Check-Raising Myself

Doing Better, Reflection

2010-06-16T01:33:00.005-05:00

Since I've last posted I've been both playing and running better.

I'm really excited about the success, and after cashing out just about everything I have a few months ago, I now have over 4 figures in my bankroll, which feels really great. However I still don't know what place poker has in my life because I have a full time job and there are other things I'd like to do with my time.

I guess it's a luxury problem as long as I'm making money, though I wouldn't even consider cashing out unless something dire happened or I got over $5k, which could be a ways off.

As far as weight loss I've failed miserably, which is to be expected. I haven't given up though. I think I'm going to join a gym at some point in the very near future, within a couple of weeks. I was doing well eating good and working out here and there for a couple of months, and it didn't hold. I gained back all the weight I lost and then some.

My whole life I've tried not to be "that guy." What does that mean? Well I don't really know exactly, so why don't I just ramble for a second. I guess I'm trying to say I always tried to be both myself and unique, and try not to fall into patterns of the normal person. Why not? Well, quite frankly the average person is stupid and doesn't really accomplish anything in their lives.

I also don't want to be that guy who asks a bunch of questions that he himself answers. Why not? Because I think it's stupid.

Anyways, in this case "that guy" is someone who tries to lose weight and never succeeds. Now first of all, it's not like I'm obese. I'm six-foot two and weighed in at 228 lbs this morning. however, I'm unhappy with my size and would like to change this.

I'm just saying I don't want to be "that guy" who starts out great and then loses all motivation, and then rinses and repeats at various points in his life. I'm aware that I need a lifestyle change. It's almost like that Seinfeld episode where he says that breaking up is like rocking over a vending machine. Well I've pushed it a couple of times, and maybe at some point I will push it over.

Ah well, I'll keep on making an effort.

See you next time,

Ross

Well Hello There

2010-05-27T22:29:00.003-05:00

Wonder if theres any one person reading this, but whatever.

Played the double deuce on sunday (satted in with FTPs) and got 40th out of ~10k runners for $389. I've been playing some HU 50nl with that little nugget. Sadly it started out pretty good but hasn't been going to well as of late.

Ah well, I'm going to play til I win or til busto.

See you next time,

Ross

Aaaand Busto

2010-02-21T20:02:00.001-06:00

If my blog were still called countdown to busto, the countdown would be over. Just had a lot of car problems recently, and a good deal from a family friend came up that I felt I couldn't pass up. Nearly all of my poker money is now cashed out so that I can buy this car.

Really sucks and I'm kind of depressed, but what can I do. I'm more upset about the profits that I squandered on stupid crap, I'd be able to buy this car and have plenty of a roll if I hadn't stupidly spent my money over and over.

Oh well, shit happens I guess. I do have a minuscule amount online and should be getting a small rakeback payment at the end of the week, I guess I'll go from there.

See you next time,

Ross

Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

2010-02-13T21:30:00.006-06:00

I guess all my whining and complaining has paid off, I just had one of the best days at the tables I've had in a while.

About $350 of the winnings is from HU and the rest is from 3 tabling rush PLO. I'm really liking the the rush PLO tables, I could be crazy but it seems like people give up on pots way easier. I'd like to say I just outplayed everyone like crazy, but as far as both PLO and HU I handed out my fair share of coolers, and one ~beat, where I had a gutter + NFD vs a made straight and turned the flush.

I do think I played pretty well except for one really bad bluff in PLO, and I didn't cooler everyone for the $600. I'll give myself some credit, and also mention that the opponents I played heads up were less than stellar for sure.

But hey, money is money, I had a couple of opportunities to tilt today and never did, I was pretty proud of myself and I feel really good about poker for the first time probably this year.

As far as working out an eating better, I'm really bad about that so far. At one point I'd lost about 6 lbs but now I think I've gained a couple of those back. It's been really rainy here for a couple of weeks and that's hampering my ability to run outside, but it's really no valid excuse, I should have done something more than shoot hoops a couple of times by now. I suck at that.

As far as reading and watching movie stuff, I've watched all of season 1 of Dexter, and finished a good bit of one of my philosophy books. I'm not nearly as efficient as I could be, but I'm spending my free time much better than I used to.

I spend way too much time browsing forums and other things and it's just a flat out waste of time. I'm trying to cut down on useless internet browsing and Call of Duty playing, and so far I've been pretty good about it.

Btw as far as Dexter goes, I'd say season 1 was pretty good but not great. The acting is mediocore at best, and some of the writing is dumb and tilting. What they do great though is reveal the story in a compelling way, there were times when I just couldn't wait to get to the next episode and watched the next one instead of sleep. I'm betting it gets better in season 2, as shows tend to get better as they go along. Also maybe they'll kill off a few of the terrible actors.

See you next time,

Ross

Looks Like I Just Suck (zero content whining)

2010-02-05T00:22:00.003-06:00

I don't know, just another bad night. Same shit different day. This is my year so far.

Played a bunch of rush poker, things didn't go my way. EV was way down and I feel I got coolered in a bunch of spots where I couldn't do anything. I made one questionable big call but looking through my biggest hands lost, that's about it. Not sure what else to say.

I guess I did win a $25 rebuy SNG at work so theres that. Woohoo.

Things will get better

Things will get better

Things will get better

See you next time,

Ross

Bump in the Road

2010-01-31T18:15:00.003-06:00

Played a bit of PLO the last couple of days, with not so stellar results. Today was especially frustrating, I lost $245 in about 600 hands.

I really feel like I'm a winner in these games now, after knowing I was a dog and feeling I was breakeven. The results aren't exactly showing that this month, I'm up only a buyin and a half over 3.5k hands, but down about $250 in all in EV in that stretch.

Also I feel like I'm really getting screwed in hands that don't show my equity, like today I had bottom set and the 2nd nut flush draw and got most of the money in the flop and the turn, but the nut flush draw hit the river and I was forced to call.

I also played a decent session of donkaments for the first time in forever which went pretty badly with me not making one cash. Some of it was my fault and some of it wasn't, I mean I lost to some bad beats and other things but it was all extremely standard stuff. I'm ok with my play, I'd probably give myself a B-, which is usually good enough in big field MTTs with such weak players. The cards just didn't really go my way though and I was unable to cash and lost about $230 all in all playing tournaments.

So gay. In other news, I'm doing better at eating well the last couple of days, despite going to a pizza buffet yesterday I ate mostly salad. I'm such a wuss about working out, I'm going to try to work out 3-4 days this week and see how sore I am.

See you next time,

Ross

Short Session

2010-01-29T23:24:00.004-06:00

Played just a little bit today. Things went ok, I won a little at PLO and a little bit at HU, while running about 1.5 BI above equity, so no complaints there.

I really feel like my PLO game is coming along faster than expected. I guess it's like a lot of things, you learn a lot really fast and then the little intricacies are the difficult part. As of right now, I'm really happy with my progression.

Here's my month to date.

Not too bad I suppose, if I didn't have that nightmare night where I lost nearly $900 playing tired 100% of the time and tilted 75% of the time I'd be ok. What a moron I am.

Things are finalized with me and loretta on our weight loss bet. I think I'm taking the worst of it even with what we negotiated, but I guess the biggest point is for me to try to get motivated to work out more and eat better . So far I've been having pretty bad results. I've been eating a little better probably 2/3 of the time, but haven't worked out once. In my defense a couple of times I planned on going for a walk/run outside and it was raining, so that's kind of been slowing me down.

I think it'll be babysteps for me anyways, and so far at least I resisted several temptations this week, despite eating really unhealthy food a couple more times than I should have. Ah well, shit happens. It's the thought that counts, right?

Also I've been reading a good bit of one of my philosophy books. Sometimes its hard for me to focus because the language gets a bit jumbled in these books, with the long run on sentences and things. I suppose anyone past middle school should be able to read this stuff so I should manage as long as I'm paying attention.

I just had my second regular work week with a normal schedule, and I absolutely love it. I've never really talked about it but before when I was the fill-in guy I would work overnight shifts, morning shifts, and afternoon shifts many times within days of each other. I actually have a regular bedtime and regular free times and regular weekends off which is extremely refreshing. Right now I'm very happy with my life, and I still feel like there's still so much more I can do to improve it. Things are great, I'm pretty happy, and set. Weird feeling.

See you next time,

Ross

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

2010-01-26T22:55:00.007-06:00

I've been really tired a lot of times with my new schedule, working full time now. Despite being a bit tired today I decided to get in 1k hands of plo.

I quit at 800 or so hands because I knew I was growing more tired and was just getting sick of getting bad beat a couple of times, and not connecting on flops. I quit down about $18 after being up about $150 or so. As usual I ran under EV, this time about $200.

I've been running under EV since September and it's getting really tiring. Poker may get completely phased out of my life if I begin to lose more passion for it, because it's tough enough for me to play as it is. This really saddens me, I hope I stick with it. I may have to restrict my playing to weekends only at some point, which would really suck. I guess after the Super Bowl my weekends will be pretty free anyways.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, I can't see the Colts not winning. I may root for the Saints, I'm not sure, but right now I can't see a Saints victory after needing 5 turnovers to win, in overtime no less.

I'm going to try to get up early before work tomorrow (I go into work at 10am) and go for a walk/run before work. I have a real problem sleeping though, I'm notoriously bad for oversleeping and sleeping til the last possible minute. Part of it is laziness, but I think part of it is that I have a sleeping problem, and I'm going to look into getting that checked out once my benefits kick in at work. I never ever feel refreshed unless I have 10 hours of sleep or more, except when I get drunk for some reason. When I drink, I seem to get knocked out and have a hard sleep, and can feel good after as little as 6 hours of sleep.

If not, I wake up constantly in the middle of the night, and I always feel like I only got a couple of hours of sleep even if I got 12. It's really weird and I don't remember it being like that when I was a kid and a teenager, it's something that's developed probably within the last 4 or 5 years. I just hope I can get better with that aspect because it would really help me in my day to day life. Also not helping is that my nose has been running all day so a cold may be coming.

Anyways, sorry for being off topic and boring, but I'm going to try to incorporate more of that type stuff into my blog.

Inspiration for my title (video is terrible but song is great)-

See you next time,

Ross

Live Poker in Louisiana

2010-01-23T15:48:00.002-06:00

Played some live poker in Louisiana last night, for the first time ever. Some people thought it would be a good idea to take the 2.5 hour drive out there, and I wasn't going to decline a chance to gamble.

I was caught a bit off guard though because I thought the Isle of Capri had a 1/2 NL game but the lowest was 2/5NL. So with a bit less money than I thought I had I played for a few hours. Mostly nothing worth mentioning happened. My two biggest hands were as follows:

Pick up AA in the BB. MP limps, Cutoff makes it $20 and I make it $60. A high flop, I bet half pot he shoves I call. Not wanting to be a dick I show my AA before showdown and he mucks what had to be AK or AQ. Pretty standard.

Later after dwindling down losing a lot of small pots I rase a straddle from the cutoff to $30 with 97hh. The button and the BB call. Flop is 10 8 K rainbow, I bet $55 and the button calls with the BB folding. A J putting a heart flushdraw comes out and I bet $100 straight leaving a good amount to shove the river. Alas, it was not meant to be as the button shoved and I of course called and lost to AQ. Shit happens I suppose.

After that I was pretty much on lifetilt and had a bunch of beers and won a little in slots and lost a little in roulette.

Overall it was a pretty good experience, the players were of course terrible. I'd like to start going out there more frequently. There are Casino "tour" buses that leave near my house where you can go for as little as $10 round trip, as the casinos of course foot most of the bill.

Next time I'll be a little more prepared to play 2/5 and have more money on me. Can't wait.

See you next time,

Ross

Blog Do-over

2010-01-17T20:23:00.005-06:00

I've finally gotten around to changing the cosmetics and hopefully the tone of this blog, for good. Theres a lot of things I've been hinting at and I just want to use this more to chronicle what's going on in my everyday life as I try to balance playing poker and being a healthier person and things like that.

Poker content may go down a bit, but hopefully entertainment value will rise. If not, it's no big deal I guess. I've always said that I don't have this blog to make money or make people think I'm important. I'm here to improve myself.

There's a couple of things I want to lay out, and some new rules I'm ready to adhere to, especially once I begin my weight loss bet with Loretta8.

I want to have a 5 buyin stop loss at all times no matter who or what I'm playing.

I want to never ever play when tired no matter the circumstances. I'm tired of making goals for iron man and things like that which encourage me to play every day when I'm not feeling it every day.

I want to eat well 6 out of 7 days of the week, and exercise at least 3 days out of the week.

I want to post at least 2 times per week on my blog.

I want to read at least 2 books a month. Maybe 1 book a month will do. I have some philosophy books I've only gotten halfway through that I want to finish, and I want to start reading lots of sports books.

I want to play on my guitar some more, not sure about goals with this but I'm thinking something like 3 hours a week.

I'm going to log everything I do every day, and see how badly I'm budgeting my time. This is key here. I waste so much time during a day, it's annoying.

Watch at least 2 movies I haven't seen a week.

That's all I can think of now. I'll probably be tweaking wit the blog colors in the coming days. Not sure if I like it the way it is now.

See you next time,

Ross

In a Daze

2010-01-14T04:15:00.002-06:00

Looks like I had a terrible, terrible night.

At least I didn't drop $6k, it was only $900 or so, but it was almost all at 50nl HU so it was pretty painful. I just played super bad and got coolered a bit and didnt control myself. I'd actually say only a couple of the buyins were pure spew and the rest I just should have played better instead of ok.

I just hate mysefl right now. I quit when I was down $400 and then played more then I almost quit when I was down only $200 and then again when I was down $600 I knew I was too tired to continue but played anyways.

