which is better than the 100BB games though. Had this big fish to my right who was ~95/5 but she really messed me up because a) she hit everything and b) I couldn't get heads-up in a pot to outplay some of the other players. Towards the end of the night I was down ~$125, I wasn't happy about it, but then I played these 2 hands and ended up + for the night:

Hand 1
Hero is BB with 94o
7-handed

PF:
Everyone except 1 player limps, I raise to $15 (I decided that I'd raise regardless of my cards). 4 players call :/.

Flop: 8d 4h 2d
I bet $40, everyone folds to BTN who calls.

Turn: 8h
I go AI (~$175), BTN folds and shows 53o rabbit hunts the river and it's a 6 lol.

Hand 2
Hero is UTG+1 with K8c
7 players (3rd to last hand of the night)

PF: UTG straddles for $4, I double straddle for $8
MP calls, CO calls, BTN folds, SB calls, BB folds, UTG (fish) calls, I raise to $38, everyone folds to UTG who decides to call.

Flop: K T 4 rainbow
UTG checks, I bet $30, UTG calls

Turn: Q
UTG checks, I check

River: K
UTG checks, I bet $100, UTG calls with T4 making the comment 'I have 2 pair I have to call' LOL

Total for night: $120 in 5.5 hours ($21.82/hour)
Total live: $1,989/30.5 hours ($65.21/hour)

10/26/07 Cash

2007-10-26T02:53:00.000-04:00

Cash
Played 4,843 hands and won $631.25. Lost $14.90 in 10 hands at $100PL when I sat at the wrong table.

Total: $616.35
Total since start: $5,526.86

70k hand Graph at 100NL - apparently I am indeed a luckbox.

10/24/07 Cash, deal ended

2007-10-25T02:56:00.000-04:00

Cash
Played 2,553 hands and won $498.35

Deals
Deal with 'PT' ended, made $3,756.52 off of that.

Deal with 'MT' is ending in ~6 days, looks like I'll make probably $500+ on that.

Total deals: $3,928.25

Total today: $4,254.87
Total since start: $4,910.51

10/15/07-10/22/07 Cash, MTT, Live

2007-10-24T15:00:00.000-04:00

Alright so I havn't updated for a while here's what I've been upto:

MTT
$24 FTP - 1118/1143
$25 PS - 847/1342
$50 FTP - 528/924
$50 PS - 602/1112
$50 FTP - 113/317
$50 PS - 139/1238
$10r PS - 410/1523
$10r PS - 428/1401
$200 PS - 2939/6524

Uh yeah obviously didn't do too well in the turneys.

Cash
Played 11,902 hands at 100NL, won $921 for a decent 3.87PTBB/100 earn rate. My overall earn rate is 3.15PTBB/100. I lost ~$50 playing 1/2 stud Hi/Lo I think.

Total for time frame: $415.73
Total since start: $655.64

Live Play
Played live last night and made $1,013. I had quad 6's twice, once where I flopped trips on the flop vs KK and rivered quads, the other time I flopped set under set and 1-outered the guy (fun). Biggest pot I played was ~$800:

Stacks were really deep between me and a couple of other people. I had ~$950, Main villian had ~$700, 3rd villian had ~$400.

Hero has 9c 6c.

PF: 3 people limp to hero who calls, SB makes it $15 to go, EP limper calls, Hero calls

Flop ($53): K 9 5 rainbow flop
SB bets $20, EP calls, Hero calls

I actually think this call is pretty bad.

Turn ($113): 8
SB bets $35, EP calls, Hero raises to $125, SB calls, EP folds

OK, I wanted to take this down since I felt SB would probably fold and EP would definitely fold, I guess I was wrong about SB.

River ($398): 7
SB checks, Hero bets $200, SB calls

River is an easy value bet, I actually think I could bet $250-$300. SB mucked and claimed he had 99.

Total today: $1013 ($155/hour)
Total live: $1,869/25 hours ($74.76/hour)

PCA
Cost of PCA to date: 2k FPP, $67.5
Result: 2 Step 3 tickets

10/18/07 Just fucked around

2007-10-19T00:52:00.000-04:00

Cash
Lost $72.05 playing $100NL HU. Won $4.40 playing 18 hands of .25/.5 6-max - I was testing out a new HUD so was using this game to do it. I think I made like $8 playing O/8 2/4 LHE. For some reason the FTP hands aren't showing up.

