Hacker238's Poker Blog

Starting up again

2008-09-02T16:46:00.004-04:00

The summer meant I wasn't able to concentrate or play during peak times, because I was busy. I ended July at 2.1K after bonuses, and it was easily my worst month to date. -$300 from playing 21K hands of NL50, and that's all it took me to realize that I shouldn't be 18-tabling, I should be working on improving. It didn't help that my schedule was 30-60 minutes sessions of 18 tabling so that I could eek out 21K hands in the smallest amount of time. No groove = no reads = B/E poker.

Of course I made $225 from the ironman mid-year bonus, $200+ from rakeback, and a little more from PLO (ridiculously small sample ldo), so I still finished the month up. I swear with the bonuses and rakeback they hand out, it's pretty damn difficult to lose playing poker.

Of course the -$300 is relative. I was down $400 - $500 in all-in equity over the month; if I had neutral luck, I would have ended the month up $150 instead of down $300, but that's poker. I also suffered more from coolers than I gained, KK vs AA and AA vs KK had me down, set over set and set under set hand me down, and that contributed to another couple hundred in losses.

After July I decided to take August off to enjoy my summer (Good bye consecutive ironman bonus :(). So august has wrapped up, I'm moving into my new apartment soon, and we'll see how September treats me. Hopefully I can run $500 above expectation, and have my first + 1K month! Who knows...

LOL Swongs

2008-06-20T14:33:00.002-04:00

Had the worse run of my life Wednesday night... -4BI / 200 hands !!! I lost:
* 1 BI to standard failed CB/ c/c for value on the river plays.
* 1 BI KK vs AA
* 1 BI 666 vs KKK
* 1 BI AQs vs KK

AQs was probably a little tilty, but the player was a reg w/ ATS=30-40%, and he had restolen from the blinds last orbit. This orbit he restole me from the button, and I 4bet. Standard move with AKs or AKo, but AQs it's on the meh side. Of course I 4bet shoved (practically) maximize FE and he snap shoved over for a few more BB. Call, miss the Ace, -$200.

Either way I had hit a nice upswong before hand, so I was sitting on 2K at one point. A few minorly losing sessions and then this put me back down to 1.7K. Still a positive month so far and getting some more experience at NL50. This was definitely the tiltiest I've felt in a while though... After dropping $200 in 20 mins I went for a nice hour long jog :)

2008-06-10T17:48:00.003-04:00

Maybe I'll start to update this, probably not though.

~$1600 in my account right now, and -$250 at NL50 overall. Went on a downswong when I first started at NL50, so dropped to rebuild, and am now back entirely. Because of that I'm not quite where I would want to be, but I'm getting back on track.

-$200 something in April, and +$200 something in May, so I bounced back. In June I've moved to NL50 fully, and finally making some of it back.

Taking a Break

2008-03-06T14:55:00.002-05:00

Hey all, I think I'm going to take a break from this blog for a while, but certainly not from poker! :). I currently consider myself a winning player who still has a long way to go (Bankroll aside) before making the jump the NL50.

So instead of posting HH in a blog very few/no one read, which I use mainly for stat keeping, I will spend my time posting my HH entirely on 2p2. This is what I have been doing anyway for the past month. That said I wish the best of luck to anyone reading this, and keep studying!

Remind me to play on Sunday Nights

2008-03-02T22:22:00.002-05:00

Just a public service announcement: If you're reading this, STOP! I'm not really writing this to be good entertainment, it's kindof just turned into record keeping for me. So don't waste your time reading this, instead come over to the 2p2 uNL forums!

And I run bad against donks, (AA loses to JT, 444 loses to AJJ), but when there are enough of them, it doesn't matter! :)

Session: +$52 -- 622 Hands
Overall: $1093.20-- +$688.50 -- 28,511 hands

Remember this heater when I run bad

2008-02-28T19:37:00.002-05:00

- Started datamining NL50 for march
- KK>AA :)
- Am playing at midnight-2am tonight to make ironman gold this month, because I'm busy all day Friday

Session: +$55 -- 627 Hands
Overall: $1082.25-- +$677.30 -- 27,416 hands

Hit the 1K mark!

2008-02-27T19:54:00.002-05:00

Lets hope I never drop below it!

Session: +$79 -- 713 Hands
Overall: $1027.50-- +$622.55 -- 26,788 hands

Way positive session, thanks to a big donk

2008-02-26T19:45:00.002-05:00

I was -$30 at one point in the session, before winning a couple of huge pots in the last 10 mins of the session. One pot was an awesome win, not "outplayed" per say, but definitely a good move by me. It took advantage of FE with a draw, which is something that is very hard for me to do. Of course they didn't fold, and my draw didn't hit, but I still won (lol, I love NL25).

Session: +$61 -- 678 Hands
Overall: $948.80-- +$543.85 -- 26,076 hands

BIGGEST POT EVER... but I lost it with the flop nuts

2008-02-24T18:59:00.003-05:00

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $10.50
Hero (UTG+1): $45.20
MP: $28.80
CO: $16
BTN: $27.45
SB: $14.20
BB: $7.85

Pre-Flop: Js Jc dealt to Hero (UTG+1)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $1, MP folds, CO calls $1, BTN calls $1, SB calls $0.90, BB folds

Flop: ($4.25) 2h Jd 9c (4 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2, CO calls $2, BTN raises to $11, SB folds, Hero calls $9, CO raises to $15 and is All-In, BTN calls $4, Hero calls $4

Turn: ($49.25) Kd (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
Hero bets $29.20 and is All-In, BTN calls $11.45 and is All-In

River: ($72.15) Ad (3 Players - 2 are All-In)

Results: $72.15 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed Js Jc (three of a kind, Jacks) and WON $22.35 (-$5.10 NET)
CO showed Th Qh (a straight, Ace high) and WON $46.80 (+$30.80 NET)
BTN showed 9s 9h (three of a kind, Nines) and LOST (-$27.45 NET)

Another hand I'm not going to bother to post but was rather cooling was my Qhigh flush being beaten by an A high flush from the table donk. The win put him at about $96 (the reason I was sitting at the table).

Oscars are tonight!

Session: -$24 -- 684 Hands
Overall: $887.10-- +$482.15 -- 25,398 hands

Great session, some important changes, and the biggest timeout of my life

2008-02-23T18:50:00.002-05:00

Well the heater continues, and there are no complaints here. This is the third straight 2+ BI session, and I'm up quite a bit in the past 3 days. I hit sets more than my fair share, and the people pay me off. However my graph still puts me down sets for February, so I want this to continue.

The hand that I timed out on I clicked on the player by accident when I had about 10 seconds left to act. This pops up the PAHud stat window, which (because I'm 6-tabling FT's software with a semi-shitty laptop) takes about 5 seconds to pop up. However this time, my whole computer locked up for about 15 seconds, and I came back furiously clicking raise while my table froze for an additional 5 seconds, and then I auto folded and sat out. Blah. Here it is:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

BB: $4.80
UTG: $31.30
MP: $24.30
CO: $4.80
Hero (BTN): $25.15
SB: $38.85

Pre-Flop: 4d 4s dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, MP raises to $1, CO folds, Hero calls $1, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.35) 6c Ks 4h (2 Players)
MP bets $1.50, Hero calls $1.50
Sigh. Yeah I slowplay SOMETIMES, but almost never. I sigh saying this because so many people post hands on 2p2 like "I never do this, but here I was", and you just know that they play that way 90% of the time but think that they're probably playing wrong so they're watching their back. I slowplayed because this player was aggressive, the board was dry, and it came HLL (High low low). The high low low flop gives large range of PP that are possibly calling or firing here with a PFR. I thought he might be able to get away from a 77-QQ type hand if I raised here, but if he 2barrelled the turn then he would be much closer to committed, and I could potentially get him to stack off. Considering he also raised PF from MP, I'm not putting him on a draw here (78, 75, 53, 32)

Turn: ($5.35) Tc (2 Players)
MP bets $3.50, Hero folds
Yeah, the converter missed it. Basically here I wanted to raise to $10, but as I stated above times out. Blah.

Results: $5.35 Pot ($0.25 Rake)
MP mucked and WON $5.10 (+$2.60 NET)

So that said, I finally (something I've been meaning to do) went into PAHud and turned that annoying feature off. I also ended up changing the mucked cards to show up over the players names and stacks, because the old position was blocked by my new WTSD and W$SD stats. (Which I'm still trying to learn how to use).

Still a couple of large places I think I should have value bet differently, and places I feel that I made bad calls, but I'm improving to the point where I can analyze some of them myself afterwards, using Pokerstove to calculate ranges and such. This takes some of the strain off of the 2p2 community.

Session: +$59 -- 723 Hands
Overall: $911.45-- +$506.50 -- 24,713 hands

Unbelievable

2008-02-22T18:33:00.002-05:00

Great session. Setting up and the like. GG poker.

Session: +$78 -- 703 Hands
Overall: $852.50-- +$447.55 -- 23,989 hands

Holy shit I can hit sets!

2008-02-21T23:07:00.002-05:00

Looks like my setometer is turning around! 4 sets tonight, and 3 of them paid off. And by paid off I mean like $15-20 paid off. And then the one $74 pot; we were both deep and he paid me off with 2pair, top and bottom, Q3. Weirdo. Either way, pwned!

Posting some hand histories on the uNL 2p2 forums...

Oh yeah, and This session put my ptBB/100 from 2 to 3! Crazy how even 23,000 hands and this is still a highly volatile stat.

Session: +$71 -- 706 Hands
Overall: $774.80-- +$369.85 -- 23,285 hands

Good Session, felt great about it

2008-02-19T20:05:00.002-05:00

I felt great about my session today, but didn't win quite as much as I would have had my one big draw hand hit (12 outs over 2 cards for $50 with 4way action!), and had I not run KK into AA for a full stack. Even with those two hands though, I'm still +$10 on the day.