Why do I continually screw myself like this?

My new work schedule is fixed so I'll be redoing the blog very soon, and I'm making a weight loss bet and stuff so I'll be talking about all kinds of stuff. Pretty excited about it, hope I play better too.

See you next time,

Ross

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T00:40:00.002-06:00

Well almost a month without a post, aren't I cool.

I promise more will be coming soon. I had a pretty bad December, lost about $600, but I'm on a 1k or so upswing right now because I was down over $1400 at one point in December and got to my final mark, and won almost $300 so far in January.

Blog revamping will be under way soon. I just need a few things to shake out and I'll have a regular schedule and will be able to make some goals and things like that. Hope all is well.

See you next time,

Ross

Sorry I Suck

2009-12-08T17:39:00.001-06:00

I used to always hate going to blogs that never updated and now it looks like that's what I've become.

I'm down almost 1k at HU this month so far and if it gets much worse I'm probably just going to switch to PLO. I'm down about $550 in equity this month and am just getting coolered left and right and also tilting and playing badly. I think I'm about breakeven in PLO this month, and down about 5 buyins lifetime, but it's just way more interesting and fun for me right now than just getting sucked out or coolered over and over HU.

Also I may have some potential news from work that I don't want to jinx, and it will greatly affect my poker career if it comes through, I may have to put it on hold for a while. I should know within the next few weeks, so I'm shooting to do a blog revamping around January 1st.

See you next time,

Ross

Dabbling in 50NL

2009-11-23T03:50:00.003-06:00

I'm still feeling generally tired and sick, but also really bored and itching to play some HU. So I've been compromising and playing a smaller at 50nl, and things have gone ok. I think I'm up about 2 buyins there in about 500 hands or so. I've started to get lightheaded at times and had to quit.

I quit today after this hand

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4913030

Nothing to do but laugh I guess, the guy left and I decided to quit. Hopefully I'll have some good energy and play later today before the Monday Night Football game. I havent forgotten my pledge about a blog change, but I've obviously been not feeling too well and haven't gotten around to it.

Not going to be a happy day retiring the Oilers colors, but I'll manage.

See you next time,

Ross

High Stakes Railbirding

2009-11-20T04:11:00.002-06:00

I've always dabbled in high stakes railtarding, and it's been taken to an all new high with the emergence of Isildur1 in the high stakes world, willing to 4-6 table pretty much anyone in the world without exception. He's taken durrrr for $3 million, Ziigmund I think for $1 million, and has gone back and forth with Cole South, Brian Townsend, Patrik Antonius, and Phil Ivey. I'm starting to root for this guy against everyone, he's really motivated me to up my heads up game, though I'm sick so it will be a few more days.

It's not only him, it's the people he's playing. There is so much volatility in heads up. These people are just insane, I don't know if I should have respect for them or report them to Full Tilt for being robots. Its just the same thing over and over with different results.

Bet, 3-bet, call. Wet board? C-bet. Hmm I've been raised, ship. He folded. Meh.

Bet, 3-bet, 4-bet, call. CRAI. 2nd pair vs my FD. cooler.

Bet, 3-bet, 4-bet, ship. 88 vs AJs, I lost. cooler.

Just crazy crazy stuff, it's been amazing to watch and I've tried to watch as much as possible. I know there won't be much for me to learn that will be applicable to my stakes, but I think as far as discipline an things of that nature, this Isildur guy seems to rarely tilt, and he's just someone to admire. If/when he plays durrrr again I will be rooting for durrrr, but I think against everyone else I will be rooting for him, and that wasn't the case to start.

This guy just came up and shook everything about high stakes. No one would play each other, and you respected that as game selection. This guy will play anyone anytime because he believes he's the best. And that's why I think durrrr and he have played over 33k hands vs. each other. Durrrr is the same way, but he seems to be getting outplayed here. Going in Isildur's favor I think was the fact that no one has given durrr consistent action in NLHE in years. You could cite martonas, but durrrr busted him in less than 5k hands I believe, so I would call that a refresher course more than anything. Maybe Durrrr will come back, but maybe he won't. As of now he has definitely been released of his throne as NLHE king, something I didn't think I'd say for a while.

But there always will be some younger, more hungry kid to come out I suppose, and maybe Isildur is that guy. Or maybe he'll vanish as quickly as he's appeared. Only time will tell, but now is as great a time as ever to be following high stakes online poker. History is being made.

No idea why I'm blogging about this, I guess it's just poker thoughts I've been having so I decided to put them here. I'm sick and with nothing to do but watch movies and read forums, I guess my mind wanders...

See you next time,

Ross

Swine Flu WTF

2009-11-19T21:17:00.002-06:00

I mentioned last post that I'd been feeling pretty sick, turns out I caught the Swine Flu, likely on the plane ride back from Vegas. I've been feeling extremely exhausted with a deep cough and a runny nose lately.

After trying to tough through it I went to the doctor yesterday and was told I had the old H1N1. Luckily it only kills children, the elderly, or people with existing heart problems or something, the mortality rate is pretty low. So I should be ok as long as I get lots of fluids and use these drugs they gave me, but I'll be bedridden for a few days and probably not going to be in a good state of mind to play poker.

Such is life.

See you next time,

Ross

Back From Vegas

2009-11-17T08:06:00.003-06:00

I'm really feeling terrible right now, I think I got sick on the return plane on Sunday, luckily I'm off of work today and yesterday to make up for it.

Vegas was pretty fun, but I feel almost like it was a wasted trip, I don't know why. It was probably because I spent probably over half of my time playing poker, and that includes sleep. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, I mean I'm really glad to play a bunch of live poker because the nearest room to me is pretty far away, but there are so many things to do in Vegas maybe I should have branched out.

On the other hand, that's about the only thing its mathematically possible to win at, and of course the only thing I did win at. I don't really think a trip report is in order, though I may get around to one because I don't plan on playing poker today due to sickness.

Cliff notes are that alcohol + Spearmint Rhino is the devil, beers at clubs are pricey, and live poker players are lolbad.

1/2NL: +$450
MTT: -$340
Blackjack: -$250
Craps/roulette: -$175
Slots: -$5

Slots was the only -EV gambling thing I was up on (thanks to $250 spin on wheel of fortune) until they got me for $80 in the airport.

Bastards.

See you next time,

Ross

Thoughts On Tiers, Introspective Incoherent Rambling, Brewing Blog Revolution?

2009-11-06T22:35:00.029-06:00

I've been thinking a lot about what makes a person bad, good, great, and the best of the best. At what? Well, everything. I've been thinking just about anything in life, including poker, intelligence, business, politics, comedy, everything. I just feel like everything is set up in tiers, like the ones i mentioned.

I've been thinking about a lot of things like that lately, relating to myself and what tier I'm on, and thinking a lot about my ceiling as a poker player, video game player, my career, and just about everything.

What makes up these tiers, why does the cream rise to the top? Are people just born funny, smart, athletic, etc? Where does the heritability end and self control begin? There are certain types of people, people who are very lazy, determined, etc. What makes them this way? What is it within them? Do you think people want to weigh 500lbs? Then why are so many people obese?

Where do these tiers and ceilings come from, or does no one have a ceiling? A person born (for lack of a better term) mentally retarded certainly has a ceiling. There are people with autism and other things who can achieve amazing things, but I think to argue that they aren't at a disadvantage is quite foolish. Does everyone else have a ceiling on a similar but not so apparent scale? Where is the real life Forrest Gump? Things like that just don't happen, sometimes I feel like everyone has a ceiling, just some people's ceilings happen to be higher than anyone else’s.

What about sports, for example. Not everyone is born with the determination, athleticism, and intelligence of a Kobe or a Michael Jordan. You can be the most intelligent, athletic, or determined person in the world, but without a mix of all three you will never be the best of the best. Yao Ming is one of the more hardworking players in the NBA. He's out there at every moment, shooting and working on his game. But his body has failed him I think. I think he hit his ceiling as a player. Sure he's 7'6", but he has probably the slowest feet I've ever seen on a human being, and is incapable of jumping very high. I don't think he is capable of more than a 22/10 type season, while other guys like Shaq who maybe didn't work as hard can have 28/13 seasons. It just takes so much to be the best.

Athletic ability and intelligence while not always heritable are definitely inborn and out of our control. Is determination different? What makes certain people want to be the best at everything? Everyone likes to say they hate losing, well no shit. When did you run across a guy who said he loves to lose? Others just go beyond that, some people hate losing so much that they'll just go above and beyond to be the best. Where does that come from? Is that something that each person can conjure up from within themselves, or do you have to be born with that as well?

I don't know.

I feel like I'm pretty intelligent, more strong willed than most, and have pretty good hand-eye-coordination. I spent more time than I care to think of playing COD4. At my peak I was top 500 in score, out of millions on the PS3 Network. I played just about every second of my free time, and I was and still am pretty damn good at the game. But whenever I ran into a troop of elite players, I just couldn't hang. Was I not putting enough time in? Certainly not. Did I not have a will to win? Certainly not. What was it then? Why can't I be the best? I think it has to do with what I was born with. I have pretty good and maybe even great hand-eye-coordination for video games, but it's just not elite. I would just get out aimed by the best and they kill me faster. I just don't think I could ever be an elite video game player no matter how much time and effort I put in.

This correlates with poker. I've spent a lot a lot of time playing poker, more than most people in the general population, but probably not close to the biggest grinders around. I find that I am a good poker player, but definitely not a great or top tier poker player. Why is that? I still have problems with tilt and adjusting to opponents and keeping focus. Is that something that I'll never be able to overcome? Or is there something within me that will allow me to be a great poker player?

Maybe I've hit my ceiling, and this is good as I can be. I definitely don't feel that is true, but the more I play the more I feel like I'm nearing my ceiling. I don't have a goal for it but if I did I'm not sure I could be a high stakes player who could beat 25/50. I know I am a very intelligent person, there’s no doubt in my mind with that. In 6th grade I scored in the 99th percentile in some nationwide test who’s main focus was intelligence. I guess I'm bragging there a bit but the point is I know that I'm very intelligent, so I have that necessary component to be a great poker player. I'd like to temper that statement to say that I'm nowhere near that intelligent today, mostly because I'm not in school and don't read and things like that, plus binge drinking.

Maybe I wasn't born with the combination of top tiered intelligence and strong will to be the best. But if I'm too weak willed, is it my fault? Maybe I wasn't born with a strong will? Maybe some people are just inborn with things and they keep pushing through because that's their destiny, they were born and bred to be the best.

The world needs janitors, taxi drivers, and things like that, so don't things work out kind of like they should? The world certainly doesn't need high stakes poker players, so where does that fall? Where is my place in this world, where do I fit in? I certainly don't feel like I was destined to be a janitor, but I'm not going to be president of the United States either. I don't know, I feel like I'm just wandering around the world sometimes. I'm not religious at all but it's apparent I was given some natural gifts by variance or God or whatever, but I don't seem to be using them that well up to this point in my life. How much control do I have over where I end up in life? Am I just rationalizing my laziness and lack of motivation by saying I have a pre-determined destiny?

I don't know.

I've talked about revamping my blog a couple of times, and I think I'm going to do it. I'm going to try to find out how far I can go in poker, and I hope that it's farther than I think. I'm interested in finding out my ceiling as a poker player and person in all aspects. For example, I've gained 15 lbs since February with no good excuse. I just need to exercise more and eat better. Today I ate a chicken salad for the first time in forever. I like chicken salads, why haven’t I eaten more? I guess it's just easier for me to give in and order that double cheeseburger and fries. I'm going to probably change up this blog after I get back from Vegas on November 15th. Hopefully I can turn my life in a better direction and be a better poker player and be a healthier, more social person. Like I've said before my life generally consists of work, poker, sleep, and video games and that's it. Super exciting.

Some goals I'm going to include in this new blog are one off topic blog post per week, as well as one hardcore strategy article per week. One thing I used to do that I don't do much these days is look over my hand histories in depth. This is unacceptable and is definitely hurting my growth as poker player.

Well, I guess that’s about it for right now. Sorry it's so long, but doubtful anyone is going to read close to all of this anyways. As usual it just felt good to type and map it all out for myself, which is the main reason I blog. On the off chance you did read all of this, first I'd like to apologize, then I'd appreciate any comments or rebuttals.

I'm really hoping to start playing better poker and being a better person overall. I really hope that I have the will, determination and discipline to improve my life in just about every aspect; I'm going to give it a go. If I can't though, was it something I'm just unable to do because of how I was born, or is it a failure all within myself with only me to blame, or an even mix, or a weighted mix?

I don't know.

See you next time,

Ross

See You in Hell, October

2009-10-30T23:37:00.001-05:00

Ready to move on. At least pulled out a postitive month. Going to play and run better in November. Book it!

See you next time,

Ross

It's Almost Over

2009-10-30T05:56:00.002-05:00

Played a little today and lost about 2 buyins in 1.2k hands. Definitely could have played a lot better, oh well.

I was hoping to make at least 2k this month, looks like I'll be pretty far off. I may play tomorrow to try to pull out a breakeven month, I may not, I'm not sure yet. I'm just ready to move on and start running better. All in EV tells less than half the story here, my opponents just keep getting perfect cards and I just keep getting coolered way more than I cooler people. Whatever.

Such is life.

See you next time,

Ross

Hanging on in Quiet Desperation (Time)

2009-10-27T03:46:00.006-05:00

Through playing a lot of heads up and poker in general I feel like I've picked up a few things you can take from timing. I'd like to preface this by saying by no means is any of this 100% or probably 80%, it's just one of the many factors you should think about when deciding your action in a hand. As with other pieces of info, it's more reliable when it's someone who halfway knows what they're doing rather than some mouth breather who's just clicking buttons.