Total for today: ($59.65)
Total since start: $239.91

Differences between Tournaments and Cash games

2007-10-17T14:23:00.000-04:00

OK, so I've started playing a lot more NL cash than tournaments and here are my thoughts about the biggest differences:

Types of Players
In a tournament the perfect opponent is a TAG - meaning a guy who only plays the top 10% of hands and plays them aggressively without being tricky at all. Why do you want your table full of these guys? Simply because you will always know where you are and you can steal their blinds with impunity. Blinds are the key to winning tournaments - if you can steal twice per orbit every orbit you have no problem - you're going deep the vast majority of the time, and when you get there you'll win a lot. The tighter you're opponent the better.

How does this differ from the type of opponent you want to face in a cash game? Well, in a cash game it's very hard to extract money from the same TAG players that you're looking at in a tournament - when they play a pot they have a good hand and you have to outflop them. Players who are very loose aggressive, on the other hand, are great for you. They build big pots with marginal hands, they bluff more and in general make a game much more lucrative. Why? Simply because they induce other's to put more $$ in the middle with weaker holdings. Now, if the LAG is a weak LAG (meaning very spewy) that's great because you can make a lot of $$ off him and off the players who are opening up their ranges (especially if they open up beyond their ability). If it's a strong LAG, it's a bit harder, but the game will still be more profitable than one filled with TAGs.

I'm not saying that a 'rock garden' as it's come to be known is not profitable - in fact it's probably one of the easiest games to make $$ in - you're just looking at a grind winning a lot of small pots and staying away from big ones and a fairly steady, small earn rate. Loose games in general will be much more profitable because there's more $$ flying around - and you can play more hands with implied odds. All of this adds up to you're edge being implemented across more hands in bigger pots resulting in more profit, along with much more variance. This is why I'd always pick a game full of 'crazies' vs a game full of 'tight good players' (that terminology is from the home games I go to).

Bluffing
Every player sits down at a table with a preconception - everyone expects to be bluffed a certain percentage of the time. An extreme example is Player 'xyz' who thinks that no one ever bluffs; he starts playing you and after 100 hands notices that you showed down 2 draws that missed and you bet strongly on flop/turn, the wheels start churning and he thinks that possibly you bluff sometimes - maybe 5% of the time*. So now, he calls only you down a tad more often. As you continue to play his take on your play will move back and forth as you attempt to adjust how often you’re actually bluffing. While this variable is impossible to measure, it definitely has a huge impact on the success rate of your bluffs.

Another element that effects how successful your bluffs are is how often you play the same opponents. Tournaments have you facing opponents for short periods of times and seldom do you see the same opponent over and over. Cash games differ in that you can hunt for a specific opponent or he can hunt for you, in general you're much more likely to play the same opponents in a cash game than a tournament**.

The two most discernable variables in the success of bluffs are ‘Bluffing Frequency’ and ‘Bluffing Perception’. Bluffing frequency is just how often you are bluffing; whereas bluff perception is how often you're opponents think you're bluffing. If you're playing good opponents the two will be fairly close together. If you're playing bad opponents they will either over or under-estimate you're bluffing frequency. Against players who have a high bluff perception you're bluffing frequency should decrease because they will fairly often assume that you are bluffing. Against players with a low bluff perception you're bluffing frequency should increase, because they assume you have a hand when you bet.

Your bluffing frequency and as a result your opponent's bluff perception should never be static. As your bluffing frequency increases you are bound to have to show down a bluff. As you show down more and more bluffs your opponent's bluff perception should increase***. The effect of this is that your opponent's bluff perception goes up and you in turn need to compensate.

In tournaments, you rarely want to be caught bluffing. This is because the amount of chips lost will usually not be made up for by an incorrect assessment of your bluffing frequency. Contrastingly, in cash games this see-saw of bluff frequency and bluff perception is vital to your profitability.

What happens if a player doesn't adjust their bluffing frequency? Well, in general this is bad if you play an opponent for any length of time - it's bad because in essence you make yourself predictable. In this scenario your opponent's bluffing perception will converge with your bluffing frequency over time.

* This is assuming some cognizant thought by your opponent.
** In live play (especially home games) this differs because the pool of players is much smaller than online. However, this same small pool of players exists at the higher stakes in online games.
*** Once again, this is assuming they pay attention, and have any common sense - I know a lot to ask for.

10/16/07 Live Cash

2007-10-17T03:01:00.000-04:00

Live Cash
Played at my Tuesday night game, won $245 in 6 hours. Had a rough start, but I'm satisfied since the action guys weren't there to really get the big pots going.

Total today: $245 ($40.83/hour)
Total live: $856/18.5 hours ($46.27/hour)

10/14/07 Million

2007-10-15T02:28:00.000-04:00

Turney
$200 PS - 3212/6366 Made a bad 4-bet and lost all but 1.5k chips. Worked my short stack for an hour and then busted 99 vs JTs.