Well I feel like it's more important that I post my hand histories on 2p2 than here, so that I can discuss and get feedback. I had recently been taking a break from posting hands there because I felt that I might have been abusing the privilege and posting TOO many hands, but I've taken enough time off that I think I can return to 1 hand a day.

I also added WTSD and W$SD to my HUD today, and I'm planning on looking up a good color coding for them on 2p2 tonight.

Session: +$10 -- 625 Hands
Overall: $703.50-- +$298.55 -- 22,578 hands

Don't feel so bad about winning mildly Feb

2008-02-19T14:06:00.006-05:00

Well, I had been feeling pretty down about my Feb winrate, because it's only about 1 ptBB/100, which is very low. Don't get me wrong, at least it's winning, but it's nowhere near where I thought I would be. In December I played 5000 hands and beat the game for 5 ptBB/100, in January I think off of the top of my head (don't have PT here at work) it was 4 ptBB/100 over 6000 hands, and so far in Feb I've played 11000+ hands and its sitting at 1 ptBB/100. Frankly I was worrying if I was just running hot, and truly I'm more of a break even player.

Then I downloaded the setometer, which shows how often you hit sets as compared to how often you should. It also shows a couple of other metrics, like how many times your AA went against KK and how many times your KK ran into AA. Below is my graph:

Basically, if thre are equal parts blue and red, you're hitting about as many sets as you should. If there is more blue then you're getting lucky, and hitting more sets than you should. However in my case, I'm hitting far fewer sets than I should. It seems I've hit 44 sets when I should have hit 60. That's 16 sets worth of profit I'm missing out on! Not only that, but just one or two stacks (which I feel I can count on with 16 sets) would significantly improve my winrate.

Add to that the fact that I've had AA and hit villains KK preflop once, and he drew out to his K for a full stack, and I don't feel quite as bad about 1 ptBB/100. Hell, at least I'm up!

PLHE FTW

2008-02-18T14:33:00.002-05:00

It's funny how much I am a slave to structure. I had always passed by the Pot Limit tables for a few reasons. One, I didn't know what differences there were between a good NL player and a good PL player. This was enough to know that I wasn't playing optimally, which is something I don't like to do knowingly. The second reason, however, was because I wanted to play all of my hands this month in NL, so that my pokertracker display would be nice. This second reason is stupid, because it's obviously not optimal. It's just funny how I can pretend not to notice that second reason and skip right over the PL tables every time.

Today was different, because when I first signed on www.tableratings.com wasn't working for Full Tilt, so I was slightly confused about where I should sit. To make matters worse, the shortest wait for an NL25 table was 2 people...! What?!?? I've never seen an absence of tables without waits before, so today was a first. There were even tables with 6 people waiting in line! Why the hell would you wait for 6 people to leave, it would make the table entirely different!

Anyway I sat at two PL tables and put my name in on some of the NL tables, using old fashioned table selection -- ala big $$ pots and big % seeing flop. I ended up sitting at a PL25 table with $103 at one point (4+ BI!) And now PT says I'm running at 68.46 ptBB/100 for PL25. :)

Sadly I ended up losing money overall today at the NL tables, but the ridiculous PL stackings were enough to throw me way into the positive.

Also I had quads twice in 100 hands??? WTF??? Sadly neither paid off big.

There was an error in this stats section yesterday... just disregard yesterday's...
Session: +$47 -- 751 Hands
Overall: $693.85-- +$288.90 -- 21,952 hands

Blah

2008-02-17T21:48:00.002-05:00

I'm getting quite lazy about reviewing my hands and trying to get better. I will probably get better at it when I return to work ;)

This session was terrible cards wise. I ran my KK into AA for a deepstack, lost an AK to QQ flip against a fullstack, and finally ran my KK in a 3bet pot into 74s who coldcalled BOTH raises from the SB, and hit a flop of 356 two tone. Mother of god. 3 players all in and a $50 pot. It made sense that I might be behind, but with the high number of straight draws out there, (23, 45, 67, 78, 89), and the board having 2 hearts on it I thought I made the right play with an overpair. Not to mention 77-QQ being confident with an overpair, and me taking it from them. The original PF raiser flipped over JJ, and he flipped over 74. Originally I was like oh SD... then WTF? He coldcalled a 3bet way OOP with 74s???

Brag: Cleared a $20 bonus today
Beat: It was my last bonus. I guess it's time to rely on my play...

Session: -$45 -- ~720 Hands
Overall: $242.00-- +$286.85 -- 21,200 hands

Return to Poker

2008-02-16T18:40:00.002-05:00

Took a couple days off for valentine's day and visiting UMass, and today was the return.

Session: +$7 -- ~504 Hands
Overall: $671.80-- +$286.85 -- 20,478 hands

Worst session of my life

2008-02-13T19:44:00.002-05:00

I attended a funeral yesterday and I shouldn't have attempted to play poker today, I wasn't in the mood. I didn't pay attention, and tilted away a lot of money. I even won a KK vs AA battle for $40, and I'm still down about 3 buy ins. The crowning moment when I realized I was not paying attention was pushing all in a with a "Straight" in a $70 pot, then realizing I had a ten high. He had the straight.

Fuck that, back in two days.

Session: -$72 -- 729 Hands
Overall: $664.30-- +$279.35 -- 19,974 hands

Amazed that I'm up

2008-02-12T13:06:00.000-05:00

Up a little, but took some big hits. Check them out:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

CO: $4.65
BTN: $8.60
SB: $24.05
BB: $39.90
UTG: $8.75
UTG+1: $20.95
UTG+2: $29.20
Hero (MP1): $30.15
MP2: $22.20

Pre-Flop: Qh Ad dealt to Hero (MP1)
3 folds, Hero raises to $1, 4 folds, BB calls $0.75

Flop: ($2.10) Qc Td 4h (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.50, BB raises to $4, Hero calls $2.50

Turn: ($10.10) 7h (2 Players)
BB bets $4.75, Hero raises to $9.50, BB calls $4.75

River: ($29.10) 6d (2 Players)
BB bets $25.40 and is All-In, Hero calls $15.65 and is All-In

Results: $60.40 Pot ($3 Rake)
BB showed 9d 8h (a straight, Ten high) and WON $57.40 (+$27.25 NET)
Hero mucked Qh Ad (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$30.15 NET)

The worst part about it was that me and this player had been going at it previously. I CBed the flop mega fast, because I felt that that would induce a call from him rather than a fold, as he thought I was always FOS. Instead he raised, which I liked, because I'm comfortable stacking off here against a maniac. That's where I decided to get tricky, as I figured there was a good chance he was way behind here, and thus drawing very slim, and would fire anyway OOP at the turn. Therefore I just called the flop raise, and doubled the turn for value. As we had been going at it, I acknowledged that he could be bluffing the river, and the board hadn't paired, FD hadn't hit, so I called it. At least I was right he was making a move on the flop!

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $28.10
MP2: $15.70
CO: $9.85
Hero (BTN): $38.60
SB: $4.75
BB: $26.95
UTG: $15.60
UTG+1: $4.75
UTG+2: $25.30

Pre-Flop: 5d 5c dealt to Hero (BTN)
4 folds, MP2 calls $0.25, CO raises to $1.10, Hero calls $1.10, 3 folds

Flop: ($2.80) 6s 5s 7h (2 Players)
CO bets $2.80, Hero raises to $37.50 and is All-In, CO calls $5.95 and is All-In

Turn: ($20.30) Jd (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($20.30) Kh (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $20.30 Pot ($1 Rake)
CO showed Ks Kd (three of a kind, Kings) and WON $19.30 (+$9.45 NET)
Hero showed 5d 5c (three of a kind, Fives) and LOST (-$9.85 NET)

This one is more straight forward, a 2 outer over 2 cards. Bleh. Notice also that I wasn't actually over raising that ridiculous amount, as he only had another $3 in front of him; I was just putting him all in.

I also timed out PF with AA. I swear it's almost unbelievable how unlucky I've been with that. I say I've times out 15 hands in total in me playing poker the past two months, which is about 15,000 hands. Most of those are also in the past week as I've moved up to 6 tabling. Twice I have timed out AA. The pot also ended up being a $40 pot this time which didn't go to showdown. :-/

Oh yeah, and I cleared another $20 bonus. That leaves on $20 left! Hard to believe I've made $180 already on bonuses. I learned two things from that: I really should have deposited more (can you believe I could have earned up to $600? doh!) and I think it's time to invite some friends...

Session: +$4 -- 728 Hands
Overall: $736.20-- +$351.25 -- 19,247 hands

Plan failed, but the money was good!

2008-02-11T19:54:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I didn't quite live up to my plan of identifying WA/WB situations... in fact, I completely forgot about it. Made a lot of money though! Here's a hand:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

UTG+1: $15.85
MP1: $43.65
MP2: $4.65
CO: $10
BTN: $40.10
SB: $30.85 (24/3/inf)
Hero (BB): $24.65
UTG: $28.50

CO posts $0.10
CO posts $0.25
Pre-Flop: Qs Js dealt to Hero (BB)
2 folds, MP1 calls $0.25, MP2 folds, CO checks, BTN calls $0.25, SB calls $0.15, Hero checks

Flop: ($1.25) 4c Jh Qd (5 Players)
SB bets $1, Hero calls $1, 2 folds, BTN calls $1

Turn: ($4.25) Ad (3 Players)
SB bets $0.25, Hero raises to $2.50, BTN folds, SB raises to $4.75, Hero calls $2.25

River: ($13.75) 3h (2 Players)
SB bets $13.85, Hero folds

Results: $13.75 Pot ($0.65 Rake)
SB mucked and WON $13.20 (+$7.20 NET)

I'm pretty happy about being able to make this laydown, as I think it shows a lot about how I've progressed as a player. This would be an easy laydown if there were a 4card flush or a 4card straight on the board, but as shown I think it was relatively tough. However what range is that player betting there? My specific guess was AQ or AJ.