A lot of times it's just something you can feel through lots of practice, and with this as a guideline through lots of volume I think most people should be able to pick up a bit from the timing. I think timing tells are more prevalent in heads-up because there's less occurrence of mass multi tabling, and when people play heads up they are more focused on the table and not watching tv or browsing the internet like when they're in full ring tournaments or even 6 max. There's just no down time when playing heads up, so a lot of the timing tells you can pick up are more reliable, though still not even close to 100%.

First I'd like to talk about people acting quickly, and you have to take in consideration things like the board and player tendencies when trying to pick up these things. For example, when someone bets very quickly, I take it to be a bluff, especially if a draw or something has missed.

Logically, when someone is value betting, they are considering a lot of different things, like if they should bet at all, how much of a bet will get called. When you're bluffing you don't really have to consider these things much, you just throw out a bet and hope it doesn't get called. I've noticed that I myself do this, and have tried to adjust accordingly.

Now let's talk about when I throw out a bet and get called. When I get called very quickly, I used to think that this was a draw a lot, but in my experience this is not always the case. Sure, some people decide that they're calling any bet and will try to draw, but I think people mull over whether or not they want to gamble and don't act so quickly. I find that when I'm getting called quickly it's because I've been barreling a lot an there's no way this person is going to fold, so I better have it if I bet again. It just seems like someone taking a stand and calling quickly in order to show strength, like they're not backing down.

When I see a quick call like that I generally just shut down, and more often that not I get shown a hand that more than likely would have called the river. A lot of times it could be something like a weak 2 pair or top pair with a weak kicker. Also you can use this to your advantage if you have something like the nuts. If you see a quick call, you can probably bet close to full pot and in some cases overpot with full confidence that your opponent will call.

When I see someone tank and call a bet that I've made in position, I'm usually going to keep on barreling. More often that not it's someone that really wants to fold and knows that they should fold, but they call anyways. Be weary though, it could also be a trap with someone who was considering raising but decided to keep stringing you along. Just pay attention to the board and the actions, and you should be fine. Traps are more likely to be laid on dry boards.

What about when someone takes a long time, then bets or raises? Generally in these cases I feel like they're not bluffing. I think this is when someone is considering the merits of raising or value betting, and finally decide that their best option is to make a bet or raise. I really can't think of a time that someone hit their time bank, then bet or raised, and I called and won. I just don't really see it too much.

As far as your own actions, I generally like to bet pretty quickly when I have it. It gives your opponent less time to think about their action, and for some odd reason I feel like when I tank and bet I never get called. Maybe they're picking up on the same kind of things I am.

Keeping everything uniform in general is not a bad idea against good opponents. When I'm playing someone who seems coherent, I usually wait til my icon starts blinking (Full Tilt) to bet. This makes all of my decisions uniform and my opponent gains no information from the timing of my bets.

I kind of feel like I chopped a lot of the fat off this, it seems kind of rudimentary but it was the only way I could keep it from being so long. A lot of this stuff is very situation/opponent dependent so I tried to keep it more general. If anyone has any specific questions feel free to ask and I will definitely answer. I hope this came out coherent, I did a lot of editing probably could have done better.

Any complaints can be sent to goscrewyourselfthisblcgisfreetoreadanyways@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Ross

The Riggedness Continues

2009-10-26T20:19:00.003-05:00

Had a so-so day at the tables, felt like I was playing pretty good and pretty much never tilt

Kind of amusting to look at, just a huge split that gets gradually worse.

Anyways I tried uploading a file for a session review but cardrunners is not cooperating, so I'll have that up as soon as I can. Also the timing tell post should be done within a few days. Don't get your hopes up, it's likely it will suck.

See you next time,

Ross

On the Up and Up

2009-10-25T01:22:00.003-05:00

Things are going much better for me lately, I just played only 43 hands tonight but won $74 and quit knowing I was too tired. So far I'm only down $254 this month now after being down as much as $1600 and it feels pretty good.

I should be able to put in a good session tomorrow and am definitely going to work more on my timing tell post since I got a bit of feedback, which I appreciate.

I made a good sized cashout because I'm getting ready for an upcoming Vegas trip this November 11th-15th. I'm going to be playing 2 of the Venetian deep stack series tournaments for $350 each. I was able to get pretty good room rates for the series, a couple of the nights are $109 for a suite, which is really awesome for the Venetian.

Because of this cashout if things go pretty bad at 100nl I may move down to 50NL which I'm ok with. It would have to be a pretty healthy downswing, lower than my lowest point this month but I wouldn't put it past me to have a downer like that.

Anyways as far as Vegas I hope it goes really well, I've budgeted losing both of those tournaments and about 10 buyins at 200nl which will be my main game barring some big tourney score where I may take a shot or two at 500nl. Hopefully of course it doesn't go that bad and I come back a winner, or at least a slight loser like my last trip.

Also going to be doing some -EV gambling as always when alcohol is involved. Damn you blackjack. I'm starting to get excited for the trip, I know its going to be a lot of fun.

See you next time,

Ross

What a difference a day makes

2009-10-21T22:44:00.004-05:00

Full Tilt paying their dues back a bit. Hope it gets better from here. Two huge suckouts and everything else holding made for a +$851 day.

Too tired to blog much. I'm working on my timing tell article but it's kind of really long and a bit too convoluted. I'm either going to have to chop a lot of it out or make into a few parts, or maybe scrap it altogether, I'm not sure yet.

See you next time,

Ross

Short Update

2009-10-20T22:41:00.001-05:00

Not much in the mood for blogging I guess, I suck. Month not turning around at all, I keep trying and I'll keep plugging away. I'm not going to stop playing unless I run out of money.

See you next time,

Ross

Psych Out

2009-10-13T18:02:00.003-05:00

Seems like my last few sessions have started with me being up a few buyins then crashing down to even or losing, today was the same. After starting out red hot and being up 6 buyins, everything came crashing down as I had a KK vs AA aipf and had QQ vs KK aipf and a bunch of other dumb stuff. I also tilted a bit and misplayed a few hands but overall I'm pretty happy with my play once again.

When I was up 6 buyins my confidence was really high, I need to bottle up that feeling and keep it going as I work through this. I'm almost halfway through the month and still stuck $1200 on the month. This sucks.

I have a lot of thoughts on timing tells that helped me out today and cost me a buyin when I didn't stick with my read with respect to them. Probably going to iron some of those out in a post in the near future.

See you next time,

Ross

I Can't do this Anymore

2009-10-09T13:09:00.007-05:00

I just don't know what to do anymore. Lost about $800 in the last couple of days, while being massively up in equity. I'm just so sick of doing this shit, this is like self inflicted wounds. I'm the first to say I play play super terrible way more than I should but some of this shit just doesn't make any sense to me.

Sick double float, bro

I'm just about ready to quit poker right now, for maybe the rest of the year or something. I know I sound like a whiny bitch but I'm ok with that, that's what I feel like right now. Some kid who's pissed because he can't beat his brother at a video game or something.

Also, it's becoming more and more apparent that I'm not cut out for this, which is ok for me. At one point in my life I wanted to play poker for a living but right now I have zero desire to ever do that which is fine by me.

My confidence in myself is just so shaken right now, I'm down almost $1600 on the month and have been running great in terms of equity the last two days. I just feel like I can't hit a flop to save my life. The thing is, maybe I'm just hitting flops at a normal person's frequency, and I can only make money when I'm a hot run, and the rest of the time I'm just a bum who doesn't come close to breaking even.

Playing heads-up lately just feels like I'm walking through a desert with no food or water, and I just pick up little nuggets here and there of food and water when I hit a flop or have a hand hold. The rest of the time I'm just wandering aimlessly and miserable, turning over every rock and digging holes in the sand just looking for something to sustain me.

Probably going to regret posting this because I sound like a 13 year old girl on her period, but whatever, its how I feel right now.

See you next time,

Ross

Crawling Up

2009-10-07T01:51:00.002-05:00

Just had a pretty good day at the tables, won almost 2 buyins in about 1.5k hands including 100nl HU and 50PLO. I'm really starting to feel good about my PLO game, I was able to fold a couple of straights and sets today in spots where I never would have considered folding them before, and I'm confident they were correct folds.

I was really happy with my play today, I was able to control myself during that little downward spot when I could tell I was on the verge of tilting. I composed myself and had a few hands hold up and ended up 2 buyins.

Overall I think I ran good in terms of EV and so-so in terms of hitting hands. More than anything I had my hands hold up. I'm very happy with my play, I got caught on a couple of bluffs but for the most part I'm happy with how I played those hands. Probably need to do a session review here, I really haven't been examining my play much and that's super important during a downswing. And oh yeah I've been promising one for about 3 months.

See you next time,

Ross

Where is Your God Now

2009-10-05T16:47:00.005-05:00

Having a really terrible month, but surprisingly I'm not as upset as I should be I think.

I'm overall pretty satisfied with my play, I definitely misplayed some key hands, but I just cant have a hand hold or hit a combo draw to save my life. Not sure what to do except keep on playing.

See you next time,

Ross

The Hunt for Black October

2009-10-01T22:20:00.002-05:00

Well I'm back, played a little over 1k hands today, and things didn't really go my way. The session started out great, all of my hands were holding and I felt like I was playing good poker. Midway through though I gave one guy about 6 buyins in the span of a few minutes. Some of it wasn't my fault as you can see the equity go from me being up a bit and then me being down a good amount. Throw in a few coolers and tilt calls, and hello instant downswing.

Overall I'm ok with how i played the big hands, I chose to let him bluff when I had two pair in a 3bet pot and his Q4s hit two running gutter cards. I'm still fine with that one I think he shoves any river.

I'm really excited to be back despite the rough start, it did feel great when I was up so much in the beginning. Probably if I tilt less I break about even today, and of course the equity wasn't staying with me in all-in pots, but what can you do.

I'm glad to be back playing poker and I really feel like I'm going to have a great October.

See you next time,

Ross

I've got to ramble (Low Content)

2009-09-23T20:16:00.007-05:00

Lot of things going on in my mind right now. Probably just in a weird spot because I'm tired and a bit sick, and also quitting poker for the rest of the month, maybe a week or two longer, I'm not sure.

I just realize that I've been making myself play the last couple of weeks, and that's not something I want to do and not something that's going to have me at my best. I'm also sick right now and won't be playing for a few days, so may as well take off the rest of the month.

Doesn't help that I think my game has been really off for probably a month now, so I just want some time off to refresh and start over. Being on a flop dead run has messed with my mind, I've been bluffing at too high a frequency and running with any piece of the board way too much. Or maybe I'm just running normal and was on a hot run earlier in the year, and I'm just some luckbox donkey who sucks at poker, I'm really not sure sometimes.

Anyways I'm quitting the month up $45 in HU after something like 7k hands, which I can live with, as I started the month really badly and last month was a disaster after I played drunk and lost $1800 putting me $350 down for the month.

I'm just realizing that I need to keep poker more as a hobby than a job, and lately it feels like I've only been playing it for the money. I now know that I could never do this professionally, I'd probably want to jump out of a window if I depended on poker for income. I tip my hat off to anyone who goes pro for any amount of time, I think using poker as a combination of a hobby and supplemental income is all it will ever become for me, and I'm ok with that.

Anyways I'm really excited to have some time off, another indicator that I need to slow down with the poker. I just never seem to have enought time in the day, and I play too much poker and way too much COD4 when there are other more productive things I could be doing with my time. I'm in the prime of my life and all I do is go to work, eat, sleep, and play poker or video games.

What kind of life is that?

See you next time,

Ross

Getting Back Up

2009-09-20T17:55:00.002-05:00

Had a great night Friday night, pulling myself into the black for the month in HU, winning $591 even while being down $140ish in equity. No way could I say I ran bad though, I hit lots of hands and played pretty well, but a lot of the times my cards were just playing themselves.

Also played the Mini FTOPS Main Event today, I'm regretting ever registering. I was tired from the start, and got invited to go out to see the Cowboys/Giants game so started playing go big or go home and I went home.

Wish I could have saved that $55, I probably shouldn't have registered at all. Also lost about $100 in HU, ran about $100 under equtity but also played bad, I think I could have broke even at a minimum if I wasn't so tired and unfocused. I planned on registering for a bunch of MTTs but I knew I was tired so just one tabled, and got bored there and opened up some 100NL HU.

Probably need to get more disciplined at some point.

See you next time,

Ross

Lazy, Floating Around

2009-09-15T02:53:00.003-05:00

I haven't been playing much the last few days, I'm just rather unmotivated to play, even though I felt a bit of a fire when I made my $10k challenge to myself, which I'm currently way off pace for since I've taken a lot of days off.

I just can't seem to get anything going, which was true as well in the HU $530 event. Now I'm the first to say I played terribly, I made some retarded calls and tried to bluff way too much. But in my defense, just about every single pot I won I just didn't have anything, I had to bluff my way out or play differently. I can only remember value betting once in the match and I played for over an hour and a half.

That's just how poker has felt for me lately, just nothing is going right. A couple of hands from tonight demonstrate this pretty well I think.

Nice flop call, nice turn

Another nice flop call and turn

I know my opponent calls pretty much any flop with something like K or A high and I bet for value, and my opponent hits what he's looking for and just sits there. This is just pretty much the story of my last few weeks. I can usually never hit anything, and when I do it doesn't turn out for me. These pots are pretty small and seem inocuous, but the fact that it keeps happening seemingly over and over and over adds up, and has helped me be down $455 for the month.

Playing and running like this has kept me from wanting to play a lot lately. I guess this makes me weak as a poker player, but I think it's not that big of a deal because I don't really play for a living. However, I think I just need to get over myself and play through the pain.