Deals
MT took down 1.7k on PS . . . 2 weeks till that's over.

Total Today: ($215)
Total since start: $299.56

10/12-13/07 Moving up worked out badly

2007-10-14T01:44:00.000-04:00

Cash
100 NL - made $37.95 in 980 hands
200 NL - lost $843.20 in 856 hands

I misplayed a few hands and such. So I'll drop down to 100NL till I win it back. Also, for 12-tabling 10k won't be sufficient.

Turneys
$150 PS - 475/664 AA vs KJ AI on J high flop
$50 PS - 584/1259
$50 FTP - 52/343

PCA
Cost of PCA to date: 2k FPP, $67.5
Result: 3 Step 2 tickets, 1 Step 1 ticket.

Total for 2 days: ($1,144.75)
Total since start: $514.56

10/11/07 Cash

2007-10-12T02:33:00.000-04:00

Cash
Played 3.3k hands at 100NL FR. Won $120.90 - I threw away a couple of buyins on a couple of stupid plays. I'll probably move up to 200NL FR in a couple of days.

Total today: $120.90
Total since start: $1,659.31

PCA
Stars just introduced these steps so I think I'll try to qualify through them. I hope the tickets are transferrable, but not sure. I played a 500FPP step 1 and finished 5th (played while 12 tabling cash). So I'll keep track of this in it's own section.

Cost of PCA to date: 500FPP, $0

10/10/07 A little cash

2007-10-10T23:53:00.000-04:00

Cash
100NL FR - played 1,423 hands and won $524.75
$50NL SH - played 830 hands and won $111.15

I tried out $50NL cause of yesterdays (or was it 2 days ago) experience at 100NL 6-max. Anyway the play is fishy and it took me awhile to get used to the bet amount and small stakes. Overall, I think the play is terrible here - so I'm not sure if I'll play 50NL SH again since it'll prob be useless once I get higher up. Huge upswing in 100NL FR - seemed to get paid off whenever I hit a hand.

Total: $653.90
Total since start: $1538.41

10/09/07 100NL 6-max and Live play

2007-10-10T13:17:00.000-04:00

Cash
Played 841 hands at 100NL 6-max and lost $198.55, I didn't really like it as it's so overaggressive, it's not that I don't get aggressive enough I start to get over-aggressive myself and that leads me to make mistakes. I'll probably play more hands at 100NL FR, and drop down to 50NL 6-max to work on the 6-max game. Also played 10 hands at 100NL FR and lost $3.45.

Total today: ($202)
Total since blog started: $884.51

Live Cash
I played live for about 7 hours. I made $357 at 1/2 NL. I might go play on a game on thursday night for a few hours since I'm told it's got a lot of action/fish (of course the people telling me this are somewhat action fish themselves so it's gotta be good).

Total today: $357/6 hours ($59.50/hour)
Total since blog: $611/12.5 hours ($48.88/hour)

10/8/07 Mostly cash a couple of turneys

2007-10-08T21:11:00.000-04:00

Turneys
$50 PS - 508/1287 Played a hand really really bad.
$10r PS - 509/1490

Cash
Played 4,278 hands and made $452.20. Very swingy with 2 seperate 3 buy-in swings.

Interesting hands:

I also played a little razz (made $4.20) and a little .5/1 LHE HU (lost $15.20). In addition to this, I did a short shot-stacking session at 200NL. I'm short-stacking so that I have a good idea of how my opponents play when I move up while the multi-tablers stats on me will be way off (and this is a good +ev way to do it I think). I lost $170.05 while short-stacking.

Total Today: $155.15

Total Since blog Start: $1,086.51

10/08/07 Mil and cash

2007-10-08T00:27:00.000-04:00

Turney:
$200 PS - 931/6330 Bubbled.

Cash:
Played 3.6k hands and made $397.20

Total: $182.20
Total since start: $931.36

10/06/07 5k+ hands

2007-10-07T03:40:00.000-04:00

Cash
Played ~5.3k hands and won a whopping $36.85. Now that's a grind.

Turneys
Played 2 turneys today:

$50 PS - 44/1280 I got short and then did a stop/go right into KK - exciting.
$10r PS - 640/1664 Lost AKs vs AJ - to be fair I had won AQ vs AA against the same guy.

Total today: $175.85
Total since start: $749.16

Tommorow I'll play the sunday million. I'm feeling really good about my tournament play so looking forward to it. I'll probably also play a little more cash (maybe 2k hands or something). Oh, also today I played a 1k FPP satellite to the PCA the play was a lot better than I expected though obviously not great. I finished somewhere in the middle. I think I'll try to qualify for it again this year - though it'll involve a little hassle and in gnereal I'm against satellites.