Great+ session though, and I think laying down hands like this which use to pull my sessions down really help. If the effective stacks are going in, I want to be the one putting them there.

Session: +$79 -- 819 Hands
Overall: $712.75-- +$347.80 -- 18,518 hands

Goals for Tonight

2008-02-11T11:19:00.000-05:00

My goal for tonight is to do a better job of identifying WA/WB situations, and check based on them. I believe if you're in a way ahead/way behind situation, it's almost always better to check, because bets drive out the weaker hands and get the better hands to call/raise, which is not what you want. The biggest example of these hands are dry flops. One example which has provoked a good detailed conversation is the hand I posted in my last post, so I will use a similar example here.

Consider you have AKo, open raise on the BT, and get 3bet from the tight SB. You call and see a flop, which comes K72r, and it's checked to you. I think this is a great example of a WA/WB situation. Lets say that the SBs 3bet range here is TT+ AQ+... I use a lighter range than I normally would for a tightie(KK+ AK) because I'm a blind stealing mofo and I opened raised from the BT, which makes my raise look 100% like a steal. now if villain has TT-QQ, you are way ahead. They have only 2 outs that can help them, and otherwise you will with the hand. Similarly with AQ, yet they have 0 outs. If they have KK-AA, you are way behind, as only a K falling against AA will help you here (2 outs versus AA, and 0 outs against KK).

Basically, when the board is very dry, there are no draws, and draws are the big "chance" factor in poker. With no draws, the situation quickly becomes a WA/WB situation, and it's crucial to know how to play it. Because of this, I would check behind on the flop. Most likely they will not improve, and villain will be firing on the turn with almost his entire range here (barring a Q or J falling and he villain having TT). Then you can call his turn bet (very tricky to read IMO), and let him go first OOP on the river. If he bets, you can probably get away from the hand as TT-QQ isn't really firing again here, and if he checks you can value bet it and leave him confused.

I'll see if I can find some spots for this tonight, and if not I can always try to identify WA/WB situations.

Stacking off with TPTK

2008-02-10T16:09:00.000-05:00

Terrible session today, until the very last 2 hands. I was down $75 at one point, and with roughly 5 hands to go was all ready to log my worst session ever. My AA got beat by KK AND 77 for the side pot, which I feel is virtually unreal. AA vs KK vs 77 flop is K72r. KK takes pot, 77 takes sidepot. I also lost a few other big pots which I think I'm choosing not to remember right now. One with KK to AQ when an A hit and made a large second barrel, got raised and felt committed and called, a very poor play. Amazingly, the last two hands I limp with PP (44 and 22 respectively), set up on the flop, and stack villain. Once the villain had AA and called a raise PF (leading me to call as well with position and see a 3way flop), so I feel like that one's kind of his fault for not raising. The other one I called a PFR in position and villain hit TPTK with AQ, while I hit my set of 222. Stacking time!

The subject of this thread is based on this hand:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $29.80
BTN: $5.80
SB: $20.50
BB: $10.05
UTG: $6
UTG+1: $26.95
MP1: $24.50
MP2: $25.80

Pre-Flop: Kh As dealt to Hero (CO)
4 folds, Hero raises to $1, BTN folds, SB raises to $3.25, BB folds, Hero calls $2.25

SB was tight, otherwise I'd be comfortable getting all in here. I don't remember his PFR, but it was around 5.

Flop: ($6.75) 7d 9d Kc (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $3, SB raises to $6, Hero calls $3

I think that I might start folding this... then again I think that this is the best play. I had not been making moves at this table, but I had definitely been CBing when I raised, and I had been sitting here for 75-100 hands, so it's possible he may have been making a move. The problem is it's tough to put him on 77, 99 because of the 3bet PF. Therefore there are gutshots and diamond draws which COULD be making a move here. Also weak Kings trying to push me out with my AT+ or my TT-QQ. Of course there's also the KK/AA which make perfect sense here.

Turn: ($18.75) 8c (2 Players)
SB bets $4.50, Hero calls $4.50

This was where I planned to get to showdown cheaply. Straight draw hit, but I have TPTK, right?

River: ($27.75) 9h (2 Players)
SB bets $6.75 and is All-In, Hero calls $6.75

Not so cheap, huh? Although his bet is only 1/4 of the pot, how can I fold?

Results: $41.25 Pot ($2.05 Rake)
Hero mucked Kh As(two pair, Kings and Nines) and LOST (-$20.50 NET)
SB showed Ac Ad (two pair, Aces and Nines) and WON $39.20 (+$18.70 NET)

Overall, this was a good play by villain, but I think he got lucky I wasn't messing around with a draw. His turn bet was great for pricing me in to call his river shove, but had I held diamonds or a J it could have proved costly. Overall I think I misplayed the hand, but I'm unsure of where I should have acted differently. On the one hand, there is the flop, where a c/r shows so much strength. But if I'm folding AK when I flop TPTK on a wet flop, then what kind of value am I ever expecting to get from it? If I fold here, I'm incredibly exploitable, because I will fold if I was CBetting that flop, AND fold when I hit TPTK, which is really all you can hope to hit with AJ+ style hands, which are what I'm raising with.

Next you have the turn. He's betting only 1/4 of the pot... is it possible to fold TPTK here?

Then the river shove, which is still only 1/4 of the pot. Sigh.

Wouldn't it be great to have two big winning sessions in a row? ;)

Session: -$24 -- 833 Hands
Overall: $63350-- +$268.40 -- 17,697 hands

Unreal Session, (Biggest + ever)

2008-02-09T12:11:00.000-05:00

Unbelievable session today. Got AA 5 times and took down some pretty nasty pots with it. Had JJ run into my KK for a stack, and KQ run into my AK for a stack on a 9TJQ board. Oh yeah, and I cleared a $20 bonus.

Here is a big hand where I played AA slightly unusually:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

CO: $9.15
BTN: $15.60
SB: $28.60
BB: $36.15
UTG: $17.30
UTG+1: $5.75
MP1: $41.50
Hero (MP2): $49.80

Pre-Flop: Ah Ad dealt to Hero (MP2)
2 folds, MP1 raises to $0.85, Hero raises to $2.50, 3 folds, BB calls $2.25, MP1 raises to $7, Hero calls $4.50, BB folds

Flop: ($16.60) 4s 2h 5s (2 Players)
MP1 bets $12, Hero raises to $42.80 and is All-In, MP1 folds

Results: $40.60 Pot ($2 Rake)
Hero mucked Ah Ad and WON $38.60 (+$19.60 NET)

MP1 was 13/12/3, and I had position on him. This lead me to only call his raise where ABC poker says I should get it all in PF. Now I feel that I lost value here, because a big part of his range is AK, which he probably would have stacked off with after the 4bet. However because we're so deep that changed things, and I thought he might be able to get away from a 5bet from me. Also due to his aggression PF, I thought I could take out a CB from him especially in a 4bet pot, and this CB would have to be pretty large. As to my shove on the flop, I thought this was a good spot to let him get it all in with JJ-KK, as he would still have an overpair, and if an A, K or Q landed on the turn it would have been much easier for him to fold. I also couldn't bring myself to call and see a turn card because of the spades out there, and this was such a big pot already.

However in retrospect, I feel that I lost value. I think that by getting tricky with AA I lost myself the possibility of him stacking off PF to gain an extra third of his stack with a CB, and 1/3 of the time he has AK or KK there and will stack off. So in the future I would not play it like this. Damn FPS!

Here's another hand:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

SB: $6.20
BB: $24.65
UTG: $27.55
UTG+1: $31.55
UTG+2: $9.75
MP1: $26.10
MP2: $25.05
CO: $15.65
Hero (BTN): $25.95

Pre-Flop: Ah As dealt to Hero (BTN)
2 folds, UTG+2 calls $0.25, MP1 raises to $1.10, MP2 folds, CO calls $1.10, Hero raises to $3, 3 folds, MP1 calls $1.90, CO calls $1.90

Flop: ($9.60) 8c Tc Kh (3 Players)
MP1 bets $23.10 and is All-In, CO folds, Hero calls $22.95 and is All-In

Turn: ($55.50) 3h (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($55.50) Ts (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $55.50 Pot ($2.75 Rake)

First of all, MP1 is 13/8/3. That means that 88, and TT are definitely in his r/c range PF. So what the hell is going on here? That shove was an instashove, the second the flop came down, and that contributed to my read. I felt that although sets SHOULD bet big here, the average player isn't betting big because he wants to get more value out of a set. I concluded that although a set is more likely, the most likely situation is either AK/KC with clubs, because the high card isn't a club. This is something I've gotten better at picking up recently, that here it's much more likely someone betting could also have a club draw, because they could have the Kc giving them top pair and a FD with any other club. There are also combo draws such as QcJc which are technically ahead of me here...

As you can see I decided to call, because I thought that AK and 2 clubs were both possible holdings from a player with AF of 3, clubs looking to maximize fold equity of course.

MP1 showed Kd Ad (two pair, Kings and Tens) and LOST (-$25.95 NET)
Hero showed Ah As (two pair, Aces and Tens) and WON $52.75 (+$26.80 NET)

Surprisingly, he had AK with no clubs, and was looking to scare out the FD. Hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense! Noted him up and moved on.

Session: +$109 -- 721 Hands
Overall: $657.95-- +$292.85 -- 16,863 hands

Most hands per Day record

2008-02-08T22:24:00.000-05:00

There's one thing to be happy about!