Things will get better eventually, but I've just had a terrible attitude towards poker for nearly a month, just because I've had the deadly mix of playing and running bad. I don't think I'm running bad in terms of EV, but I am very very flop dead and my opponents seem to always hit or have the perfect cards, all of which are components of running bad.

Also it would help for me to stop sucking.

See you next time,

Ross

Update, Blog Change, WCOOP HU Event

2009-09-09T21:01:00.005-05:00

This month not going too well so far, I lost $650 yesterday where I played terribly and lost $67 today where I played pretty well and just fell on some hard luck.

I barreled at the right times but my opponents caught the right cards, things like that. I got coolered a couple of times and though I ran above EV I just could never get anything going in terms of hitting flops or combo draws. The same was true yesterday but I also tilted a bit and played badly, hence the decent sized losses.

I'm down $433 for the month.

Whenever I get unlazy I'm going to announce my $10k challenge for the rest of the year. Well I guess I just did. I've made a goal to make $10,000 by 11:59CST December 31st, as well as try to go with a bit of a lifestyle overhaul. There are some things in my day to day life that I'm not happy with, and I'll be changing my blog title for the time being, and its not going to be a 100% poker blog.

It's something I've been meaning to do for a long time, and I'm really excited about it and it's made me motivated in both life and poker, I couldn't be happier and I hope I achieve all my goals.

I'll probably get more in detail in the next few days but the cliff's notes are that I want to win $10k, lose weight, get in shape, do more social things, and get better at my guitar. I'm pretty excited.

Also, I will be playing the $530 HU WCOOP event on Saturday. I feel like there might not be as much dead money in it as some of the other MTT's but Loretta8 is in it so that's enough dead money for me. Kidding aside, I do feel like I'll have a pretty good edge on the field, and a very big edge if I play my A game. I'm pretty confident that if I focus a deep run would not be out of the question.

Whew, lots going on right now, this is exciting.

See you next time,

Hey There

2009-09-03T04:41:00.004-05:00

Haven't really been playing much, just played a few hands of PLO here and there during happy hours to make Iron Man. Probably starting tomorrow I'm going to start getting in some good volume in.

I'm starting to get the itch to play which has been missing from me ever since I blew my entire month in one night playing drunk. Still disappointed about that, but I'm ready to move on.

I'm probably going to be making a challenge to myself to make a certain amount of $$, and cash this money out to buy a new car.

I currently drive the same car I've had since high school, and the thing is falling apart. Well, I wouldn't say that. It runs and drives, but its definitely not the nicest car on the block.

I've spent money very frivolously since I've had this big upswing, and I probably could have already paid for a new car if I was more careful. Whenever I get a comfortable cushion in my bank accounts, rather than saving it up I just spend it and see anything I have over the necessities as free money to spend as retardedly as I please.

I'm trying to think of a few details, but the self challenge will probably end on Dec. 31st, with the goal to win an indeterminate amount by that date for the purposes of cashing it out and buying a new car. I think this will be good for both my poker and real life, I really want to tone down my irresponsible spending.

I just thought of this a few minutes ago and I'm already pretty excited, I actually want to play right now but know I'm too tired.

Hooray for poker. Haven't been able to say that in a while.

See you next time,

Ross

Turn the Page

2009-08-24T18:50:00.001-05:00

Played a pretty good amount today, most likely done for the day but may play a little bit later. I won about $300 in 2k hands. Even though I was up $300 in equity, I still feel like I was card dead at times and played bad at times. I'm just going to try to clear my head, maybe take a day or two off, maybe not.

I just feel so terrible about playing that drunk. It's something I haven't done in proabably over a year. I self exclude nearly every time I go out drinking, and I guess I forgot this time.

It's so frustrating, I just feel embarrassed for myself that I did that. I wish I wouldn't have played, now instead of being down $500 on the month after today I would be up about $1300 and closing in on my goal of being up $2k. Now I'm just going to be happy if I have a breakeven month, after putting in so many hours I feel like I just wasted my time. I wiped out a month's worth of winnings in a couple of hours.

So incredibly stupid.

I'm going to try to move on though, and focus on playing the best that I can. At the tail end of today's session I was just getting tired of poker. Maybe some more sessions of PLO or just a little more time off will make me feel better.

This is just still tough for me to stomach because I know in the end there's no one to blame but me.

See you next time,

Ross

Eh

2009-08-23T05:41:00.001-05:00

Played drunk tonight.

Lost about $1800

I deserved it. No excuse.

God dammit.

Heater Anyone?

2009-08-21T05:11:00.005-05:00

Yes please.

Last couple of days

Month to date

Won about $800 today despite being $300 under expectation, never felt so good to run bad. So the last two days I'm up over $1700 and now up $1k on the month, halfway to my goal of $2,000 but still a bit of grinding to go.

Not much to say, I really feel on top of my game today, I was making lots of good thin value bets, and even a hero call or two.

Pulling the strings

That hand was so beautiful. I wanted to induce a raise on the flop and c/c from there because I knew exactly how my opponent plays. A runner runnered QT was definitely part of their range but I stuck with my plan and didn't hesitate to call the river.

I just feel really in the zone the last couple of days, and hopefully it gets better. I found an opponent to do a session review against, I'll try to get that in in the next few days, but I'm going to be kind of busy this weekend so it could be early next week.

See you next time,

Ross

A Beam of Light

2009-08-20T00:05:00.002-05:00

Just had an awesome day all around today. Got some good news and good praise at work today, then came home and crushed HU and did decent in 6 max PLO, well enough to get me out of the hole for the month.

It feels pretty good, but I also know that I could lose $500 tomorrow so I shouldn't celebrate too much. Nonetheless I'm making a loose goal to get to $2,000 in profit this month. 2 Weeks, 2 Thousand har har.

Anyways, I'm going to try to get in a good amount of volume and hopefully end up with a nice profit for the month after swinging so much to start. It was such a relief to hit hands today. You have no idea how card dead you are until you actually start hitting hands. I hit a bunch of flops today, and as normal my aggressive nature causes my opponents to call me down light as I bet bet bet. As long as I hit some hands, I'll be ok. I'd just been so flop dead the last few times, and I'd have 80vpip opponents who would fold to a raise only when I had QQ+, just very frustrating.

Well, I hope to trend upwards for the month, so far August has been a nightmare and I hope I can turn it into something decent.

See you next time,

Ross

Two Steps Back...

2009-08-17T19:29:00.001-05:00

Tilted really badly today, was down $1200ish at one point, ended the day down $789.

No one to blame but me, fuck.

See you next time,

Ross

edit: played a little more, only down $525 today, I still played terribly

I'm Getting Closer to my Home....

2009-08-17T03:48:00.002-05:00

Almost back to even for the month, after being down $1700ish at one point, and it feels good. Played a good amount of HU and PLO, and a little bit of 7 game today, and things went good but not great. Overall I made about $224 in all the games in about 2.5k hands.

I'm really liking 6 max 50PLO, I can earn FTPs at a 4x faster clip than HU, and the games are really soft and it lets me learn a new game while winning money. Safe to say because of all those factors I'll be getting in more volume there in near future.

I was hoping to make $2k this month, and I think that's still attainable, but right now I'm just trying to get back to even. Gotta crawl before you can walk. Oh well, things are really looking up because a couple of weeks ago I was wondering if I'd ever win another dime at poker.

I really suck at blogging lately, I haven't hardly posted any of my thoughts on the game or any session reviews. This bothers me, but I just haven't found the time. I generally do things like that when I'm too tired to play but I've had some life distractions that have been taking up my free time when I'm not playing poker. Hey, hey, what can I do.....

See you next time,

Ross

Potpurri

2009-08-13T06:02:00.006-05:00

Played just about a bit of everything today. I played some heads-up NL, some heads-up 7 game, some deep 50NL HU, and even 5 tabled 6 max PLO for a bit. Overall things didn't go too well, I ended the day losing about $110 in 3.6k hands or so (the $13 missing is from the Stud games).

I was very unhappy with my 50NL play, I lost about $300 in the deep games, about $200 of it coming on retarded bluffs 300bb deep. I always have problems playing retarded deep, and the reason I sat at 50NL HU deep was to work on my deep stack game. Well I guess what I learned from that is that I still suck lol. Oh well, it was a learning experience.

I was pretty happy with my PLO play and 7 game play, I think I played well in both of those, but I did make some obvious mistakes in PLO. Ah well, overall things could have gone worse as I was down about $581 at one point today, and yo-yo'ed all day.

For real this time, I did forget that I was doing a session review. I think I'm going to try to play someone HU 50HA or something like that for my next one when I do one, because there are a lot of spots in PLO where I geniuinely don't know what to do. Hopefully I can deliver with some strategy, because what's the point of a blog if you aren't examining your game?

See you next time,

Ross

Here and There

2009-08-10T23:35:00.002-05:00

I've been filling in on overnight shifts the last few days at work, and it's really throwing me off my sleep schedule. It seems like I'm just tired the entire day no matter what, so I haven't been getting in hardly any volume.

I've been playing a little bit here and there, but have been trying to limit my sessions because I know things don't go to well when I play tired. Things have been going well in the little time I've been playing though, I'm only down about $450 this month after being down as much as $1700 at one point.

I've been playing a fair amount of 7 game which is really really soft, even the regulars have big leaks in a couple of the games. Hopefully I'll be able to get in some more volume soon and get unstuck for the month.

See you next time,

Ross

I Rebound Like Dennis Rodman

2009-08-05T03:57:00.006-05:00

Well, actually if it were like Dennis Rodman I would have gotten completely unstuck for the month, but still I had to use that line when I thought of it. :-)

Today started off terribly, I was down $394 at HU. I took a break and went on almost a $1k upswing from that point, and ended the day up $586 including HU 100nl and a bit of HU 7 game.

It feels great to get a bit of what I lost back from yesterday, I'm now down only about $776 for the month after being down around $1700 at my worst point. I'm glad that I played well today even after starting down 4 buyins. I just happened to have my hands hold against fish, I don't think I sucked out much all day HU.

I think I'm going to play a fair amount more of the 7-game, the stakes I was playing were the 50nl/PLO and 1/2 limit games. Most of the players I have played there have had major leaks in a couple of the games, so I think I may work that into my rotation if I can avoid tilt, which has always been a problem for me at HU limit.

Anyways, the month seems to be on a much better track so far, I hope to get unstuck in the next couple of days and go on into the black from there.

See you next time,

Ross

Ayeeeee Have Become....

2009-08-04T04:05:00.005-05:00

A bit numb right now, just lost 13 BI at 100nl tonight. I can honestly say that I didn't really tilt much, I think I just ran really badly and also got coolered a lot.

Looking at my hands, yeah I played some hands badly but I think all were at least marginal and none were terrible. HU is just so funny, you can play correctly and have a huge downswing. I'm not saying I played great today, there were definitely spots I could have played better and I considered quitting when I was down about $1k and kept on going.

I think playing optimally I would have lost about $900-$1k tonight, so I was going to take it on the chin no matter what, and of course it didn't help to be $500 under equity for the night. Playing and running normally I probably lose 4 or 5 buyins rather than 13. Alas, that's not what happend, so I'm stuck with reality.

I don't know, this just sucks right now.

See you next time,

Ross

Wrapping Up July

2009-07-31T03:36:00.005-05:00

Just finished playing bak of the CP forum's 5k hand challenge, where I won about $430 plus the $100 sidebet. I think bak is a good player who can beat 100nl, but has some leaks that I think I exploited well at times.

As far as EV I ended up about $54 but he won a 130bb pot with KK < AA all in preflop. I'm glad I took this challenge, it allowed me to think a lot about both my opponents and my own game. I encourage anyone else thinking about doing it to do so. You may lose but you'll become a better HU player for it.

Anyways, as far as July goes I had a good month, inching just over $3,000 in profit for the month.

So I am about 3/5ths of the way of where I want to be til I dip my toe in the 1/2 pool again. It may even be more, because frankly I'm not wholly satisfied with my 100nl play. I played pretty bad for a lot of this month, check that big breakeven stretch in the middle.

I'm not sure if I'm going to step into 200nl when I reach my goal. Maybe if I start playing a bit better I can be ready, but I just make bad plays too much recently. I don't think I'm terrible, I just know I have lots of room to improve.

See you next time,

Ross

Update

2009-07-27T02:49:00.002-05:00

Played a bunch more after this blog post though I thought I was done, and played the most hands I ever have in one day of HU. Not a huge session or anything, I just usually don't put in that much time HU.

The player I played a bunch came looking for me, I guess I can't blame him after I spewed so much to him. He's pretty boring and unimaginitive, and can't fold much. I started to come back vs him but quit him when he hit KTss vs my Q8ss on an 8 high two spade flop.

After that I played bak of the CP forums for a short session starting his 4-table 5k hand challenge which I've accepted. I won 2 buy ins in about 369 hands, but both in huge pots which were pretty standard-

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4517260

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4517264

Hopefully I continue to run that well for the 5k hands, I guess we'll see.

See you next time,

Ross

So Far, Not Good

2009-07-26T19:12:00.004-05:00

Returning to online poker has been pretty bad for me so far, I'm down almost 9 buy-ins at 100nl. About 6.5 of those were from today, I 2 tabled a tough player, and he held the deck over me. It was almost Black Thursday all over again, I was down as much as 10 buy ins. I started to rally back a bit and he quit, so I lost about 7.5 vs. him.

It was basically all my fault, though I did take one beat when he had 2nd pair vs my top pair all in on the turn, and he rivered 2 pair. Other than that I got it in bad every single time. He was in god mode in 3bet pots, and I was getting no hands and not hitting anything. Any big pot I won was something like 56s vs his KK when I flopped 2 pair on a dry board. I just get so frustrated when a good opponent is going crazy against me. I need to remember, most people just don't have the balls to bluff big a whole lot. Needless to say, every time I tried to run a bluff he had it.