10/05/07 Cash

2007-10-06T04:14:00.000-04:00

Woke up played like 100 hands realized I was playing like a retard and quit (dropped $150 in those hands). Was kinda tilting and dropped $200 at 5/10 LHE SH. Quit for the day (mostly cause I had to go to dinner and I wasn't gonna play a turney). Came back from dinner - I walked there and back like 2.5miles each way and actually ran the last couple of blocks home (I'm really out of shape) - but I felt good afterwards so I started up some $100NL. The first 2k hands went well and I was up about $500 (including the 150 I dropped earlier) then ran into a bunch of 2 outers and shit and made a few mistakes and finished +$177.10. Last night I also played 3 hands at 2/4 6-max and made $5 - I sat down played 2 hands (folded) realized I didn't want to play played the 3rd hand and won it (guessing on the flop) and left - hit and run FTW lol.

I also suck at life I couldn't figure out how to get play money chips on pokerstars so I sent 50 cents to some newbie to help me out. Hopefully he doesn't lose it all on one hand :p.

Total today: ($18.40)
Total Since blog started: $573.31

I'll put in the thoughts I had about the small downswing in the last 500 hands at 100NL today:
[03:22] it's such fucking bullshit
[03:22] I was up over $500 now I'm up 175 . . .
[03:23] cause of the most ridiculous bullshit
[03:24] what's the point of playing if I'm making a whopping $10/hour?
[03:25] so I can get better to the point I'm making $100/hour duh
[03:25] who cares if I lose $350 now? if I learn how to play better it's all coming back neway
[03:26] who cares if I lose a little $$ right now?
[03:27] I can see when I'm 10 tabling 5/10 making 5PTBB/100 the 350 will seem completely meaningless
[03:27] right?
[03:28] so tell me to stfu next time I'm complaining

Also, on a sidenote I noticed a weird thing. I've played 30k hands at 100NL now, and I've played 100+ hands with 1,265 players. Oddly enough only 50.47% of these are losers. I would think this number has to be higher. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway just a weird stat.

10/04/07 Cash/turneys

2007-10-05T12:39:00.000-04:00

Cash
Played 4,224 hands and lost $49. Not happy about this, but I feel I'm getting better at NL.

Turneys
$50 PS - 446/730 I don't remember what happened here
$50 PS - 10/1178 I bubbled the FT. I made a call I probably shouldn't have and then was short, final hand was AT vs A9.
$5r PS - 965/1899
$10r PS - 198/1334 Bubbled.

I also lent this guy $111 don't think he's paying me back - sucks but it's probably for the best. I also reached goldstar already which is pretty crazy.

Total: $41.35
Total since blog start: $591.71

10/3/07 Cash and turneys

2007-10-04T02:32:00.000-04:00

Cash
Tried 12-tabling went well, played 1k hands it went well till the last 100 hands where I got into bad spots and lost 90% of what I had won. Only made $15.35.

Turneys
$10 PS - 1220/2308 Lost AKo vs AKo
$25 PS - 194/1329 I bubbled can't remember how
$50 PS - 442/1061
$5r PS - 233/1962 Lost a flip
$10 1r 1a PS - 105/513 Apparently I'm cursed in this turney. Lost a couple of hands and went out 77 vs KK.
$10r PS - 75/1455 Got a good stack then blew it playing too fancy vs a fish, followed by pushing a 10BB stack into AA :/

Total today: ($12.94)
Total since blog started: $550.36

Also 'MT' has been doing well on UB I think he's up a few hundred on there.

10/2/07 Turneys, cash, deals

2007-10-03T02:17:00.000-04:00

Alright I sucked at turneys today:

$50 FTP - 176/287
$50 PS - 373/1400
$25 PS - 1350/1400 43s vs 99 AI on a 4s 3c 6s flop turn was a 9
$24 FTP - 973/1146 - I suck at life :)
$10 FTP - 233/1337 I bubbled this though I was bored and sat out for like 1/2 an hour to take a break
$10 FTP - 899/1466
$50 PS - 723/1176
$50 FTP - 606/1014

Didn't even cash in one which sucked.

Cash
I played a little less than 2.5k hands today at $100NL I lost ~$70 the first 1.5k hands, then during the 2nd 1k hand session I made about $225 and finished + $154.80. I 11-tabled today and didn't have a problem I'll probably jump to 12-13 tables for the next session. I also posted a couple of hands on 2+2 - I don't usually post there but ITH was down so I was like fuck it it's going there: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12338996&an=0&page=0#Post12338996

Deal
One of my backees won a big tournament today for ~8.9k. The funds don't get dispersed till the 24th but since he can only play $50 and lower turneys I doubt he can lose more than a couple of K. Also, I feel that many people slow down their volume for a couple of days after a big win so I expect him to play a little less. I know he's +ev and couldn't care if he plays during the next week or not - just stating something that I've noticed.