Played some more hands... This one just made me laugh.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

UTG+2: $26.15
MP1: $35.50
MP2: $21.70
CO: $26.95
Hero (BTN): $30.15
SB: $62.65
BB: $8.75
UTG: $20.60
UTG+1: $23.20

Pre-Flop: Kc As dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG calls $0.25, UTG+1 calls $0.25, UTG+2 folds, MP1 raises to $0.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, 4 folds, MP1 calls $1

Flop: ($3.85) 5s Th Js (2 Players)
MP1 checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($3.85) Tc (2 Players)
MP1 bets $1.25, Hero calls $1.25

River: ($6.35) 2c (2 Players)
MP1 bets $2, Hero raises to $6, MP1 calls $4

Results: $18.35 Pot ($0.90 Rake)
MP1 showed Jd Ad (two pair, Jacks and Tens) and WON $17.45 (+$8.70 NET)
Hero showed Kc As (a pair of Tens) and LOST (-$8.75 NET)
xxxx: the hammer takes it!

Session: +$4 -- 469 Hands
Overall: $528.50-- +$183.40 -- 16,142 hands

Poor Session

2008-02-08T19:55:00.000-05:00

I feel comfortable 6-tabling now... but by comfortable I mean non-rushed, and not necessarily optimal. Surprisingly it didn't help me hit my 100 point requirement and quicker, and today I had to play a whopping 977 hands just to clear it! Usually I can play 500-700 and it's cleared. Last time I played roughly 1K hands I got 200 points, and this time 977 only got me 100. I suppose it could be partially because I'm playing tighter in general because I'm playing 6 tables, but it also was definitely the cards.

Very cold session, and one that left me kind of deflated. I felt like I just played for 2.5 hours and didn't do much other than steadily lose money. The one hand that pulled me back a little was when I was dealt AA and TT donked into it for a full 100BB stack. Not bad! Still couldn't save me from the dregs of a losing session though.

Aha! I also just figured out why the number of hands full tilt reports I played and the number of hands PT collects differ. PT is set to only collect hands with 7-9 players, so when the tables drop to 6-, FT counts them and PT doesn't.

Hand of the day (Villain was 17/0/2):

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

SB: $26.60
BB: $21.25
UTG: $14.65
UTG+1: $29.20
UTG+2: $35.80
Hero (MP1): $27.85
MP2: $12.25
CO: $8.25
BTN: $39.90

Pre-Flop: Td Ah Td Ah dealt to Hero (MP1)
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $0.25, UTG+2 folds, Hero raises to $1.25, 5 folds, UTG+1 calls $1

Flop: ($2.85) Ad 3s 8d (2 Players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $2, UTG+1 raises to $4, Hero calls $2

Turn: ($10.85) Jc (2 Players)
UTG+1 bets $5, Hero calls $5

River: ($20.85) 6h (2 Players)
UTG+1 bets $5, Hero calls $5

Results: $30.85 Pot ($1.50 Rake)
UTG+1 showed 8s 8c (three of a kind, Eights) and WON $29.35 (+$14.10 NET)
Hero mucked Td Ah (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$15.25 NET)

Lesson to be learned: Fear the min c/r. Frankly, I had a gut instinct that he was bluffing on the flop, and I went with it to my great detriment. It's embarrassing that I can get caught up in a call down like this still, and shows how much of a donk I still am. The problem is I really didn't range him here, which I can blame on 6 tables but probably would have happened the same way with 4 tables. There is obviously nothing in his range that I beat other than a bluff, and that is doubtful coming from a 17/0/2, with attention to the 2.

Ah well. Better luck next time, and more focus to avoid losing money on the above hand.

Session: -$19 -- 977 Hands
Overall: $524.30-- +$179.20 -- 15,673 hands

The rise cometh before the Fall

2008-02-06T20:12:00.000-05:00

Bad session today. A few bad calls, and a few cold cards. I figure I'll start my posts off with hands from now on, and talk about them/other things afterward so I don't give you any preview for my hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

BB: $9.80
UTG: $10.25
UTG+1: $8.30
UTG+2: $8.25
Hero (MP1): $24.75
MP2: $26.15
CO: $11.95
BTN: $31.40
SB: $17.15

Pre-Flop: Ks Kd dealt to Hero (MP1)
UTG calls $0.25, UTG+1 calls $0.25, UTG+2 folds, Hero raises to $1, MP2 calls $1, 4 folds, UTG calls $0.75, UTG+1 calls $0.75

Flop: ($4.35) 2h 9h 2d (4 Players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $2.50, MP2 calls $2.50, 2 folds

Turn: ($9.35) Ts (2 Players)
Hero bets $5.50, MP2 raises to $11, Hero raises to $21.25 and is All-In, MP2 calls $10.25

River: ($51.85) 8d (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $51.85 Pot ($2.55 Rake)

This play was poor. I tried 6-tabling for the first time tonight, and it only got the best of me once, when this hand was occurring, but that's no excuse. The PFR amount was too small, and should have been $1.50, and because of that error I got too many callers. I discounted a 2 on the flop, because the only hand I could see calling that PFR including a 2 was 22, of which there was only one 2 left in the deck. My flop bet was low to induce a caller with a missed mid-range PP, doubting I had the 9 or an overpair. In retrospect however, with 4 players in the pot this makes it way too easy for a FD to call. On the turn I was once again betting small believing that I had the best hand. I didn't think the caller had TT-QQ because the PFR situation, and at the very least the flop call wouldn't make sense, so I put them on 33-88. The turn raise made me stop and think for a second, but I ended up calling without much hesitation, and seeing the below:

Hero showed Ks Kd (two pair, Kings and Twos) and LOST (-$24.75 NET)
MP2 showed 9s 9c (a full house, Nines full of Twos) and WON $49.30 (+$24.55 NET)

Yuck. Slightly cold deck, but still it was my underbets that let it happen. I contemplated calling the turn raise, but didn't want to see some sort of combo draw with hearts relying on FE to make that minraise on the turn.

Anyway, on to another hand:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

MP2: $4.65
CO: $22.65
BTN: $11.10
Hero (SB): $28.10
BB: $50.20
UTG: $21.75
UTG+1: $50.65
MP1: $10

Pre-Flop: Js Ks dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG calls $0.25, UTG+1 folds, MP1 calls $0.25, 2 folds, BTN calls $0.25, Hero calls $0.15, BB checks

Flop: ($1.25) Kc Jd Qs (5 Players)
Hero bets $1.20, 3 folds, BTN calls $1.20

Turn: ($3.65) Jh (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($3.65) Ts (2 Players)
Hero bets $26.65 and is All-In, BTN calls $9.65 and is All-In

Results: $22.95 Pot ($1.10 Rake)
BTN mucked 6d As (a straight, Ace high) and LOST (-$11.10 NET)
Hero showed Js Ks (a full house, Jacks full of Kings) and WON $21.85 (+$10.75 NET)

This one I was more proud of. Often times I don't mind a call or a check (in the BB) in these PF situations, although I'm not sure if that's technically correct. Basically I don't want to play KJ in a bloated pot OOP, and I'm really only looking here for flush value as there are so many limpers. On the flop, I like my bet because I figure someone with an AQ/AJ is going to call even though they shouldn't, and I can make a nice PSB on the turn barring an A, T, or 9 from hitting and take it down there. When the turn gives me the FH, now I'm slowing down. I'm hoping that the T or the A comes to give someone a straight where I can capitalize. However when the T does come on the river, I make a play which is out of character for me, and that's overbetting the pot. I figure at this level (NL25), it's going to be hard for a T to get away, and an A is never folding here. However with a large bet an A may be tempted to call rather than raise, because of the huge looking FH out there (any KJ, QJ, TJ). Because they weren't folding and were pretty much paying me what I bet, I decided to just put it all in, and was happy with my decision.

The above hand was my biggest net win for the session. Some of my losses include raising PF, calling flop and calling river bets when draws missed with A9, and losing to AJ. I also lost a couple coinflips against the shorties, which are populating FT in increasing numbers lately.

Blah. Put it behind me and hope for a better session tomorrow.

Session: -$36 -- 686 Hands
Overall: $543.45-- +$198.35 -- 14,696 hands

A new Tactic

2008-02-06T16:08:00.001-05:00

I just read something that speedle wrote in a post over in the uNL 2+2 FR forums, and it got me thinking. He said that if he PFR, flopped TPTK HU IP, and got c/r on the flop, then he would often check behind if given the chance on the turn. I have my doubts about this technique, but also see some bonuses in it. My doubts are obviously that you're letting the draws see a free card. Now at NL25, the chance that someone is c/r-ing with a draw is pretty damn small, but you never know. Now the bonuses are that it controls pot size, which is something I don't really do.

For example if both players on the flop began the hand with 100BB stacks, that puts about 5 BBs each in the pot from the PFR, and 90BBs left in front of each player. After a checkraise about 25 more BBs will go in from each player, making the pot 60 BBs, and the stacks at 65 BBs, for an SPR of about 1. On the turn if you bet, then you are pretty much committing yourself, as any bet lower than 25 BBs wont be folded to given pot size,and any bet over leaves you with 40BBs left and a 115BBs pot, which means you're committed. However committing with TPTK on the turn with average stacks is probably not a +EV strategy.

Ahh... I don't know. I'm definitely learning a lot but there is also clearly so much to learn, and while math is the easy part, analysis is quite the opposite. Either way checking behind on the turn in this spot, ESPECIALLY when deepstacked, is probably the right move.