Playing retarded and undisciplined cost me I'd say at least 4 or 5 buy ins today. The way the cards were going, there was no way in hell I was going to beat this person. I've talked about maximizing your oppurtunities, but you also have to minimize your losses. This is something I need to work on if I want to get anywhere, and now I've cut my winnings for the month almost in half in the last few days, it's very frustrating.

Also I played the 750k today and lost in about 2 hands. I planned on playing a bunch of MTTs, but was tired and unfocused and made a terrible play to get myself in a bad spot, and called hoping to suck out. Alas my nut flush draw on a paired board didn't come through, and I was out.

I just played so retarded all around today, and lost almost $900 overall between the MTT and 100NL tiltfest. So frustrating looking at my account knowing if I could control myself better I would have much more money.

However, I think I am improving, I didn't allow myself to go completely off the deep end today, and started to rally vs this player. Although, I should have kept to my 5 buy in stop loss, just like always as soon as I start coming back the player quits. Also a little game selection should probably be in order, I knew the player was decent when I was down just one buy in, and things got worse from there.

See you next time,

Ross

Live Poker Pt. II

2009-07-26T00:22:00.010-05:00

After playing the MTT, all of my live play was at 1/2NL at the Venetian which is where I was staying. It was a very nice poker room, good atmosphere, good service, good floor, etc.

Anyways, my first two sessions were pretty miserable. They were both kind of short, about 4 hours apiece, and nothing went right. I lost one hand with QT on a T888 board vs JT all in on the turn, J river, lost AK to AQ all in preflop for 200bb pot, AT to QJ after betting most of the guy's stack on an ATx flop, K turn I had to call his all in, and also shipped 45dd on a 347 two diamond flop vs 77 which turned a 7.

I just couldn't get anything going, but I think I was playing bad in a lot of key spots, and running bad wasn't helping my temperment. All in all I was down $670, which definitely not terrible, but definitely not was I was looking for.

Well, my final night I decided I would play a marathon session through the night until checkout at 11am, with a loose goal of getting even. My first table was pretty tough, there were lots of aggressive solid players, and some heated trash talk that wasn't good-natured.

The only hand of note at this table was that I bet A7 on an A6537 board at the river and got called by worse. The table was pretty shocked I was called by worse, but the guy I vbet vs. was sitting next to me and kept chatting with me giving me the "I'm tired of your raising and betting act" so I was positive a bet was a good idea there. He mucked his hand, but I'd bet that he didn't even have an ace.

So at about 8am at this table I was up $150 or so, not exactly the result I was looking for, but not bad. Then I moved from there to the table of the century, the average pot was huge, there seemed to be a mountain of chips in the middle every time, and everyone seemed to be 300bb deep at a minimum. There was only one solid player there from what I could tell, and he left shortly after I joined. One of my key hands-

I have KK in the SB, 3 limpers to me. I have about $400 and make it $18, and the BB and ALL of the limpers call, sweet. Flop comes Ah Th 3x, and I lead out for $65, and I get one caller, an old asian man sitting on about $1.2k, and playing/calling every pot and bluffing big at times I think. Normally I'm not sure if I should lead here, but the way the table was playing, I thought it was a good bet and likely for value in a lot of cases. The turn is an offsuit 3, pairing the board, and we both check. The river is the 2nd best gin card, another K, (not the Kh though which I didn't have). I think for a minute or so and bet out $117, and the asian man thought for a minute and folded.

That hand should give you an idea of the table, what is he folding on that river? I guarantee he calls any ace, pretty funny he got that far, he likely had KQ or something like that, but I think he may even call there. I think I could have checked to induce from a missed flush draw, but I also think he was calling any Ace so I'm fine with how I played it.

That was pretty much the story of my night, I got good cards, raised, got a bunch of callers, got a safe flop, and took it down sometime down the road.

At the end of the day I had to leave unfortunately, and made $423 on the night/day making me down only $247 on the trip at $1/2 NL. I was extremely happy with my play in the long session, I hit hands but also made some great plays and lost the minimum and won the maximum several times. Sad that I had to quit despite being up about 24 hours and very tired, because I think I was still massively +EV vs that table with my seat.

So now, I was in the positive for the trip for poker, since I was up $340 from the MTT. I think I got a lot of good experience, you can just tell when people are ready to give up on the hands, even as they call. There was an older lady who huffed and puffed as she called my flop bet, and I didn't even look at the turn as I bet and she instantly folded. Love poker so much. The banter and interaction with people is very interesting and fun, though I did run into a few douchebags who were educating the fish.

Well that was a long boring post, so here's a hilarious thread on live poker, which semi-reminded me of some of my experiences. Pics and video included, and the guy's rants are very well written and funny.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/stuck-table-most-annoying-douche-ever-541395/

A few vegas notes, I've stayed at the Mirage, Treasure Island, and the Venetian now in Vegas, and I can say that the Venetian is the only place I wanted to come back to rather than "try something else." I'll probably be going back in mid November, and I'm really looking forward to it. In the end I'll probably reconsider and stay somewhere else for variety's sake, I'm thinking either the Bellagio or Caesar's.

See you next time,

Ross

Live Poker Is ~Rigged Pt. I

2009-07-24T23:06:00.007-05:00

Just got back from Vegas Thursday night around midnight. I played the one $330 Bellagio like I said I would and a fair amount of 1/2 NL.

The Bellagio MTT went ok, I was the first person to cash, 5th for $670 while 1st was right at $6k. I was overall happy with my play, though I made one super sketchy move early on and sucked out. I 3bet who I thought was a really active player with Q9s from the button, and he check called my shove on a J8x board with AK and I rivered a Q. Not the worst of suckouts and his call was obviously questionable, but I'll take it.

After that I was tightened up a bit obviously, but moved tables and went back to being active. I was in a lot of pots and was really happy with my play, and made a call that impressed the table with 86 on a 6Q32J two spade two heart (blank suit was on the river) board, but I don't think it was all that impressive vs this player, who was an older Italian man who was moving chips like it was no ones business. But, it always feels good to impress the table which I did a few times on my trip.

We had about 48 players and started at 10k chips. The structure was pretty good, though a 150/300 level being absent kind of upset me. I had about 50bbs seemingly all the time, just chipping up slowly and slowly, stealing blinds without much competition except for some tough regulars.

I really expected a weaker field, but I guess I shouldn't have for a Monday afternoon. At the final table there were only 3 players who were terrible, the rest were at least solid, and there was one crazy belgian to my left who was very very good. I had an interesting hand vs. him earlier in the day that I wish I had more info at the time.

Blinds at 1k/2k, can't remember the ante, but it was probably 2 or 300. Player limps from MP and the tough aggressive Belgian one to my right (this is before we reshuffled seats for the FT and he was put 2 to my left) limped the SB and I checked with 85ss. Flop comes AA8 two clubs, it checks around. Offsuit 3 on the turn, and Belgian checks, I bet 4700 and MP calls. Belgian thinks for a minute and makes it 15k, and he was sitting on about 60k and I covered. Now I was relatively new to the table, and wasn't sure what to do. I don't think MP was much of a concern, looking at him I was sure he was going to muck instantly as soon as I folded or called or raised.

Now let's think about the Belgian's hand, it makes no sense unless he has 33 or maybe 88. If he's competent, which I gathered that he was (though I didn't know he was a sicko just yet) he's not checking an ace there twice with a flush draw on board, and I doubt he does the same with any 8. I figured he had either 33 or air. If it were later in the tournament when I saw how smart he was and how much he liked to move his chips, I may have called or either raised. Even then the fold is not bad, but I just had a feeling he was trying to pick up the pot and couldn't pull the trigger. I asked him if he had 33 or he was just a wacko, and he didn't respond. I folded and the MP insta mucked.

That was pretty much the only hand that stuck in my head for the tournament. Everything else I either played badly or well. The hand that crippled me was when I called an all in on a K5K4 board with TT and lost to KQ. Initially I thought it was reasonable, and the tough Belgian agreed I played it right, but I think vs this player it was bad and I should have mucked. I just didn't think about it as long as I should have. From there I was crippled and lost Q3hh to the Belgian's T9hh for a 12BB pot or so with a T on the river. Would have had a fighting chance there, but it was not meant to be and I mincashed for $670.

Ah well, it was really fun and I'm glad to have cashed, and it was definitely a learning experience that helped me during my live 1/2 play. Now I've played live before but just not enough, and I wasn't as good of a player then as I was now. I'll talk about my 1/2 play in my next post.

See you next time,

Ross

Viva Las Vegas

2009-07-19T19:50:00.004-05:00

I'm heading out to Vegas tomorrow and will be there until Thursday afternoon. It's kind of just an impromptu thing, I've been wanting to go all year but haven't had the money until my recent run. I'm going to play a lot of 1/2 NL and one $330 MTT at the Bellagio. I've budgeted to lose that MTT and 10 buy-ins of 1/2NL, but let's hope it doesn't come to that and everything goes to plan and I end up blowing all my $1,000s of winnings at a blackjack table. :-)

I'm bringing my laptop but don't plan to be on it too much, so it will probably be the end of this week or early next week before I write up something on my experiences and interesting hands and stuff. Most likely there will be some hilarious hands or situations to report, I'm looking forward to it.

I played some 100NL today, but my heart wasn't in it, I didn't really feel like playing. I quit down $21 in 153 hands, nothing really to speak of. I was thinking of playing some MTTs, but just quit and am going to have some time off of online poker this whole week, it's going to be a few days of live tellboxing poker.

That's my graph since "Black Thursday" (check the June tab). I'm up 31 of the 50 buy-ins I wanted to be at 100nl, but took big losses at 50NL and a small loss at 200NL over that stretch, so we'll say that I'm halfway home.

I really feel like I've learned a lot since that night and will only continue to get better, it feels good to be at the halfway point of my goal in just 3 weeks of playing.

See you next time,

Ross

On the Up and Up

2009-07-14T17:04:00.002-05:00

Been playing a good amount heads up the last few days. Playing every day for this iron man thing has made me feel like a tool kind of, a slave to the man if you will. But at least I've been getting in a lot of good volume, I'm already at 15k hands for the month, and my goal was to play 20k the whole month. Looks like I'll get to that and then some, since we're only half way through.

Still in a bad run luck-wise, but I'm doing ok in the results department, or at least on a big breakeven stretch with a nice heater on the end :-)

Overall I'm not extremely happy with my play. I still make some really -EV calls or shoves when I just get frustrated with my opponent. Heres a couple of good examples of what I'm talking about.

Fold Damn you!

I have a plan.... wait

The first one is beyond retarded vs. this particular opponent, and in the 2nd one I really planned to fold, even when I bet the river I told myself that I was folding to a raise, but I couldn't bring myself to do it and talked myself into a call.

Well, I'm still winning at an ok clip, but of course I'm looking for ways to improve. I'm at 27 buy-ins profit at 100nl since the night I dropped so much at 200nl, a little over half way to my 50 buy-in goal. Maybe I can get there by the end of the month with a little bit of run-good, and be ready for another shot at 200nl some time soon.

See you next time,

Ross

Milling Around

2009-07-11T05:58:00.008-05:00

I haven't played any MTTs since last post, but have been playing a good amount of heads-up. I even 3 tabled one opponent the other day, and although I lost $46 I had tons of fun and it's safe to say I outplayed my opponent terribly, they just sucked out pretty grossly in two huge pots. That + overall things haven't been going too well since my last post, but I blame mostly myself.

Granted, the cards haven't been going my way, but that's just evening out (and then some) from my hot run to start the month. I really think if I'd been playing better I would be doing ok, up $200ish or more. The problem has been the blasted Iron Man promotion on Full Tilt. Because of me having terrible reading comprehension, I thought that I was accidentally closing in on it when in fact I was less than halfway there.

Anyways, I figured I needed to grind points for only a couple of days and would be there, so I played some 50NL HU while very very tired after work, and also very tilty and irritable. I got the shit coolered out of me and got sucked out on several times, and needless to say things did not go well after that, I'm down over 10 buy-ins there because of this trash, although I won about 4 buy-ins at 100NL during the same time, so it's not all terrible.

I had no respect for my opponents at 50NL and was super tired and tilty, damned Iron Man. I'm sort of pot committed going for this thing, I guess it gives me something to do. My work schedule is changing for the next week or two so I will be able to go for this in a much more normal fashion, rather than playing at 5am for the happy hour in zombie mode after an overnight shift.

That was probably the longest, most boring explanation of anything ever. For your troubles, three cheers for camera phones!

(NSFW)

http://img27.yfrog.com/img27/9060/js5d.jpg

(/NSFW)

Pretty sure no ones going to read any of this post after that link, ah well. Anyways, I'm up exactly 20 buy ins and pocket change since challenging myself to win 50 there before going back to 200nl, and I can't wait to move up. I really feel like my game is improving every day, and the purchase of HEM has allowed me to look at my game even further.

Also, haven't forgotten that I promised a session review, I just haven't gotten around to it. I have a list of the hands I want to go over and the hand history, I just have to get around to typing it out.

See you next time,

Ross

They Call Me Stormy Sunday

2009-07-05T23:50:00.004-05:00

Just got done playing some tournaments, probably the single biggest days of buy-ins in my history. I'd won a $535 seat to the 150 ME Seats guaranteed a few weeks ago but was unable to play it, and told myself I'd go ~all out on a Sunday instead. Since my terrible day a week or so ago I couldn't go as all out as I was planning, but still managed to buy in to about $600+ worth of tournaments.