Total today: ($142.7)
Total since blog started: $563.30

I really need to start focusing more while playing turneys.

10/1/07 Last couple of days

2007-10-02T02:35:00.000-04:00

All the tournaments I played:

$100 PS - 201/357
$30 PS - 174/372
$10 FTP - 56/254
$10 FTP - 184/1455
$4 180 PS - 87/180

So I didn't play many turneys. I did play some cash games, I kinda tilted for a bit made 5.5 buyins at 100NL FR, lost 1.7 buyins at 100NL SH and lost $66 fucking around $25NL. The guy in the wcoop didn't cash so that's -$100.

Total: $76.95

Cool thing about 100NL FR is that I've got a new system which should reduce my tilt and also allows me to play a couple more tables.

Total since blog started: $706

9/29/07 turneys

2007-09-29T18:31:00.001-04:00

Just played 3 turneys then got out of the mood to play:

$50 PS - 287/1250 Short the whole turney lost AQ vs TT
$50 FTP - 154/378 Played with Chip Jett I think he sucks. Lost AQ vs AK on an A high flop I might've been able to get away from this hand but I decided not to.
$10r PS - 637/1617 made a +ev play and lost

I'll probably play a bit more in a bit.

Played 3 more turneys no cashes:

$50 PS - 561/960 had AQ vs JJ with a bunch of overlay in the pot
$50 FTP - 232/872 Did a move didn't work out
$30 PS - 316/408 made a stupid call with 2 over + oesd vs AA for my stack

The 50k turneys are pretty sweet they seem to be getting overlay every night.

Finished the 3-month deal with 'MT' +$171.73 on it so not great but not terrible. I set up another 1 month deal with him.

9/29/07 10 hour session

2007-09-29T03:41:00.000-04:00

10 hour session, didn't plan on it, havn't played one this long in a while - or at least where I've noticed it. Turney Results:

$10r PS - 511/1533
$5r PS - 631/2142 went out with 66 vs AK on a AK6xA board AI on turn.
$10 1r 1a PS - 57/558 bubbled again
$10r PS - 207/1521 A9 vs J9
$8 PS - 941/1406
$50 PS - 629/809 spaced out and made a big mistake PF
$15 PS - 172/360
$50 PS - 866/989
$25 PS - 108/1261
$24 FTP - 111/1073 Made 2 big mistakes vs the same guy.
$50 UB - 13/77 bubbled FT - not ITM
$50 FTP - 304/892
$24 FTP - 378/1092
$10 FTP - 73/348 AJ vs QJ AI on J high flop
$10 PS - 1699/2309
$2r turbo sat PS - 82/329 Good value but I wasted too much $$ on this

Total for today: ($380.06)
Total Since blog started: $760.98

Oh, also I sent $100 to stake a guy in the wcoop ME - we'll see how that goes. PT's deal isn't going so well he's down under $400 - he's optimistic I'm less so, we'll see how it finishes.

Few things I need to do better: Be more selectful in what I play, concentrate better. Give a couple of lines more respect.

Overall, I was satisfied with how I played except for a couple of brain farts which ended badly.

9/28/07 Random thoughts

2007-09-28T17:33:00.000-04:00

Alright so I'm playing and thinking about random stuff so I'll post some of it.

I donate 10% of my winnings to charity, however, one of the places I was going to donate said they'd prefer to get stuff like iPods and shit from my FPP rather than $$. I was happy about this since it saves me $$ because I never use those points. Yesterday, 2 iPods came in the mail and the 8gb nano is awesome. I'm almost tempted to get one myself but I know I wouldn't use it. There's also a wii coming in the mail! I don't know why I'm so excited to get stuff I won't use but I am.

I logged into AP for the first time in a while and noticed I had enough points for a wireless mouse so I ordered it. My mouse right now totally sucks I'm not sure why. Hopefully it'll come sooner rather than later.

Umm yeah I was going to write something else but I lost my train of thought oh well. Just had belowabove at my table in the $10r . . . changed tables.

9/28/07 Turneys all day!

2007-09-28T02:34:00.000-04:00

W00t! Finished 3rd in the 25k on stars. Sickest turney I've ever played - I hit 2 1 outers along with maybe 5-6 other suckouts. Just incredible luck from the last 70 till the end.