Best session yet

2008-02-05T21:14:00.000-05:00

Best session I've had since my return to poker. I think that one of my main leaks before was not getting enough value on the river. Anyway once again a short post, but I will post one hand and talk about it. Also my net balance may look a little odd as compared to my last balance, but I transferred $10 to a friend, got $10 in rakeback for January, (Yeah only $10 because I'm still clearing the deposit bonus on FT, and that cuts into your RB), and cleared a $20 bonus.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

MP2: $4.65
CO: $13.40
BTN: $23.70
Hero (SB): $26.45
BB: $15
UTG: $34.75
UTG+1: $29.30
MP1: $25.35

Pre-Flop: 8c 8s dealt to Hero (SB)
4 folds, CO calls $0.25, BTN calls $0.25, Hero calls $0.15, BB checks

Flop: ($1) Kc 4h 8h (4 Players)
Hero checks, BB checks, CO checks, BTN bets $0.45, Hero raises to $1.50, 2 folds, BTN calls $1.05

Turn: ($4) Ks (2 Players)
Hero bets $2, BTN calls $2

River: ($8) 2h (2 Players)
Hero bets $7, BTN calls $7

Results: $22 Pot ($1.10 Rake)
BTN mucked 9h Kh (a flush, King high) and LOST (-$10.75 NET)
Hero showed 8c 8s (a full house, Eights full of Kings) and WON $20.90 (+$10.15 NET)

My main question here is about my river bet here. At first I thought about betting small and "value betting" or so I have learned; just betting an amount that I think their range can call. However, I feel that a huge holding here is a flush, and although the Ace flush will probably raise at NL25, lower flushes will most likely call a bet. For that reason I decided to bet roughly the pot rather than a smaller bet which I would normally have made. However in retrospect I think I should have bet more, possibly even pushed. This is because if he has a flush, he's calling anyway. Even a king will probably make a crying call as well. For that reason I think that I should have bet more.

Anyway, I'm tired, but good session.

Session: +$78 -- 741 Hands
Overall: $579.50-- +$234.15 -- 14,008 hands

New goal

2008-02-05T16:14:00.000-05:00

I have a new goal which I will accomplish next time I'm taking some time to study poker. I need to figure out what target SPRs are. I know the general theory of Stack to pot ratio, and how to calculate it given any situation (Basically the shortest stack still involved in the hand's ratio to the potsize), and I can even do it quickly. But saying that the SPR is 3.5 and knowing how to exploit that information are two different things.

I believe this information is in Harrington On Holdem... I think it was Harrington who talked about SPR, but I'm not sure... I'll have to look it up when I get out of work.

QQ vs KK vs AA

2008-02-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it happened last night. I didn't get a chance to post about it because my session took a long time, and I was a little burnt out from my day at work.

Thankfully I got away from it PF. The situation went UTG raise to .85 (KK), MP raise to $3 (me, with QQ), CO raises to $10 (folded PF), SB raised to $35, all in (AA), UTG called $25 allin (KK), I... fold, CO folds.

Crazy hand. I can't believe what the SB felt like looking at his AA and having it be $10 to him in a 4bet pot preflop. He must have been jumping for joy.

No time

2008-02-04T20:55:00.000-05:00

Started late today, no time for a post. I'm rather pissed though that I only finished up $1. I also transferred $10 to my buddy pete, so that accounts for my -$10 on my overall bankroll.

Session: +$1 -- 599 Hands
Overall: $471.45-- +$156.10 -- 13,265 hands

Plans for tonight's session

2008-02-04T11:31:00.000-05:00

As usual just hanging out at work, although I do have a rather difficult project on my plate right now...

Adding 3betting light from the blinds to my game tonight, so we'll see how I do; there's an excellent post about it on 2+2 by Sounded Simple right now. It's also a really easy stat to track using PT, so I can keep up with how I'm doing.

I need to get off my cocky bandwagon with my posting here lately. Lately I'm all "I played well, blahbidy blah", which accomplishes nothing. Obviously there are still huge leaks in my game and everytime I post hands on 2+2 I'm surprised by the responses I get. So enough of that, I need to post more open ended questions so when I look back from time to time I remember then, and see if I've answered them.

One problem I've noticed is that people always post the villains VPIP/PFR/TA when they post hands, and I usually don't either because I don't remember (unacceptable), or don't feel like I had enough hands on them to use the stats. The latter is something I really need to figure out. For example should I be datamining 16 tables for 30 minutes prior to my sessions? Because I could, but that would extend my session unfavorably. I usually play 6-8:30, which is right when I get home from work until about 30 minutes after my GF gets home. I also have mined overnight a couple times, but it's a little ridiculous because it baloons the size of my DB, and includes information mostly from people who don't play when I play. Blah.

Getting pumped for my session tonight, maybe I can finally have a substancial winner like I used to.

Longest session ever

2008-02-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

Woke up early today and played my first 1K hand session quad tabling. It came out to just under 4 hours of playing roughly break even poker. Also cleared another $20 bonus and made some progress towards clearing the NEXT one. I guess break even poker isn't so bad if you have a bonus to clear.

My biggest loss was a -$27 loss where I had AQ on an AQ4 two tone flop and lost to 44. I feel like I made the right decision though, and this was just a cold deck, but I'm not so sure.

No hands to post today as it's Superbowl time.

Session: +$11 -- 1012 Hands
Overall: $480.10-- +$154.00 -- 12,666 hands

Breaking even all day long

2008-02-03T01:46:00.000-05:00

Decided to play a mini session tonight, as it would count for my Ironman points tomorrow, and tomorrow is the superbowl. Don't know if I'll play too much tomorrow, but I'll definitely play enough to hit 100 points on the day, as I already got most of them tonight.

Not a great session but yet again not due to my play. Roughly break even, and a whole lot of folding. I lost one hand early on in the session and made some back CBing, but other than that rather boring and short. Blah. Here's a hand:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $12.40
SB: $25.40
BB: $9.40
UTG: $10.20
UTG+1: $10.15
Hero (UTG+2): $25.10
MP1: $25.60
MP2: $26.60
CO: $20.40

Pre-Flop: Ac Ks dealt to Hero (UTG+2)
UTG calls $0.25, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $1.25, MP1 calls $1.25, 5 folds, UTG calls $1

Flop: ($4.10) Ah 5h 8s (3 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $3.50, MP1 raises to $9, UTG folds, Hero calls $5.50

Turn: ($22.10) 5s (2 Players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $15

Results: $22.10 Pot ($1.10 Rake)
MP1 mucked and WON $21 (+$10.75 NET)

I wanted to fold on the flop, but part of me said that was just a little too nittish. I was hoping to get to showdown cheap at this point, but then that wasn't possible. The one fact that made me contemplate a call was a FH or quads (which is what he was repping on the flop, a set) would probably slow play here, as they would want the flush to hit. He was playing so aggressively it seemed like he was trying to protect his hand, which led me to believe A8 perhaps. However I can't imagine too many hands being played this way other than Ax, so maybe I should have called. Now that I'm looking at it, I'm pretty sure everyone slows down here with a FH or quads, hoping for the flush to hit. Ahh well, I'm learning.

If you're interested in the true boringness of this session, my biggest wins and losses were both $4, excepting the hand posted above. Blah.

Session: -$2 -- 354 Hands
Overall: $449.60-- +$143.50 -- 11,650 hands

Great Breakeven Session

2008-02-02T14:36:00.000-05:00

Nah, it's not a joke. I feel like I played wonderfully but took some bad beats. For one example, I was deepstacked and ran into AA with my KK. In fact, I had KK twice and lost about $40 with it, once when someone set up on a drawy under flop, and once with the AA. It happens. And I am fine with that, in fact I feel good. I feel like I'm learning some better places to bet with marginal hands, and varying my CBs according to flop texture, so I'm losing less and gaining more when people flop monsters against me. I also lost a considerable amount with a double barrel, but the spot where I did so I think was a wonderful place to do so.

I figure that it's not great to always post me biggest loser hand, because then when people read it all they're gonna think is "wow, he's about to lose". So rather I'll post big hands which were interesting, whether they're winners or losers. On a different note, I also updated my HUD today so it shows fold/call/raise CBs. A very useful stat I believe, but one that you need many hands on a player for it to be useful. I also updated it so it shows my own stats while I play, so I can play based on my image better. Notice I don't say "more", because most players are not thinking players at this level. I could only play my image against a reg.

My KK vs. AA was a net -24.35, but obviously I'm not posting that. So here goes:
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $5.25
UTG+1: $23.75
MP1: $29.10
MP2: $25
Hero (CO): $25.65
BTN: $24.65
SB: $25.05
BB: $23.75

Pre-Flop: Qc Ah dealt to Hero (CO)
3 folds, MP2 raises to $0.85, Hero raises to $2.50, 3 folds, MP2 calls $1.65

Flop: ($5.35) Ts 8h 2s (2 Players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $3.50, MP2 calls $3.50

Turn: ($12.35) 9c (2 Players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $10, MP2 raises to $19 and is All-In, Hero folds

Results: $32.35 Pot ($1.60 Rake)
MP2 mucked and WON $30.75 (+$14.75 NET)

Huh. I'm going to post this on 2p2 to see what they think. I think this is a good spot to double barrel though... we'll see what others think.

Session: -$3 -- 579 Hands
Overall: $451.85-- +$145.75 -- 11,297 hands

Iron man day 1 down

2008-02-01T20:39:00.000-05:00

What a boring day at work. I spent quite a while posting on the 2+2 message boards, and getting pumped for tonight. One of my resolutions while doing this challenge is to post my biggest losing hand for each session and talk about it a little. I also may post another hand I found interesting. At least this will make this blog more informative rather than a simple stat tracker for me.

Overall my session went poorly, but I felt that I played alright. I feel that it's good that I can stay emotionally detached from my winnings or losings as long as I feel that I'm playing my best. Of course this can be a huge detriment if you're fooling yourself...