Playing up to 10 tables at one time, I only made one cash today which was for the minimum. I just could never get anything going. I admit that I didn't play optimally all the time, I definitely didn't make good shoves etc. I did end up busting on a lot of bad beats and coolers, but most everything was standard, except maybe my AT losing to AT in one tourney, that was a fun one.

My last tournament of the night was the 50/50 which I just about bubbled. A player raised from UTG, and I flatted 88 from MP. That could have been a mistake, I'm not really sure. I had no real read on the person. Three betting was bad I think, and I almost folded, but I called anyways, and got a caller behind. UTG checked a K98 flop, I bet and was called by the overcaller, and UTG shoved. I really felt like he had KK, (just a dumb feeling/negative thought that happened to be true) in my stomach but obviously there was no way I could fold. He had KK which held. I think I should have folded pre, not really sure.

Anyways I lost a good amount on MTTs today but I'm ok with that, I had a couple of chances at deep runs today and would overall give my play a C+ which I can live with. I also played heads-up yesterday, and things were great. The games were amazing, every player who sat across from me was terrible, and I won almost 7 buy ins in about 1k hands.

Since issuing myself a 50 buy-in challenge things have been going pretty well.

To be honest I'm not sure if I'd played my best over this stretch, it's very likely I've been running well. I'll take it though, things certainly could be worse.

See you next time,

Ross

Inch By Inch

2009-07-03T22:34:00.003-05:00

Been playing a little bit the last few days, just got through a nice session of 100NL winning about 5 buy ins in about 1.7k hands, though I lost 1.2 buy ins in about 1k hands a couple of days ago.

I sucked out pretty bad a couple of times against shortstackers, but took some nasty ones as well and ended up about $10 in all in equity today after being up as much as $175ish.

I got in a couple of interesting pots vs one player and will be posting a session review for my next post. It's about 87 hands so I hope to get it all in one post. I definitely misplayed some hands and was tired as well and tilty at some points, so going through these should be interesting.

So far I am up 6.5 buy-ins in my challenge to myself to win 50. I'm only winning about 7bb/100 over that span and am actually well up in all-in equity, around $300. However I really feel like I've been flop/card dead and have just been sucking out. I'm overall pretty happy with my play except for a couple of handful (ok armful) of hands, and I'm just happy to be in the green after having such a terrible night last week.

See you next time,

Ross

Nothing to See Here....

2009-07-01T00:57:00.002-05:00

Played a little bit of volume the last couple of days, nothing much to report. I've played about 1.8k hands of 100NL and have won about 2.5 buy-ins. I've been pretty card dead in terms of hitting hands but have been running good in all in pots, and hit a gutter at the river to win a 400bb pot today (hey he minraised the turn, screw him). At least most of the money went in on the river lol.

I can already tell I've learned from my terrible day last week, I was going really card dead against an aggressive opponent today and kept my cool and broke about even vs them, when I think it could have been worse if I went into all-out spew mode. And although I thought he was pretty bad I decided to quit when I felt a bit tired.

I noticed I have been posting very little strategy on here lately, so I'm thinking of doing another session review soon. I'm looking for either a good or bad opponent, doesn't really matter, I just hope I get into a few interesting spots and in not too many hands, so stay tuned.

Oh and as a final note I would like to thank everyone for the supportive comments and PMs, I sometimes forget that anyone even reads this thing, since I honestly post it mostly for my benefit. Anyways it was a nice gesture by a few people and I really appreciate it, and it motivates me to play even better.

See you next time,

Ross

Letting the Dust Settle

2009-06-26T21:04:00.008-05:00

I had a hard time sleeping last night. As you may imagine, I did a lot of thinking last night and all today, and reviewed my hands a couple of times.

I think if I were playing normally I would have lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $2k, maybe $2.5k if I want to be generous. I'm a very active HU player I think, and one of the things that hurts me the most is when I can never get a hand, because then I start to become overly bluffy, and just downright spewy.

I think both of my opponents last night were running very well in terms of hitting hands and I was flop dead and getting coolered. I also ran about $700 under all in EV but I was getting it in so bad I would have to suck out a bunch to stay even, rather than have my hands hold up. Anyways thats just pennies when considering how much I lost, I won't say I ran bad in all-in pots, I'm not even sure if I got it in good once.

Moving on, I have two options here, I can let this devastate me and never play again or regress as a player, or I can learn from this and push through. I imagine you know which option I'm going to try for for here. So moving on, I'm going to try to take a few things away from this experience, rather than continue like normal, even though if you erase last night I was having a stellar month.

Even though I still have a good enough roll to play 200NL, I am stepping down to 100NL and not moving back up until I have won 50 buy-ins. Also, I'm making a new rule to quit fish no matter what after losing 5 buy-ins to them. It's just bad, because my only option when I get to that point is to lose money, because almost all of the fish who are up big against you will leave once you start gaining momentum, which is what happened to me last night.

Also, I'm going to try to play not at all the second I realize I'm tired or tilting. I've been controlling myself a lot better since coming back these last few months. I've had a few slip-ups here and there and nights like last night really make me realize how long I have to go. There are points where I think "Man, I'm tired, but this guy is so bad." I need to learn to stop at the 1st part of that sentence, and just quit and do something else.

I considered trying to play a lot today and the next few days and make a goal to break even for the month, but with me having to be at work at 5am the next couple of days I decided it would probably be counterproductive.

So in the end, I'm happy this happened, because if it didn't happen last night it was bound to happen some other place. I'm very humbled by this and motivated to prove myself once again. I can't wait to get back at the tables, I know its good to take a break but I'm itching to prove myself once my self-exclusion ends.

See you next time,

Ross

Black Thursday

2009-06-26T01:07:00.007-05:00

Just had my worst day ever at poker, ever ever ever. I'm kind of numb right now. I don't know what to say. I've just wiped out this whole month and most of last month with one night of bad, super bad tilty play and runbad. All at 200NL.

Some people probably root against me, so here you go guys. I just blew $5,791.85 in one night.

I don't know what to say. $2k of it was to a very good player who I tilted against and should not have played. $3k of it was to a very very very bad player who I also tilted very bad against but he was running very hot.

Any cooler in the book you name, I had it tonight. Flush vs. Flush, 2 pair vs straight, set over set, set vs. AA, Two pair rivered by a better two pair. Anything. It all happened. I'm don't have the stomach to review my session right now.

I was planning a trip to vegas earlier today. I'll likely have to throw that out the window. I don't know what to say. I'm so disappointed in myself.

I hate myself right now, I tilted very badly and played very badly. Also I wouldn't check my ego and stop playing a very good player, and it cost me. I don't think I was thouroughly outplayed, I just outplayed myself today.

I don't know..... I don't know..... I'm going to move down to 100NL which I am still rolled for after tonight.

Game selection and not tilting got me to where I was, and today the lack of both of those were my downfall.

This is not the end of my poker career I know. But it is a severe blow to my bankroll, my confidence as a poker player, and my confidence as a human being.

This post is in a weird format I apologize, kind of all over the place. I'm not really going to edit or reorganize this at all like normal, this is just coming out how I feel. Like shit basically, like I'm in a deep hole, I don't want to come out, I've embarrassed myself as a poker player and as a person today.

I really let myself down today. I really did.

See you next time,

Ross

Another Day, Another Kay

2009-06-23T00:34:00.004-05:00

Well I'm sort of under the weather right now (drunk) due to watching the Texas game at a sports bar where they lost in exta innings. Anyways, I decided to move up to 200NL HU today because I was severely overrolled for 100NL and there was no logical reason for me not to move up.

Things went pretty well, I played 100 and 200NL and won over $1k in 277 hands, it was very much teh awesome I didn't really suckout but I coolered the shit out of a couple of people and ran really really well, in the sense of finding some super fish to donate.

Winning $1,000 in about an hour and a half was pretty sweet. For better or worse this is my last brag post about winning $1k in one day, I hope this becomes a rather regular occurence since I've moved up to 200NL (hopefully permanently). Also, expect a super pissed off bad beat post in the next few days, no way I can keep running this good forever.

See you next time,

Ross

One day, One Kay

2009-06-18T00:15:00.006-05:00

Just had the greatest day in terms of $$ won since I started playing HU. It almost all came from one player, but even if you subtract those profits I had a decent day. It started off badly, I called off a stack with AJ, and quit for a few minutes. It was definitely a bad call and the player I was playing wasn't too good, but I needed a few seconds off. Then I started playing better and grinding up a little bit and was up a few stacks when I got the gift of a lifetime. Before these hands the guy was opening for 9x and shoving for 100bbs over my 3x opens, obviously on lifetilt or something, not sure.

Gambooool

Gambooool Pt. 2

After that he left and a quick search showed he'd upped the stakes to 3/6 and 5/10. Still having a whole bunch in my account from my FT check bouncing (that's another story for another day) I figured I could afford the hit to try and go for this guy, and I did.

I gotta call

Was the biggest pot of my life, I pretty much closed my eyes and called, knowing it was +EV but dreading the fact that I could well lose. Well after that he sat out and played a few more people, continuing to hop from table to table. I got on the waitlist every time but unfortunately it was not meant to be, I think he busted his account after shortstacking 3/6 one last time.

I was up $910 at that point, and decided to go for my first ever $1k day at heads-up. A couple hundred hands or so later I was there, and quit for the night. Feels kind of good right now, though I'm kind of taking it in stride. It wasn't particularly awesome play that got me my total, just some good timing and a bit of luck. Ah well, free money still spends like earned money :-)

See you next time,

Ross

Playing through the Pain

2009-06-17T03:26:00.005-05:00

Just got through a pretty long session of HU, for me anyways. I generally don't play too long but got in just over 2k hands today, and overall I'm happy with the results.

I started off playing super well and running into some awesome full stacked fish, generally a rarity. Was playing well and was up about 3 buy ins in less than 1k hands. I considered quitting but decided to stick around and go for a bigger day.

Then I took a few beats (one horrific one) and couple of coolers, and was about even. The funny part was that the all in beats didn't bother me. It was the coolers and people making massively -EV calls and drawing out. Similar to some of the hands I linked last post.

From there it was time for the lifetilt roller coaster. I managed to dust off 3 buy ins in about 10 minutes, bluff shoving flush draws into top set and making terrible terrible calls that I shouldn't have made. Looking through my hands it's astounding really. I was thinking while playing that my flop AF is probably through the roof because I was cbetting bad boards and spewing left and right, and sure enough it was a whopping 7.40 today.

I generally don't like posting my tilt hands but I think I should make at least one to punish myself for being such a tiltbox today.

LOLbad

I could be a pretty good poker player if I could get over shit like this. I again considered quitting, but I made a promise to myself that I would get over this shit and get to even before the end of the night, and by god I made it. I calmed myself and played pretty well. Also didn't hurt that my hands started holding up, my net run line for the day was pretty funny, looks rather similar to my overall graph.

Take away about 20 minutes of my play and things would have been great. I ended up winning a buy-in today. I think if I played well the whole time it could have been a great day winning 5 or more. Oh well, I didn't completely self destruct.

See you next time,

Ross

Calling it Quits (For the Day)

2009-06-15T19:35:00.002-05:00

Just played about 700 hands of 100NL HU, could not have gone worse, I lost 3.5 buy-ins or so. I ran bad and played worse, things were getting out of hand so I quit. Here are a few of the fun hands-

Nice Turn

Puke River

Nice one, idiot

Not easy to get in that much money drawing stone dead on the last one, hooray me. Played so badly today, and I was going to try for redemption. Thought of making a comeback later tonight but it looks like I'm heading to Midtown to buy overpriced drinks, but I figured I should be social when the oppurtunity presents itself. Usually I just go to work and play poker.

See you next time,

Ross

Cruisin'

2009-06-11T21:00:00.002-05:00

No, not that Al Pacino movie with the bandannas, I'm talking about my poker play the last few days.

Nothing much to report I've just been running into huge fish and my hands have been holding, it's been a great few days. I'm up a little over 7 buy-in at 100NL in about 1.4k hands. I've been running decently well, up about $160 in all-in equity.

I also backed into a cash in the 70k on PokerStars. I thought I'd unregistered for it and went to go eat. When I came back to my horror I had not, and had 1850 in chips with blinds at 100/200. However just a few hands later I was over average, as I doubled 77 > 55 and hit AQ and QQ. I got into the minimum cash and lost with AA to 55. Was pretty funny though, I could have just lost $55 without playing but instead cashed for a $35 profit. If my AA had held things would have gotten interesting.

Looks like I'm a lucky guy all around lately.

See you next time,

Ross

Hitting on All Cylinders

2009-06-06T01:53:00.003-05:00

Put in a decent volume of HU hands tonight, pretty happy with my results. I had a good night of 100NL HU winning nearly 5 buy-ins, and also won about 3 buy-ins at 50HA and $50 at 3/6 HU HORSE. Then I donked around in some 1/2 HORSE games and 60 cent cap games where I lost about 5 dollars I think.

I won at every game I played seriously tonight, pot limit holdem, pot limit omaha, O8, Stud, and of course NL Hold 'em, so it feels really great. I'm very happy with my NL play, I'm still kind of bad at PLO but I think I played ok. HORSE today was really easy, my opponent was just bluffing every single hand and I happened to usually have something to call down with.

I also won the biggest 100NL HU pot of my life, which was a great feeling.

Deuce Deuce Deuce

Pretty bad play by him. The match was going pretty crazy though, I guess in his mind I was as crazy as him. He was bluffing a lot, I won and lost $200+ pots calling with A high. I was able to do as well as I did tonight despite misclick calling a huge overbet.