All the turneys I played:
$10 UB - 140/157
$10 FTP - 101/235
$15 PS - 50/360 - bubbled I guess
24 FTP - 139/549
$10 PS - 643/2290
$24 FTP - 233/1056 bubbled
$25 PS - 3/1303
$5r - 1251/1866
$3r - 707/2452
$10 1r 1a - 120/522 bubbled

Total for today: $2,238.33
Total since blog started: $1,141.04

I actually won 2 days in a row, wtf is going on? OK, so $50 turneys are back in. Gonna start playing some more $100NL as well - hopefully with less tilt/bad play.

Oh, I was checking out my stats today so I'll post them here:

# of tournaments: 1,671
ROI%: 85.4%
ITM%: 14.8%
FT%: 4.1%
avg buyin: $61.32
avg entrants: 895.81

9/26/07 Tournaments

2007-09-27T03:08:00.000-04:00

Yay! Finally won something. Only played 5 tournaments 2 at 10am and 3 at 11pm:

$24 FTP - 214/381
$24 FTP - 173/587 this was 6-max. I did alright in the beggining but I don't think my 6-handed game is very good for long periods of time when it not on the FT with $$ involved. I just don't pay attention enough and then I either get too aggressive or too passive.
$30 PS - 124/411 This sucked I got KK vs 88 AI PF and lost to cripple me. Other than that I played well.
$10 FTP - 1/213 Yep I took it down. 3-handed lasted forever (maybe an hour) I had a nice chip lead from about 12 left forward. The key hand was when I won AJo vs AKo vs A7o for about 1/3 of my stack against 2 shorties when there were ~16 left. Last hand was A6o vs K9o - I min-raised OTB he 3xed I pushed he called. Comparably the HU match took no time - maybe 10 hands.
$8r PS - 74/880 I woulda much rather won this this morning, but alas it wasn't meant to be. I lost with AA vs A8s for 90% of my stack (I was top 15 at the time).

I'm going to start color coding my tournament results.
Green = Win
Blue = FT
Red = Cash

I'm glad I got pokerstove. Though I've been playing for like 3 years now I hadn't gotten it cause I didn't see the point, but it's helpful in analyzing certain situations. Here's one that I played in the $8r:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1523012

I wasn't sure if the call here is good after I made it. So I did a pokerstove on it and I'm a 51% favorite if his range is AK, JJ+. It's not even a terrible call if he only has JJ+ since it's pretty much even money.

Good day I guess.

Total today: $468.21
Total since blog started: ($1097.29)

Oh yeah and the deal with 'MT' is ending in 3 days I'll hammer out a new agreement with him. He's a good player just has a bit more to learn, fast learner also. I think I'll only make $150 or something from staking him for the last 3 months which isn't as high as I was hoping, but it's better than losing.

9/25/07 Tuesday live play

2007-09-26T02:41:00.000-04:00

Just got back from my live game. Played from 7:00pm till 1:30am (total 6.5 hours) and I made $254 at 1/2NL which is alright.

9/25/07 A little online play

2007-09-25T16:54:00.000-04:00

Played 3 tournaments didn't cash no surprise:

$13+2 bounty UB - 132/180 I busted with KK vs JTo vs 67s on a 9s 8h 4s with 2 spades flop. I was probably around even $$ all-in 3 ways cause there was a bunch of dead $$ in the pot. Oh well.
$5 winner takes all HU PS - 12/64 lost in the third round after I took a nice lead and lost it and then got coolered.
$50 PS - 1014/1285 don't remember how I busted probably bad play.

Total: ($76.8)
Total since blog started: ($1565.50)

My BR is spread thing so I won't play any more $50 turneys till I start doing alright again.

Gonna go play my tuesday night homegame. I like it - should be fun.

9/24/07 Turneys all day

2007-09-24T17:59:00.001-04:00

Well came home played two turneys, nothing much on any of the sites:

$50 UB - 21/86 lost on a flip.
$8 PS - 708/1219 lost on a play I saw on TV. You can learn things from watching you just have to know how to interpret them. The situation was actually pretty bad for it - oh well, only an $8 turney.

Gonna take a break come back in an hour and play some more turneys.

Stupid me: I lent $50 to a guy last week, stupid because I knew he wouldn't pay me back for like a month - but I'm trying to use the guy to get into some good cash games around town. I really need to start playing 2/5 live. Playing 1/2NL live with an 8k roll is a bit ridiculous. There's a 'charity' game that I want to go to (runs 2-3 times a month from thursday-monday) - it's like an hour away though and I haven't nailed down it's exact location. I should probably do that.

Alright well it's 1:30am right now but I finished like 2-3 hours ago. So I had a bad day - again. I hate downswings :p.