Either way -2 BI on the day. I felt like every decision I made turned out wrong. My KQ rivered my AA to catch a straight, while I had a set of Aces. KK was folded to me in the BB. Regarding my hand history, I figure that I'll post it without discussion first, so people can mentally grunch. Read 2p2 if you don't know what that means :). Here is my biggest loser from my session:

Seat 1: SSSABINO ($20.90)
Seat 2: 1kuelkat ($7.70)
Seat 3: CmonAlex ($5), is sitting out
Seat 5: systeempje ($16.80)
Seat 6: hackers238 ($26)
Seat 7: drexter ($23.65)
Seat 8: Tesch C ($25)
Seat 9: Einstein1882 ($21.75)
KIRK777 adds $25
SSSABINO posts the small blind of $0.10
1kuelkat posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hackers238 [As Kh]
systeempje folds
hackers238 raises to $1
drexter folds
Tesch C folds
Einstein1882 folds
SSSABINO calls $0.90
1kuelkat folds
*** FLOP *** [Td Qd 5d]
SSSABINO checks
hackers238 bets $2
SSSABINO calls $2
*** TURN *** [Td Qd 5d] [Kc]
SSSABINO checks
hackers238 bets $4
SSSABINO raises to $8
hackers238 raises to $23, and is all in
SSSABINO calls $9.90, and is all in
hackers238 shows [As Kh]
SSSABINO shows [6d Ad]
Uncalled bet of $5.10 returned to hackers238
*** RIVER *** [Td Qd 5d Kc] [3h]
hackers238 shows a pair of Kings
SSSABINO shows a flush, Ace high
SSSABINO wins the pot ($39.95) with a flush, Ace high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $42.05 | Rake $2.10
Board: [Td Qd 5d Kc 3h]
Seat 1: SSSABINO (small blind) showed [6d Ad] and won ($39.95) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 6: hackers238 showed [As Kh] and lost with a pair of Kings

Ugh. Ugly play by me here. Forgetting Baluga's THM seems the main problem here. I think the main problem was reading an old post by pokey today talking about monochrome flops. As he said there's a 3.3% of any given opponent flopping the flush, and a 15% of them flopping a draw. I think that said I put a little too much faith in the fact that they "didn't have the flush". I feel everything is standard including the CBet until the turn. I'm not sure if firing a 2/3 pot sized bet is the right move here, however it's not a terrible mistake. The BIG mistake was shoving over on the turn, but my logic was that if he has the FD I'm letting him see the river free. I realize in retrospect that that minraise looks VERY suspect, especially when he could have just called to see the river. If he HAD the FD, he would be bloating the pot a little prematurely there.

Anyway, on to a better day tomorrow. 100 points logged today, so I'm on my way to becoming an Ironman.

Session: -$46 -- 711 Hands
Overall: $454.70-- +$147.85 -- 10,718 hands

Bad session today, but I did clear a $20 bonus!

2008-01-30T22:37:00.000-05:00

Terrible session today. Wasn't about cards not holding up, although there were a few draws that didn't get there. More so it was quite the opposite from yesterday, in that everyone raised or called my cbets, and took me down on the turn. I'm not really in the mood to post hands now, so I'll just get on with it.

I am going to change my HUD for tomorrow in preperation for February; I'm adding "folds to CBet", and "Chance to CBet", whatever they're called. I definitely still have holes in my game with unchecked aggression (among plenty of other things obviously). I think I might spend tomorrow studying today's session before February, and getting pumped!! Now I'm in no mood though... sad what losing money can do to your drive.

Oh yeah, I hit the 10K hand mark too :)

Session: -$39 -- 594 Hands
Overall: $500.65-- +$193.80 -- 10007 hands

My goals in poker

2008-01-30T11:36:00.001-05:00

Of course short term goals are to win money and move up, but I'm concentrating here on more longterm goals.

Someone asked me in a comment about what my ultimate (long term) goals are with poker. I think it's an interesting question, and can be better answered than by a simple "get better". I want to be as close to a perfect player and possible, and be able to defend all of my plays in retrospect. My definition of a perfect player is someone who takes all factors into an account before each decision he makes, all the way to the end of the hand. That means that I am thinking about stack size, and how my move would differ with stacks of 10/20/30/50/100/150/200/250+ BBs. I am thinking about every statistic that PAHUD has to offer intuitively, and to the best of my memory, for each player currently in the hand. Seconds before the flop hits, I have already thought of a great number of flops, and how I will procede in each case. The ability to figure out an accurate range and get your equity against it using combinatorics. The ability to do all of this while my eyes flick between different opponents constantly (live game), and I am subconciously gathering information about each of them as I calculate, varying my ranges and picking up long term reads.

While this is a laundry list of impossibilities, I think it offers some insight into how I want to think, and how I believe players better than me think. Notice that no where is "win money" noted, because +/- is only a somewhat related bi-product of how you're playing. At the very worst I could be happy if I could back up all of my previous decisions to the above specifications, and yet be down money. This is true because I'm not, nor will I ever be playing for a living. Just some insights while I'm sitting here at work waiting for code to compile ;)

Maybe I should float some of these...

2008-01-29T21:45:00.000-05:00

Weird session today. Very weird. Only got a mini session in (<200 hands) because the gf came home early from class. Either way, check out these ridiculous stats: 0% Went to Showdown, infinite aggression on the flop, infinite aggression on the river over 192 hands. Christ! I was hitting cards and made a lot of money, but then again I can't help feeling like I should be floating dry boards to extract. Yet people keep saying "ABC poker at NL25", so that's what I'll keep doing.

Maybe I'll get around to posting some of those hands later, when I'm not so lazy...

Can't complain either way, great night.

Session: +$27 -- 192 Hands
Overall: $518.45 -- +$231.60 -- 9412 hands

Doubts about making Ironman

2008-01-28T19:52:00.000-05:00

I played a nice long session today (hand-wise and time-wise), but didn't get the FTPs I expected. I played 2 hours and 626 hands, (more hands than I expected), and got only 83 FTPs. That means that I may have to play closer to 2.5 hours a day for 20 days to get Ironman next month, which is a significant addition for me, as I get home from work at 6 and my girlfriend gets home at 7:45...

Anyway, I had the slowest and steadiest session I can remember having today (maybe that's partially the reason for the low FTPs). No interesting hands for the first hour and half, and then I pushed someone in with trip kings who called with a FD, and 3-barrel bluffed someone to lose about the same amount that I had gained against the FD. Fortunately KK ran into my AA to put me significantly up, rather than the $10 up I would have been otherwise. Too bad KK was a shortie!

My goal for January is to hit the 10K hand mark, so I can do some serious analysis heading into my February run for Ironman. I have also decided that I'll wait until I have $600 to take a 2buy-in shot at $50, which gives me some breathing room as I don't want to couple going for Ironman with taking my first shots at NL50.

Session: +$27 -- 626 Hands
Overall: $491.80 -- +$204.95 -- 9203 hands

Good session returning online

2008-01-27T22:54:00.001-05:00

Logging this many hands has definitely helped my game. I'm starting to gain an ability to understand flop texture every flop; and I can put people on more accurate ranges of hands now that I do this. Anyway I don't have anything concrete to say on the matter, so maybe I'll talk more about it another time.

Anyway, positive session, not much to say about it, and pretty tired. I decided to do a little research and see if I could make Ironman at Full Tilt next month. The requirements to make silver (my goal) are 100 points each day for 20 days of the month, 50 points each day for 25 days, or 200 points a day for 15 days. I'm going for the 100/20 deal, and so I figured out how many points I'm getting per hour of quad tabling NL25. The answer? 26.5 over 1 hour of testing. Seems that means 2 hours a day for 20 days next month, for a whopping total of 40 hours a month, which seems very possible. I also logged 500 hands in just over 2 hours quad tabling, so that will put me right on track for 10k hands next month. Good luck me!

Session: +$45 -- 501 Hands
Overall: $464.50 -- +$177.15 -- 8577 hands

Turning Stone Trip

2008-01-27T20:17:00.000-05:00

I just got back from a Turning Stone Casino trip to New York. I played 1/2 NL with a 100 max (only a half stack) buy-in. I got very lucky and ended up +$348, and had KK run into my AA, QQ run into my KK, and took down KK with QQ once. I played for a total of 10 hours over two days, Friday night from 1:30 am to 4:30 am, and Saturday from 12-8 with an hour for food. The drunk people at my table Friday night were unbelievable; two guys sat across the table from me and continuously donated money to the pot. They called down just about every hand and played ridiculously.

I think I did well, and one play stuck out in my mind. Three limpers to me on the BT, I raise to 13 with ATo (I tend to play by the 4xBB+1xBB per limper, but a note on this later). One tight limper from MP calls. Flop comes 522 rainbow and he bets $10 into a $26 dollar pot, and I was planning on folding until I did some thinking. I put his range on 22-TT, 23s-56s or possibly Ax not giving me respect. I decided to float and hope for a scare card to come on the turn, and give him another chance to show me the value of his hand. The turn came a Q, giving a back door flush draw, and he bet $10 again, this time into a $46 pot. I thought this would be either a scared bet, or a please call me bet, and this guy was definitely capable of making a scared bet. I decided to pop it up to $25 to rep the queen, and because a huge portion of his range (mostly the 66-TT) was dominated by a queen. He promptly folded, and this was probably the only time that I made a play I had never made before.

About the PFR amount, I had noticed one player make 2 seperate raises from late position where he raised exactly 4xBB + 1xBB per limper. Surprisingly after playing with him for about 4 hours he was a pretty straight up TAG, and probably a 2p2er. That was what clued me in to varying my raise sizes a little, because that was such a large indicator for me to look for other hints, and it turned out paying off against him when I took a pot he CBed at IP with TP bad kicker (called and checked down, where I otherwise might have folded and he had high air). I also don't think that varying the size of the raise by $1 amounts changes much, and people at the casino seem to like to raise to odd numbers for some reason. No one raised to 8 PF. No one. 7, 11, or 13 were pretty much the only acceptable raises. In fact one time someone tossed in two reds, paused, and then said "9", as if he refused to be caught betting 10.

A great trip all in all, and happy to be up money.

Roller Coaster Session

2008-01-24T20:58:00.000-05:00

Played my longest session yet tonight (quad tabling NL25), and figured out some interesting things. First of all, I was down $60 pretty early on, with one bad beat (not terrible, a flush hit with 2 cards to come) and lost my stack, and the other $35 was lost with poor river calls. There came a point where I was +$34, and then I was about even before my last hand of the night, where I filled up and won a $15 pot. The HUGE leak in my game right now is convincing myself to call gross river bets because "they're only 3/4 of the pot", when the pot is about 3/4 of a BUYIN.