Whoops

Obviously that's the easiest fold ever in a $6 pot, but my internet was going in and out, and I was clicking something as it came back and the table popped up, right over the call button. If you look at the raw hand history it says I disconnected twice. Normally I would tilt after something like this, like really bad. I could feel myself ready to blow and I actually was tilting slightly after that. But I told myself I could fight through it, and I calmed down eventually ground that guy's stack to nearly nothing (comparatively) until I got his 60bb stack in on a 789 flop when I held T9 and he held 79. A nice J on the river and he was busted and didn't reload. Not a terrible beat since I had outs, still I'm uncomfortable having to suckout to beat someone.

All in all though I was really happy with my play tonight, especially my ability to control myself. If you told me I'd be able to not tilt after misclick calling off an entire stack playing the board I would say you were crazy. Was really proud of my play tonight, and the results showed with nearly $700 in profit.

See you next time,

Ross

Wrapping Up May, Thoughts on Motivation (Long, Boring)

2009-06-03T09:04:00.022-05:00

Well I'm happy to say May was my most profitable ever month, with profit climbing to the (super-low) 5 figures. Two 4 figure tournament scores, and an ok month at HU, even though the last 1/3rd of my hands were disastrous.

It was really great, and actually part of me is sad it happened. I've just been really unmotivated to play the last week or so, though this morning's HA HU session has me a bit fired up, as I won about $133 two-tabling one opponent who quit me after I made a decent calldown.

I call (obv)

Not a huge hero call, he can only have T6 and would have had to have called a flop c/r with it, so some sort of gutter + FD combo is the only hand that makes sense for him. Really perfect river for me, I'm not even sure if I played this right since I'm such a PLO noob. He was really bluffy and I had a read on his bet sizing so I called the river rather quickly, and he sat out at both tables a couple of hands later. I'm pretty happy with the session, I lost one 60/40 for a stack in PLO where I had top two pair and a lower FD and he had an open ender with a higher flush draw. Omaha is a sick game, it was still a coinflip going to the river after an absolute brick on the turn.

Back to me being unmotivated. I think part of what motivates me as a poker player is not only people doubting me, but me doubting myself. I doubt myself a lot sometimes, partly because I know that it motivates me. I've been waiting to break through in MTTs for a loooong time though to be fair I never put in a fair amount of volume in them. I've had a few nice scores before but I beat my highest score ever this month, and matched my now 2nd highest a week later. Also I've been doing pretty well at 100NL HU, beating it at decent clip.

Obviously I ran really well to do all of this, but I think I validated myself in my own mind and in the mind of some family/friends who've never really encouraged my online play. You know the type, the person that just doesn't understand that you're not playing the house, and you can outsmart and outplay your opponents in the long run and online poker is beatable, the person who asks "But how much did you lose?" with a straight face.

Also it has a lot to do with myself, I remember going on a 20 BI spewswing at 100NL a couple of years ago dipping me slightly into the negative at that stake. I had to delete that database when I started this blog, it really haunted me playing so many hands and not profiting. About of the 1/2 of "downswing" was runbad/coolers and about 1/2 of it me tilting off buy-in after buy-in. I stared at my PokerTracker, and logging 100s of thousands of hands, I just stared at one thing. Forty percent of the players I had logged were winning. Why wasn't I in that 40%? What was wrong with me? I'm certainly smarter and think more about the game than 40% of players, why couldn't I win?

Well it took this new me to realize how bad I really was. I wasn't a bad player in terms of theory and practice, but I was terrible on the psychological side of it. I used to tilt so terribly bad, and I wouldn't stop myself, it's like that fat guy who eats a bowl of ice cream while on a diet, then goes back and polishes off the whole gallon. I would tell myself something like "Shove this no pair no draw you tiltbox, if we're tilting let's go all out!" and stuff like that. Kind of punishing myself for not being able to control my tilt. Also I just didn't have the right mindset, I would chase losses and always think in terms of having to get even, and play worse and gamble more because of it, it was really bad.

I still have some of these tendencies and thoughts, but I'm exponentially better at controlling myself, and I almost feel like I have nothing to prove to myself. Not in the sense that I don't have anything to prove as a poker player, I'd probably have to win millions for me to feel that way. Even though I've won at virtually every game and stake I've played, I've just always forced myself to doubt... myself partly because I knew it would motivate me and partly because there was a seed of doubt I could plant because of the way I handled the game psychologically.

Now I have no real reason to doubt myself, I've overcome a lot of the things I was doing wrong and just had my best month ever, so I've lost a bit of my motivation. I think I'll come around soon, I see myself getting motivated again shortly. It could be more of me realizing that I still have a ways to go before I get where I want to be or it could just be me getting pumped for poker after a period of inactivity, or it may have to involve some sort of benchmark or challenge I set for myself in terms of hands or $$ won (or both) to get there. I'm considering doing something like that, and possibly involving PLO, I'm not sure.

Whew, that was a long post, I guess I'll reward you with one of my favorite movie scenes of all time, inspired by me using "myself" 322 times in this post. The music, multiple funny jokes, the soup nazi dealing cards, and the delivery (OOPrah) are all excellent. Cracks me up every freaking time.

See you next time,

Ross

Sweet Hourly Rate

2009-05-30T04:36:00.005-05:00

Played a good amount of hands today, about 3k hands, and also had a bout a 1k session a few days ago. I lost a little over 3 buy-ins today, and won about 2.5 the session before. I've put in about 6k hands the last week for an awesome hourly rate of negative $21 per hour.

Things certainly could have gone worse today if I didn't take several breaks to control myself. I'm just not running too well my last few sessions, and it's starting to affect my play.

I usually get my money in good but the red line being under even will tell you that I've also ran into a few coolers, for example one of the more bluffy LAGtard's I've played at 100NL hit a set vs my AA, among other things.

A big part of my game (obviously) is getting paid off when I have a hand since I steal so many pots, but I just haven't been able to get anything going, in conjunction with me running like Hellen Keller in the 100M hurdles in all-in pots. Combo draw after combo draw misses, and my opponents seem to be hitting the perfect cards, whether it be the card that gives me two pair giving them a gutshot or a set, or the 4th flush card on the board while I've already made one, or just flat out rivering an Ace when they're calling me down with Ace high.

I can't completely blame this bad run on the cards though, it's definitely affecting my play. I made a tilt call with A9cc on a KQx board today in a 3bet pot, among other things. I've definitely been tilting off a few buy-ins. One of the more noticeable things I do when I tilt is open ATC preflop. I'm getting better and better at controlling these sort of things, and runs like this really test me.

I've had one winning session sandwiched in between two terrible run-bad/tilty ones, that's my graph since the last one I posted. I guess it was just the eye of the storm. I'm going to keep on plugging though, I believe in myself to get through these types of runs, even if it gets worse. A lot of players with a weaker will (including myself until recently) would likely have lost $1k or more instead of the $484 in my opinion. That may sound a bit egotistical but I think it's true, although I've slipped quite a bit I have been proud of the way I keep picking myself back up.

See you next time,

Ross

Stomach. Pain.

2009-05-27T05:42:00.020-05:00

I just played a long session of 100NL HU and things did not go well at all. I started off losing a good amount, because hit and runners were in god mode vs. me today, every time I paid off they had the nuts, and every time they called the flop and turn with a trusty pair of deuces they rivered another one. It got kind of funny after a while, I literally had to laugh it off so I didn't break something, so obviously I started off the night pretty badly.

However, I made a decent rebound after being down $200 a couple of times and was up $150 or so. Part of me wanted to quit thinking I was too tired to play, but I kept on going for no good reason, and I don't think I played bad, but it didn't go so well.

That there is what we in the business call a teaser.

What happend here is that I played one of the toughest players I've played at 100NL and refused to quit.

I think I got slightly outplayed for the most part in review of my session, but we definitely both got the best of each other in some big pots. Without a doubt I misplayed some hands but we were both pulling off good floats, ran huge bluffs, made good call downs, etc. I give him the edge though because I just ended up paying off too much in critical spots (surprise surprise). There was just a lot of "he knows that I know that he knows" stuff going on, it was very interesting.

Value Bet

PoW (Pay-off Wizardry)

Big Bluff

Another Bluff

I lost a buyin early where he rivered a flush with TT vs my AJ on a J88x board, and I contemplated quitting but didn't back down. So I kept playing and made a terribly bad 4bet shove 200BBs deep with 88 and they had QQ which held. After that I kind of went on tilt and he was hitting every hand including a flush over flush and I lost another buyin and a half. Down 4.5 buyins to this player I did not quit, I knew that if I calmed myself down and played my best poker they wouldn't continue to hold the deck over me forever.

I started playing much better poker, we were 3betting and raising nearly every pot, it was a super fun and aggressive match. I was dominating play in 3bet pots IMO and came almost all the way back when this happened-

Puke

Sitting out, I gave him the quietest "gg" ever uttered in online poker and left the table. I know it was just a coinflip but it was my biggest 100NL pot ever and after a safe turn I truly thought I had it locked up.

Ah well, I can't run in god mode forever, I'm actually taking this better than I thought as I type. I was down $400 in equity (and $405 in real money)today but was up $700 for the month before this, what goes up must come down it would appear, and I shouldn't be shocked if things get worse from here.

See you next time,

Ross

Hit Me Again

2009-05-26T04:51:00.002-05:00

Everything continues to go great for me in poker. Over the weekend I won about 7 Buy ins in Heads-up over about 2.7k hands. My first 2k hand session went really great and I think I battled some morons who were running good, however my second session on Sunday I think I played really badly though I still netted $2 lol. I was just not getting a hand and kept paying off because my opponents were hitting everything, and I stopped believing them. Bad runs of hands is something I need to get better at adjusting to if I want to progress as a heads-up player. Its still funny though how even when I'm playing like shit I still profit small, such is life when you're on a good run.

I played probably my biggest night ever in tournaments as far as total buy ins, and things went really well, I made a little over $3k in profit, mostly due to final tabling the $10 rebuy on PokerStars. I also cashed small in the Riverchasers where I ran like god beating QQ with K5 and hitting a flush vs. a set, among other things. However in the $10 rebuy I'd like to say it was a great showing of resiliency and gutty play by me in my opinion.

During the tournament with about 200 left on in I never had a big stack in the entire time, I'm not even sure if I was ever above average. I just kept battling and stealing on the short stack, and also was running good. How so? Well, every time I stole the pot or re-stole, I never ran into a big hand. That's a part of running good that a lot of people overlook. Yeah I was making good moves on pots, but the whole time I never ran into a monster, so I did get lucky, even though I never got a stack. I stole a whole bunch of times without ever getting to showdown, except late when I reshoved K7 and got called by KJ suited and was lucky enough to split.

I'm really proud of my play in this tournament, in the end I had to make a move with A9 and ran into pocket 9s which held. Ah well, I think my shove may have been bad but I'm fine with it. I possibly could have waited for a better opportunity but it was possible I had the best hand and the next stack to me was over 3x what I had, so I couldn't just sit around forever.

I don't really know where to go from here. I played higher buy-in tournaments today for the first time in a couple of years. The games are much more aggressive. I played very aggressively when I felt I needed too, and I think I played well, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to regularly beat the higher buy in tournaments online. Maybe I'm underestimating myself, but I think that's better than fooling myself into thinking I'm a great player with no room for improvement.

See you next time,

Ross

Off the Beaten Path

2009-05-22T02:06:00.004-05:00

The last day and a half or so I've been playing non NLH games with decent results. I played about 350 hands of 6-max 50PLO and won about $11, and played some 2/4 HU HORSE and won about $90.

I'm pretty satisfied with my HORSE play, I even got my opponent to quit me. After I called him down with 3rd pair (no low possible) in Omaha he instantly sat out-

Him: gg
Him: your too good
Me: u2
Me: haha ty

It was a welcome compliment and a nice ego boost from a player I'd been battling and considered to be semi-tough.

As for PLO, I think I'm barely getting the grasp of it. I'm really not motivated to play it because I don't like being lost in so many spots. I haven't tried a new poker game in at least two years, so this is really foreign to me. I've been able to skate by on my raw poker knowledge, getting a feel for when to bluff, using aggression to my advantage, etc., but it still has been a bit tough for me.

I'm not sure how motivated I'm going to get playing it either, because although it's driving the high stakes action, I'm still not convinced it's the future of poker like people say, because the action doesn't seem to be trickling down to the small stakes a whole bunch. For example, only one HA game was running when I was trying to play some PLO.

Still, I think it's never a bad idea to be more diverse as a poker player, so I may stick with it, I'm not sure.

See you next time,

Ross

Seizing Your Opportunities

2009-05-20T21:43:00.007-05:00

I played a little bit of heads-up 100NL today, it went really well money wise, I won a little over 3 buy ins in about 600 hands. I had to quit though because in the end I made a couple of really bad plays, like 3bet bluffing with JT on an AKx board and getting called by A5. In my defense I read the hand right but I gave my opponent a little too much credit, thinking he would fold rather quickly. A little after that I called a guy's shove with A high on the turn. When he ran from the table I stopped for the day fearing I was on the verge of worse tilt. I could have and should have easily gotten away from both of these hands, and could have made $500 today.

That's why I'm upset. I'm running super super well and to me a big part of all poker is maximizing the doorways you are given by variance and luck. I think in the case of my 100NL heater and my 2nd place in the MTT, I'm not capitalizing on the opportunities I've been given. I mean I just lost a whole buy in calling with Ace High, and I should have folded that AT heads-up in the 35k with a 3-2 chip lead.

It's like a one time offer for a free $1,000. You can't just say, "meh I'll get it next time." Forget about it, or miss out, and it's gone. More than likely I'm rarely going to be heads-up in that MTT in the same circumstance and the same weak opponent, and I needed to take advantage. It's sort of like that guy who blew a huge chip lead in the 2007 WSOP, Phillip Hilm I think. How often are you going to have a shot at $8.5 million? I imagine he still has horrific nightmares about that blowup.