I played 6 tournaments (6-tabling):
$24 FTP - 225/1074 Went from a good stack to out in 2 hands, almost busted Huckelberry Seed as well, but it wasn't meant to be.
$10 FTP - 18/370 Same tourney I finished 14th in yesterday, dissapointing.
$25 PS - 345/1396 This tournament was going well finished 1st hour with ~13k in chips then dumped off 11k in about 5 hands in retarded ways. Doubled up and was on my way, busted - don't remember how but I didn't deserve cashing/winning.
$30+5 bounty UB - 108/271 I knocked out 1 person but nothing else happened.
$10 PS - 810/2458 I don't remember how I lost, but I need to FT one of these.
$10 1r 1a PS - 68/599 I bubbled this for the 2nd day in a row.

Total for the day: ($175.55)
Total since start of Blog: ($1488.70)

So, obviously not going great, kind of going backwards. I'll stay off the cash games for a while and continue the tournaments. I'm bound to start playing better sooner or later.

9/23/07 Turneys in the morning Cash at night

2007-09-23T16:14:00.000-04:00

Alright, so I just finished my tournament session. I played 8 tournaments and Here's how I did:

$20 UB - 90/101 I don't remember how I busted.
$24 FTP - 51/478 I bubbled this when I called a SB push in BB with TT and lost to K9o
$20 PS - 159/1335 I lost with TP vs flush draw, it was an up/down turney and I don't think I was aggro enough
$10 FTP - 14/301 Lost when I tried a resteal. Definitely became a pussy when it got down to about 30. IDK I needed to up my aggressions but just sat back and let my CL dwindle away.
$20 1r 1a PS - 462/566 didn't get to break so didn't add-on I busted this on 'tilt' it was really stupid.
$8r PS - 364/1042 spent $48.8 on this so not terrible. I don't remember how I busted but I think I got sucked out on.
$100 PS - 46/80 I busted when I lost to a gutshot. I played it mostly because it was early morning and I didn't recognize anyone in it.

Total tournies: ($234.65)

I liked the way I played except for the end stages of the $10 and my retardedness in the $20 1r 1a.

Also, I gambled away I think $20 on HU matches pushing ATC till I either won or lost. I won 1/3. So that's like -$22. I need to stop doing shit like this.

A couple of other things happened this morning: I got paid back $600 of 1.2k that I loaned a guy with the rest hopefully on it's way soon. I xferred $447.5 to FTP via a friend, bought 3% of his action in the 1k wcoop as well.

I'll update this post after I play the cash game. I want to get in ~1k hands I'll take at least a 5 minute break after the first 500 hands.

Just played 400-some hands and lost 5 buyins. It's ridiculous. Mostly cause I suck. I'm gonna play another session of turneys than kill myself.

Total: ($525)

Just finished my tournament session - it went great, didn't cash at all!

$10 1r 1a PS - 82/663 Went from healthy stack to bust in 2 hands - gotta love it.
$30+5 bounty UB - 81/384 I suck at remembering details but I was doing well for a long time and I actually won 3 bounties meaning I only lost $23 on this turney.
$25 PS - 940/1505
$10 PS - 1395/3122
$50 PS - 269/1133 Lost because of these lovely hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1513465
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1513457

Total: ($147.50)

I want to discuss 2 hands that I played in the $50 because a) I liked my thought process and b) they look retarded but aren't.

Hand 1 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1513367
This looks like a very stupid call in this spot but I wouldn't have raised had I not been prepared to make it. I know that Gator93 is a good 2+2er. I'm in a spot where I can basically be stealing with any two cards - none of the guys behind me can do anything without a real hand. However, I understand that gator understands this, and I was fairly sure that he was ready to 'resteal' here with a very wide range - so I raised enough to allow him to think he had folding equity when in fact he didn't.

Hand 2 - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1513457
This just looks like the most bizzare play ever. Why would I limp/call with K5o for 90% of my stack doesn't make too much sense. OK, well it folded to me I have K5 so my option are pretty wide open. 1) I can fold - this felt too weak so I rejected it, 2) I can limp - the BB is very aggressive so I'm probably not going to actually see a flop and have to call a raise or a push, 3) I can raise a STD amount to 1.8k-2.4k - I didn't like this option because I do have to fold to a push, 4) I can push - I don't like pushing K5o here for reasons I don't want to get into right now.

So from all the above options I think most people would choose fold or push. I thought about it and decided that if I limp 1) there's maybe a 25% chance I see the flop and 2) let's see what kind of raise he makes. As soon as I limp BB pushes. Well it just didn't seem right he pushes? Is he pushing AK/AQ/AA-QQ probably not, but I felt he'd push a lot of hands that I'm a 'slight favorite against. As it happened I was right and unfortunately lost. It happens.