I had an interesting thought about playing PP preflop tonight as well. My old strategy was to setmine 99- and limp or call a raise, given implied odds. I never would look at PFR of the villain who raised me when cold calling, I would just call and look to setup. I realized tonight that I would benefit from calling less when the PFR is high, and more when their PFR is low, which was contrary to what I intuitively thought. The reason is this: with a low PFR considering they're UTG to MP, I'm putting their range pretty tight, something like JJ+ AQ+. If this sounds overly tight to you, remember I'm saying someone with a low PFR. Now if I setup here, I have great implied odds, because JJ+ is going to pay off NICELY. If the villain's PFR was higher, maybe 10+, I would have to put him on a looser range, meaning he's going to be laying down a lot to my flop bet/raise when I setup, so I don't have implied odds.

Something else I learned reading the 2+2 forums earlier involves combinations. Consider this: you open raise to 4xBB from MP with AJo, and get 3bet from a tightie directly on your left. I would put him on a pretty tight range here, maybe QQ+ AQ+. I would generally fold here (because of the range), but lets say you call looking to hit an ace, and you do! How often are you good here? My old thinking would have said about 40/60, because he could have AQ, AK, QQ, KK, or AA, 2 of which you beat and 3 of which you lose to. However, enter combinatorics...

There are 6 ways to make AA, 6 to make KK, and 6 to make QQ. There are 16 ways to make AK, and 16 ways to make AQ. So total there are 18 ways to make QQ+ and 32 ways to make AQ+. This gives the villain roughly 12 hands you beat, and a whopping 38 you lose to, making you more of a 24/76 dog, as compared to my original guess, 40/60. Wow! (Please correct me if my math here is wrong...)

Anyway, here are my stats for the session (Luckily I cleared a bonus for $20, and note that only gets counted in the "overall" section for bankroll purposes):

Session: +$13 -- 756 Hands
Overall: $419.75 -- +$132.40 -- 8090 hands

Another bad session

2008-01-22T23:03:00.000-05:00

Another bad session, to make 2 in a row. I definitely have some glaring holes in my game though, this one can't be blamed on variance/beats like the last one can. I was up about $35 dollars with 20 minutes left in my session and then I blew about $65 to finish -$32 on the night.

One interesting point is I always seem to win before the fall... Maybe I am loosening up subconsciously while I'm winning?

My one major fault that I identified (which lost me a lot of money tonight) is calling river value bets. There are times when I am almost certain I'm beat, but I'm getting 3:1 or 4:1 to call, so I call with my TPGK. I think there are definitely times when you have to look at pot odds for calling river bets, but I'm calling too much. Basically I look at the pot and think, "Yeah, it's $5 but I'm getting 3.5:1 on my money, so how can I fold?" Well I should be able to fold because I'm getting 3.5:1 with less than 30% to win the hand... more like 2-10% in most situations. I think maybe it's time to break out the poker stove and go over some of these situations to see how off the calls were that I made.

In other news, I haven't been playing much because work takes up so much of my time, both physically and mentally. Even when I'm at home I'm thinking about what I'm working on at work, and I feel tired all the time. My new plan is to not stress out about poker for the rest of January, and come on hard in February trying to make Bronze Ironman. Wish me luck!

Session: -$32 -- 451 Hands
Overall: $386.95 -- +$119.60 -- 7332 hands

2008-01-22T17:04:00.000-05:00

Blah! I never seem to have time for poker anymore. With my job ramping up, I've realized that 40 hour weeks TIRE YOU OUT. Not only that, but I've been travelling home most weekends to see my friends from umass, who are still on winter break. Also, my girlfriend got me a gamefly subscription for christmas, which is like netflix for video games, and I get video games mailed to me constantly. This leaves almost no time for poker, so I figure I will continue to post online and read forums, but take a little break for the rest of january. That way I can come back focused in the beginning of February to make a comeback, and hopefully make ironman.

In other gambling news, I may be making the 4 hour trip to Turning Stone Casino this weekend to play in the $1/$2 NL100 live games. It will be my fourth time to the casino, so wish me luck! Interesting that they spread 50xBB games, huh? Never really thought about that. I would play in a more standard game if I could, but my "bankroll" (spending money) couldn't really afford it. I obviously don't go enough to beat variance at this level, so I'm more interested in the live experience, which I don't get much of.

2008-01-15T21:02:00.000-05:00

Bad session today. Begun by being up $20 and then lost it in 2 beats and a tilt call, which I should have folded. Don't feel like talking about it too much. Blah. At least after I made the call I stopped and recognized that I was playing poorly.

Then on a better note, I got $14 rakeback for my december play. It was lower than I had expected, but I realized that clearing my $200 deposit bonus takes away from my rakeback UNFORTUNATELY.

Session: -$36 -- 358 Hands
Overall: $418.75 -- +$151.00 -- 6869 hands

2008-01-09T19:39:00.000-05:00

Work isn't very "engrossing" right now, so most of the time is spent on the 2+2 forums.

Today I had a nice session where I ran hot early on, and then I think played poorly later on because of it. More on that later, but for now just some stats.

I might be buying into a $5 + $0.50 satellite which begins in 6 minutes, because The winner gets a seat at the $300 + $22 tournament in February, and there are only 22 people bought in... So I'm getting way more value on my money than I should. Basically if there were 60 entrants, it would be like a normal tournament, but because one seat is guaranteed, if there are under 40 players right before it starts I figure I'll buy-in.

EDIT: Turns out it was a REBUY tournament, and a big ass ADD-ON was allowed for another $5. That's how they get you, but luckily I unregistered in time.

Session: +$9 -- 361 Hands
Overall: $440.35 -- +$187.00 -- 6521 hands

2008-01-08T22:30:00.000-05:00

First Session today in a while as I started my full time Job yesterday for Art Technology Group in Boston. I'm sooooo tired after my xmas break sleeping schedule of 5 am - 2 pm... it's really fucked me up. ATG is a Ecommerce software development company, which works with companies to create online stores; check it out here www.atg.com. I'm an OnDemand Software Developer, or that's my official title anyways.

Back to poker. I had a split up session today because after 100 hands I forgot I was skating at frog pond today, and had to run out the door to avoid being late. But I datamined and kept 16 tables open, and they were waiting for me on my return.

I didn't have a great session today, but I feel that I played well overall. The worst beat is posted at the bottom of this session, and I feel that being down less than half a buy-in is pretty much like being even ;). By the way they had a combined 1 out (excluding runner runner outs) below. What hand can you think of to say THAT?!?

I plan on playing about 2 hours a day with my new work schedule, so we'll see how that goes...

Here's the worst beat from my (Thank god they were short stacked!!!)

FullTiltPoker Game #4790416158: Table Converse - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:24:21 ET - 2008/01/08
Seat 1: jambam1 ($28.65)
Seat 2: Meteoric ($11.25)
Seat 3: dimitzio ($25.95)
Seat 4: fluffys brother ($17.70)
Seat 5: youblow1 ($21.65)
Seat 6: b3fund ($6.25)
Seat 7: hackers238 ($24.15)
Seat 8: Soul At Zero ($9.25)
Seat 9: NoVegasForMe ($6.95)
youblow1 posts the small blind of $0.10
b3fund posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hackers238 [6c 6s]
hackers238 calls $0.25
Soul At Zero folds
NoVegasForMe calls $0.25
jambam1 folds
Meteoric folds
dimitzio folds
fluffys brother folds
youblow1 folds
b3fund raises to $0.75
hackers238 calls $0.50
NoVegasForMe has 15 seconds left to act
NoVegasForMe calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Tc 2d 6h]
b3fund bets $2.35
hackers238 has 15 seconds left to act
hackers238 calls $2.35
NoVegasForMe has 15 seconds left to act
NoVegasForMe raises to $6.20, and is all in
b3fund calls $3.15, and is all in
hackers238 calls $3.85
NoVegasForMe shows [Th Ah]
b3fund shows [Ts Ac]
hackers238 shows [6c 6s]
*** TURN *** [Tc 2d 6h] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [Tc 2d 6h Qh] [7h]
NoVegasForMe shows a flush, Ace high
hackers238 shows three of a kind, Sixes
NoVegasForMe wins the side pot ($1.30) with a flush, Ace high
b3fund shows a pair of Tens
NoVegasForMe wins the main pot ($17.95) with a flush, Ace high
b3fund is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $20.25 Main pot $18.85. Side pot $1.40. | Rake $1
Board: [Tc 2d 6h Qh 7h]
Seat 1: jambam1 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: Meteoric didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: dimitzio didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: fluffys brother (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: youblow1 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: b3fund (big blind) showed [Ts Ac] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 7: hackers238 showed [6c 6s] and lost with three of a kind, Sixes
Seat 8: Soul At Zero didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: NoVegasForMe showed [Th Ah] and won ($19.25) with a flush, Ace high

Session: -$5 -- 476 Hands
Overall: $431.45 -- +$177.85 -- 6160 hands

Girlfriend played for a while...

2008-01-06T03:01:00.000-05:00

So I bought my GF into a 50 FTP satellite, with the intention of playing it together for an hour. 8 Hands later we were left on our asses after AA lost to 24hh with an all in PF, and KK got cracked by T6o on a T62 flop, where about 1/3 stack went in PF and the other on the flop. Good thing we got rid of our bad luck in an FTP tourney right? ;)

So after that we decided to play 5/10 NL for a while... (.05/.10... did you buy it for a second?)

Either way I'm updating my total here (down a couple bucks), but I'm purging the hands from my database as I don't consider them part of my 10K hand goal. More updates when I post a real session!