Good news: Staked another player 'PT' for 1k for the next month.
Bad news: Not gonna have enough on stars to play 100NL
eh news: Gonna play mostly tounaments.

Upcoming: My first staking deal with 'MT' is ending on the 30th that will free up about 1k plus w/e I get from his winnings. I'm excited about my deal with 'PT'. I'm feeling good about my 3rd deal with 'JM' - I'm not expecting to make a huge amount from JM but I'm fairly sure it'll be +.

Looks like my own staking arrangements for WSOP 08 might fall through won't know for a couple more months. I'd like to go out there either way.

Winnings: ($907.15)

Great way to start the blog!

9/22/07 Satellite hell - Goals for this year

2007-09-23T02:36:00.000-04:00

After being busy all day I decided when I got home I'd play satellites till I won a seat to the wcoop 1k event. Well, I played 17 of them and cashed 1 for a net profit of -$406 which is a bit ridiculous. Luckily I saved like $20 by buyin $w320 for $300. Eh, at least it saved some time. Needless to say I didn't win a seat. Probably would've been smarter to just get staked but I've developed an ego since April which I need to work down. Having everyone tell me I'm great isn't good I wish they'd stop and call me on all my mistakes instead.

I'll include some extra stuff in this post just cause it's ongoing and upcoming. I staked a guy I tutored for a while for 3 months with 2k that's going to expire on 9/30 right now it looks like he's up a few hundred so that's good. I think he's making some mistakes in his end game which I'll have to talk to him about (I thought he was being too aggressive based on what he was saying but after watching him I think he's being too passive). I'm also staking another guy at UB for 1k - we'll see how that turns out he plays quite a bit, I'm staking him for 3 months too but it ends 12/17 I believe (I'd have to look but I'm lazy).

Another, ongoing thing is that I'm playing 100NL FR. Why? Cause I decided to I guess. I wanted to see if I was +ev and I guess I am. My goal was 5PTBB/100 (i.e. 1 buyin [$100] per 100 hands) I think I'm running significantly less than that right now cause I had 2 sessions of bad play/tilt. I'm 6-8 tabling at a time and I'm ~17.5k hands into it. I was only going to play 20k hands but I think I'll instead play till I win 20 buyins and then move up to 200NL. I might not move up but that's something I'll have to decide.

I'm also playing live more often working up to next years WSOP. I've turned 500 into 8k in about 2.5 months so it's going well, I want to get out to a casino sometime soon though. Oh, and I'm moving to NYC hopefully in 1.5 months so it'll cut down on my poker time.

Lastly, I have been considering myself a tournament player for the last ~1.5 years. I've only played maybe 1.4k turneys in that time and probably averaged ~30-50/hour which is nice. Unfortunately (or fortunatley depending how you look at it), I reached my goals and my game went down and I started running bad simultaneously. I thought this might happen but now I gotta rework it set new goals.

Goals:
1) I want a 150 buyin BR for the $215 turneys (BR = 10/32.2k)
2) I want to withdraw ~20k for personal use (32.2k+20k = 52.2k)
3) I want to get more proficient at NL cash games
4) I want to play more live and get my live BR up to 20 buyins for 5/10 (8/20k)
5) I want all of this accomplished within a year (9/31/08).
6) Total $$ won goal: $72.2k
7) This goal is just a whimsy - FT the million again in the next year.

Obviously, this is a very optimistic goal, but I hope I can accomplish it. I'm already almost 25% of the way there.

Online withdrawal policies: Once I get above 15k online I will start withdrawing 20% of monthly profit until I supass the 32.2k mark. After I surpass the 32.2k mark I will start withdrawing 60% of profit.

Live withdrawal policies: Once I get above 10k live I will withdraw 20% till I surpass the 20k mark at which point I will withdraw 40%. Once I get above 40k I will withdraw 70%. Also, all bills that I collect smaller than $20's will just go as spending $$.

I'll try to update this everyday that I play poker.

Intro

2007-09-23T02:32:00.000-04:00

Well here's some background:

I started playing poker a few years ago and I won a $2 freeroll turned it into a few hundred, bonus chased playing LHE reached 15/30 while it was very soft. Switched to NL turneys did well, I've FTed the stars mil a couple of times and I've won the nightly 100k. Great year ('07) till about June and then I tanked. So here's a 'blog' for my own benefit to track how much I suck. Oh, and the Pokerstars hates me thing is a joke. I'll probably update it daily about how much I suck