Overall: $436.80 -- +$183.20 -- 5672 hands

Caro's book of Tells, and a ramble

2008-01-02T01:06:00.000-05:00

I can only imagine how fast bonuses must be cleared by higher stakes players. But for me, it still takes hours and hours of quad tabling NL25 for that $20. If I was playing higher stakes though, I suppose $20 wouldn't mean quite as much. Either way, I cleared my third $20 bonus today (of which I get 10 off of my $200 deposit).

Clearing a bonus is always a good mood lifter. You can be having a bad session and clear a bonus, and suddenly you're out of the red and into the black (if only technically)

My session today was fairly standard, in that I found little I wondered about as I played. That's not to say that I played perfectly; far from it, but I had justification in my head about all bets and bet sizes, and never just click without thinking anymore. (Barring one mouse error which cost me about $10).

I also made an interesting discovery today: I borrowed a book from a friend who has always been a wild (and bad) poker player. "Caro's book of Poker Tells" was the title. At first I was skeptical. First off, I'm an internet player other than the local home-games formed by college kids for low stakes (Generally NL10), and therefore don't have much use for physical tells. Secondly, I have always been wary of books preaching to be the "psychological guide" to poker, as most of them just sound like fluff. Who knows, maybe I'm just not at a level where their advanced psychoanalysis makes sense, but to me it just sounds like bullshit.

However on opening the book, the first line changed all my thoughts about it: "Once you've mastered the basic elements of a winning poker formula, psychology becomes the key ingredient in seperating break-even players from players who win consistently". What a disclaimer! It basically states that this entire book requires that you have "mastered the basic elements of a winning poker formula". If novices took this disclaimer at face value, none of them would buy this book. And thus I can somewhat see how my friend is such a wild player, as he most likely lacks the mathematics behind ABC poker, and is playing entirely on tells. I did end up reading the book, and found it very interesting and potentially useful (we'll see at my next live game...). I am not bashing its quality in any way, but I do want to say that this book is a DEATHTRAP for novices like myself. I feel like I should go with math 95% of the time and my people reading skills 5% of the time at this point. Technically a perfect player would be going on their tells 100% of the time, as they would always be right. I wonder if the math % continues to decrease and reading % increase as you increase in skill with live poker?

Anyways, I got a little off topic, but my session was good and I cleared a bonus, so I'm in a good mood.

Session: +$50 -- 661 Hands
Overall: $438.15 -- +$183.20 -- 5672 hands

Great Session

2007-12-31T03:14:00.000-05:00

Great overall Session, with the only glaring negative being a -$21 pot with 99 vs AA and a board of AK9 rainbow. After some raising back and forth he went all in for $21 and I called. Meh.

Session: +$23 -- 606 Hands
Overall: $368.15 -- +$133.05 -- 5022 hands

Shaky Start Falls Apart

2007-12-28T03:47:00.000-05:00

Logged the worst session of my short career today at NL25. Quad tabling as usual, I got in a couple of tough all in situations with TT against KK, and then again with QQ against KK. Unfortunately these situations were not counteracted by any wins, so I ended up going MAD negative. Full stats are shown below.

I also decided due to tonight to make a new rule. If I am down 2 buy-ins at any point in a night, I will call it a night even if I think the tables are soft and I can make money. The reasoning is I may think I am up to it, but be physically and mentally off my game. For example tonight I played from 2 am - 4 am while very tired, and although I don't THINK it affected my decisions, it very well may have.

Session: -$64 -- 297 Hands
Overall: $345.25 -- +$110.15 -- 4416 hands

Shaky Start Turns Around

2007-12-27T17:17:00.000-05:00

Quad-Tabled NL25 for ~400 hands.

Lost a buy-in in about 20 minutes when I pushed with AKo and a 742 board. Got called by QQ and lost it. The player was short stacked however, and doubled through me. The very next hand I pushed PF with JJ, because the SAME player had called from Late position and I wanted him to think I was tilting. He called and flipped over 8T hearts. He ended up catching the flush to bust me out of my first buy-in.

However I turned it around in the long run, ending with a positive session. I was also able to clear the second $20 of my $200 bonus, so although technically I only ended up $11, my account was credited with $31. :)

Session: +$11 -- 398 Hands
Overall: $409.65 -- +$174.65 -- 4117 hands

2007-12-27T15:02:00.000-05:00

Played an afternoon session quad-tabling for the first time (NL25). I didn't find it all that more intense than tri-tabling, and so I think I will make the switch permanently. I would play more, but my laptop resolution wouldn't be able to keep all of the tables open at once, and pokerACE writing over all the tables slows my computer down a LOT when tables are stacked on screen. It's hard enough to raise as it is while pokerACE is constantly acquiring focus on other tables and writing stats.

Overall a good session, pretty standard. Didn't run into any difficult situations, and got average cards. I got 4 Big PP (TT+) in 251 hands, which is a little less than average (5 in 221 by my calculations).

Session: +$20 -- 252 Hands
Overall: $378.55 -- +$163.55 -- 3718 hands

Playing early on a weekday

2007-12-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

I just logged a 50 hand session, which I ended because I realized the tables are TERRIBLE at this time of day. I was up and tri-tabling when I rechecked www.tableratings.com for how soft my tables were. The highest rating given to a NL25 table was 54, whereas on a good night I'm sitting at 3 tables rated over 100.

I think that it is a necessary skill of a good player to NOT play in this situation, no matter how much I FEEL like playing right now.

And talk about running hot, I got pocket rockets TWICE in 50 hands!

Session: +$6 -- 50 Hands
Overall: $358.95 -- +$143.95 -- 3464 hands

Another Great Positive Session

2007-12-24T03:07:00.000-05:00

Just wrapping up another good session tri-tabling NL25. Ran very good, setting up twice with Pocket Pairs, and flopping a full house once. See the bottom for session details.

I feel that I am getting more confident in my preflop play, and more consistant in my flop play. Pre-flop I feel that I know what I am doing. I am comfortable stealing with sub-par hands, 3-betting with more hands than AA-KK, and folding deceptively bad hands out of position (KJ, KQ, even AJ). As some have reminded me, playing ABC poker should be more than enough to beat the NL25 game. On the flop I understand the value of CB-ing, and who has control based on the pre-flop raise situation and position.

All in all, I feel that my actions are more confident even when I lose a large pot. I feel no shame in folding a steal attempt, and getting past that initial hurdle of classical conditioning is what was holding my poker skill back. Being able to lose a pot but still feel confident that my play was correct is one of the most important skills in poker.

Where I need to go from here is a tough call. I understand some more advanced concepts such as squeezing and floating, but don't feel it is necessary to use them, and is probably even -EV, at the level I'm playing (NL25). So the next step is obviously not to learn more advanced techniques. I also never really believe that the next step is to continue grinding to move up in stakes because I should never be satisfied with my current ability. In conclusion I think that I should begin to vary my CB amount (currently it's pretty consistantly 3/4 pot) based on factors such as

Dryness of Board
Opponent stack sizes
Opponents flop aggression (check-raising more...)
Opponents suspected range based on VPIP and PF play

This list is by no means exhaustive, but I hope that it will eventually be in my head.

The one trap I don't want to fall into is running good for a while and mistaking this for being a great player. I feel this is the biggest mistake new poker players make, as it leads to tricking yourself that bad habits are good moves, and loses you a lot of money before you figure out where you are going wrong.

But it does feel great to run good :)

Session: +$32 -- 267 Hands
Overall: $352.60 -- +$137.60 -- 3414 hands

2007-12-22T18:54:00.000-05:00

Just finished my best session to date: 2 hours, 400 hands, +$53 -- tri-tabling NL25 of course.

I also found and used a new resource for this session: www.tableratings.com. It gives ratings for the "softness" of tables in realtime, so before sitting down I used it to find out the top 8 "soft" tables on Full Tilt's NL25 table list. Then I datamined (and waited on wait lists for) these tables for 20 minutes before I sat down.

Overall: $320.65 -- +$105.65 -- 3142 hands

2007-12-22T16:36:00.000-05:00

It's funny I should have started this blog when I did, as it's so close to Christmas I've been too busy to get any playing in! Currently I've played a total of 2700 hands and am +$51, about two buy-ins at the NL25 level. PT puts my VPIP at 17.5%, and my PFR at 13%, which I feel is a good place to be because I'm playing 9-handed.

Plans to keep this Blog

2007-12-20T18:17:00.000-05:00

Hey, I decided to start this blog for my own reference to track my poker play, here is a short introduction to who I am, and what my goals are.

I'm 20 and attending school at Northeastern University in Boston for Computer Science. I just landed my first COOP job, so this spring I'll be working 40 hours a week for Art Technology Group, doing Java programming.

I've played poker on and off for 3 years, mostly home games with a couple trips to casinos and stints online. I was moderately successful online, but over a very small sample size of games, and turned $25 into $200 very quickly. I would rate this turnover at about 90% luck. After that I proceeded to slowly lose the $200 at all manners of poker including SNGs, MTTs, and cash games, mainly playing NLHE, but with a little PLO and Razz thrown in for fun. About 4 weeks ago I decided to learn how to play the game correctly, and try to be a winning player in the long term.

I purchased PokerTracker and PokerAce, which are programs for keeping track of statistics seen on certain poker sites and showing them over the tables in real time. Now when I play I have a database of thousands of hands showing me things like VPIP, PFR, and Aggression factors for the players I'm playing against.

I believe that to be successful at poker, you should set non-monetary goals; monetary goals you can both gain ground towards and shy away from, and this can get frustrating. When tilting this can even prompt you to say "hell, maybe if I play at higher limits, I can just win x dollars". For that reason I'm playing 10,000 hands of NLHE, and then analyzing my play. That way I have a goal I'm always moving towards, and a point where I can analyze my play with a reasonable level of accuracy.

My game of choice is NL25 HE on FullTiltPoker, where I recently deposited $200 (8 buy-ins). Currently I have logged 2500 hands and am sitting at $312. From now on I hope to post after each session I have, so I can keep track of how I'm doing!