Anyways, that's what separates the big winning MTT players from the mediocore ones in my opinion. They make the most of what they're given. Fish go on big super heaters too but they play so badly they flame out even before the final table. There is such a huge luck factor in big field MTTs, and how much you take advantage of what you're given determines where you will end up. Everyone goes on super shitty runs, everyone goes on monster heaters. Some better/worse than others obviously, but that's not pertinent to my point. I'm just saying I really believe at the heart of your ROI is how you manipulate and make the most of your heaters. Maximizing your EV, if you will (groundbreaking stuff here).

As for heads-up it will be rare for me to be on such a lucky run, I'm upset that I'm not taking advantage as much as I should be. How often am I going to be up 5 buy ins in equity over 1500 hands? Almost never. So why do I squander these oppurtunities by making stupid tilt calls? I don't know.

Really just pissed at myself right now. I need to play good poker a higher percentage of the time than I have been if I want to be as good of a player I think I can be...

See you next time,

Ross

Great Night of MTTs, Could've Been Better

2009-05-19T02:43:00.004-05:00

Well I've really thought the last few weeks that a great night of MTTs was coming. I was getting deep in a lot of tournaments and just getting gayed every time, either with a cooler or a beat or something. Well today was a little different.

I cashed in the Double B, the 28k on Full Tilt, the $27.50 at Stars (can't remember the guarantee), and got 2nd in the Riverchasers and got 2nd in the 35k on Full Tilt for almost 6k in tournament winnings, 5.2 of it coming from the 35k.

In the 28k I ran ridiculously well and had no business getting as deep as I did, somewhere around 24th place. It was just comical, most of the hands were coolers, but I just kept sucking out.

As far as the 35k I think I played really well down the stretch in that one but also ran pretty well. I was close to the brink of elimination a couple of times and kept coming back. Then I got HU with a sizable chip lead. Either my opponent hit every hand or ran me over, and the way he was playing earlier I'm inclined to think he was hit in the face with the deck, pulling close in chips.

I can't blame the deck for the biggest hand however, I made a bad call in my opinion of his overshove with AT and he tabled AQ for the win. From there I battled back but it was not meant to be as he limped and I checked-raised Q5 on a Q56 flop. Bet/call on the offsuit 8 turn and 47 was good for the win for him.

Oh well, I really think it comes back to the AT hand, I think if I would have thought for a second I would realize that it's unlikely that I have the best hand, and even if it were close I believe in myself to outplay this particular player HU with a chip lead and 3k on the line (the difference betweeen 1st and 2nd).

I feel kind of good, I'm sure I'll feel better later. Right now I'm going to dream of ATo and how I lost 3k today. One of my favorite sayings though is "what's done is done" and I think I'll have to take that to heart and appreciate my biggest tourney score to date.

See you next time,

Ross

100NL HU Is EZ

2009-05-15T01:09:00.002-05:00

Played a short session of 100NL HU today, I purposely played just a small amount before the Rockets game. I won 5.4 Buy-ins in about 30 minutes, so needless to day it went pretty well. Also needless to say, I ran super super well. I just had two pair over two pair, hit like 247 sets, and had AA 3 times in 282 hands. It was a great night, I also sucked out on 99 with AA on a 98x flop.

Nothing much more to say, I'm kind of drunk and stuff from the Rockets game, but wanted to post because I haven't posted in a while (as I haven't played in a while). I had a really great night, but I know almost all of it was luck so I can't be too happy. I did play well in a lot of spots but in the AA hand I think I played incorrectly as I should have probably shoved the flop and folded the turn (river A obv).

Oh well, hope things keep going this way, I was somewhere around +$170 in all-in equity, but still down since March so whatever, that crooked site Full Tilt still owes me more money.

See you next time,

Ross

Itching to Play

2009-05-11T07:06:00.005-05:00

With my awkward work schedule, Mother's day, and getting trashed during Rockets games I've had little time to play the last few days, and probably won't play much the next few days for the same reasons. I did book a nice win Thursday night of almost $500, dabbling a bit in 100NL HU which I am fully rolled for at this point.

I was playing a fish who was on tilt and requested we move up so he could recoup his losses. Some of his chat was rather priceless, I wish I'd saved some more of it, here's a snippet-

tiltbox: your a joke suse get a clu you sutpid ni gg
tiltbox: love ot get as lucky as your stupid %@@
tiltbox: l;ike that ni ggg gg er e sh it
tiltbox: you rasiew ith that then hit mnoron
tiltbox: fuking idiot
tiltbox: like that 4 dollar reraise with 97 nh moorn

I was already up 4 buy-ins on him at 50NL and he was on tilt, so I was not inclined to decline (man I'm so clever). We moved up and I kept outplaying + holding the deck over him, and it ended with me winning 2.75 buy ins there, the last hand where I had AKhh in a 3bet pot and fired on a 2h 9d 3h flop and he decided to shove J6dd. My hand held as the Jh hit the turn.

He was right though, I did get pretty lucky on him beating his AA with my 99 getting it all in on a 8 high flop in a 3bet pot as well as getting it in with KdQx on a AQx all diamond flop in a 3bet pot where he held AQ. Oh yeah I also had AdJx on a JdTd4d flop and got it in vs his 63dd also in a 3bet pot and got there. In the end I was up $320 in all in equity on the night, though I am still well below even since March. It felt good to hit so many hands for once, sometimes I truly feel I'm destined to have the deck against me, and that's just how it is.

Anyways, I'm now overrolled for 50NL HU and rolled well enough for 100NL so I sort of have a decision on my hands. I may need to make a smallish cashout because my car has been acting up lately, so I may not have a decision at all and be forced to stay at 50NL for financial reasons. Whatever happens I'll keep updating, as I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat.

See you next time,

Ross

Came Up Shipping Those (small) MTTs

2009-05-06T01:05:00.004-05:00

Started out my day playing a lot of sattelites. It went ok, I won a couple of tokens and had some tough hands in 50/50 sattelites which I love because $7 can get you $55 if you play it right. I used to win those rather frequently but I've been struggling in them as of late.

I had a good look at a few big scores, I got deepish in the 28k but played badly down the stretch, and I can say the same for the $3 rebuys on both Stars and Tilt. Oh yeah, through a transfer I now have a little bit of cash on Stars. I'm pretty excited because that site is about 10x better than FT when it comes to MTTs, except for the (hopefully temporary) lack of synchronized breaks.

Anyways, at the last second in my fury of registering for tournaments tonight I signed up for a small $10 MTT that I've played a few times.

I think I played pretty well late, stealing and playing aggressively. Four handed though I got really lucky when my AT beat QQ in a huge pot for most of the chips in play. It was a sinking feeling as he flopped a set but I hit running hearts for the stunning win. After that I took over pretty well in my opinion.

Heads up didn't last too long, the guy played very aggressively to his credit. He was either hitting every hand or just outright owning me as I couldn't get anything going. I knew I just had to get one good hand and I would have all his chips. I raised with 66 and he check-raised all-in on a 992 flop. I made the quick call and he showed K2 and didn't improve. Hooray me. If he'd beaten me there he'd deserve it, but as rigged as Full Tilt is they would have none of this justice business.

Pretty happy though in reality it's just a small score, although I did cash small in the Blogger Skillz Series and the 28k so it was a decent night overall. Still longing for that big score which continues to elude me. Maybe it'll come tomorrow as the Mini FTOPS is starting, which is going to be great.

Small buy ins and huge guarantees what's not to love?

See you next time,

Ross

Title courtesy of bannyrambler productionzz, all rights reserved 2009

Bleh...

2009-05-05T05:33:00.002-05:00

Played a lot of Satellites and a few MTTs today with terrible results.

I ran bad and I played worse, nothing really to speak of. I lost with QT on a QTx dd board to a crai 87dd and lost to a shoved 46o with AQs and lost with a shoved A9 to a retarded call by J9 and called off all my stack with 2nd pair, etc. etc.

Just stupid shit both by me and the cards. Hopefully I'll play better tonight.

Go Rockets!

See you next time,

Ross

Wowowowow

2009-05-02T06:21:00.009-05:00

So much for resiliency and power of the mind. Just as I go tooting my own horn, the poker gods smack me down and I have the worst bout of tilt I've ever had in my life. Just the most amazingly sick session of poker in my life. "Sick" is the most overused word in poker right now, replacing former champion "donk." But seriously, this was the freaking sickest night of my life.

I'm not even going to post hands except the last one, I'm so embarrassed of my play tonight. I played really really really really terribly and let tilt get the best of me worse than possibly ever in my poker career. But, I pulled out the "win." I knew, I just KNEW my opponent was terrible and was bound to blow at any given second. Finally, all the stars aligned. All I knew that I needed was to have the nuts or close to it while my opponent had just a piece. All of the money on the table except about $80 is mine.

Biggest cash pot to date

For me to lose that much at first a few factors had to come together.

1. Huge coolers and huge beats.

I was flush over flushed in 400+ BB pots twice (we each had same suit in our hands) and had 3 of a kind w/ a worse kicker for a 400bb pot as well. Also they called my all in at the turn with just overs and a flush draw and obviously hit. And then my AA lost a 300bb pot that I don't think I could have gotten a way from, though I did get it in bad. Oh yeah I also flopped straights twice while my opponent flopped 2 pair and filled up on the river both times for 200BB each. Seriously, this was crazy enough shit to happen in one week let alone one night vs. one opponent.

2. My opponent was terrible and beating me in every pot.

That pisses me off. I will give them some credit, they were mixing it up and confusing me a lot. For example, how whacked out is this hand-

Wat?

Now I'm not exactly bragging with that call, there were a couple similar ones I made that were good and that were not so good. Apart from being fundamentally retarded at poker, my opponent had a lot of ninjaness and moxy in them, and balanced their range pretty well in spots like that. It was a fun match overall actually, my mind was blown several times.

3. I couldn't get a hand for the f-ing life of me.

My opponent was playing a super unorthodox style, and its hard to try to figure someone out if you can't get anything going in terms of having something to call/bet. I just had the second best hand or missed a combo draw time... after time.... you get the point.

Each of these independently may not have been that bad. But combine them and they make the perfect storm. I went on monkey tilt for the ages. I was open raising 7BBs with 49o and the like, it was really bad and I'm completely embarrassed for myself. I just couldn't help it, it was a downward spiral, a feeling that I hadn't had in a year or maybe more.

Finally though I strung a few big hands together, all of which were played badly by my opponent in my opinion. I ended the night down $240 (and down $130 in all in equity), but I'm going to go ahead and call it a win after being down over $1100 on the night. WOW. Eleven hundred dollars. So weird to type that. Man....

BREATHE OUT..............

See you next time,

Ross

Thoughts on Resiliency and the Power of the Mind

2009-04-30T03:08:00.004-05:00

As I was going up and down and up in the session today, I thought about the things I've been most proud of myself for since I've come back to poker- my temperment, focus, and will to win. I can't even really pinpoint where I had some sort of transformation, but I know I did.

Maybe I just matured as a person since the last time I played regularly, about 8 months ago. I think I'm able to appreciate poker a lot more having lived without it. But I can't say that I consciously think of that whenever I'm in the heat of battle and keep my cool and tell myself everything is all right, things have just changed somehow.

For example I used to update my sessions while I was in the middle of them on PokerTracker and PokerEV, and whether I was up or down, it would affect my play. If I was down on PokerEV it would particularly piss me off, I would pretty much get down on myself and be like "woes me look how bad I run," but now I just laugh it off and joke that Full Tilt owes me $700 or whatever.

I've been taking the Mike Caro approach that I'm always even, not matter what. For some reason now whether I'm up a lot or down a lot I just try to focus on the task at hand. I no longer try to chase my losses or preserve wins. These were just such terrible habits I had, and they seem to just have magically disappeared.

I've also taken the approach to genuinely root for my opponents in an all in, something else I read from Mike Caro that I have absorbed. I didn't even conciously think about these concepts, but one day realized as I was rooting for an opponent who got in 75BBs with Q high "Hey, Mike Caro wrote about this, lol." He's really right, you have to root for your opponents. It gives them the illusion that poker is dominated by luck, and keeps them in the game and encourages their bad play. Plus, you're less disappointed when they suckout, its more like a game when I call out their cards and they come. "Give em a queen... niice."

Also, shortstacking hit and runners used to tilt me really badly. Sometimes when I'm playing someone an observer will show up and say "Watch out he's going to leave if he makes a few bucks!" and I just laugh. Shortstacking morons are an important part of poker, they run when they win $5, but they'll reload for $10 or $20 3 or 4 times before quitting. When I get hit and runndeded I just chalk it up to part of the game, and go bust some other shortstacker's account. There's no sense in getting angry, you being pissed off isn't going to bring them back to the table.

Because of losing these bad habits and keeping my cool I tilt probably about 1/5th the time that I used to, maybe less. Also, its more flashes of tilt than prolonged tilt. I can't explain how or why they went away, but I know this has been the key to my recent success.

Sorry for the boring post, how about a hilarious video for your troubles. I can't believe that evil bitch Dottie infected everyone.

See you next time,

Ross

A Quick Update

2009-04-30T02:22:00.010-05:00

Played a few tournaments and a good amount of heads up the last few days. Once again Heads-up seems to be keeping me afloat as I have a nice downswing in MTTs. I genuinely think I have run bad in tournaments the last month and a half or so, but I would be lying to say I have been playing my best the entire time. I don't know, sometimes I just get unfocused or get tlity, not sure. For example I bluffed in a big pot in the 28k and basically took a "fuck it" attitude towards tournaments, unregistering for a few I was going to play and quicky busting out of others gambling in bad spots.

After that I calmed down and had quite an up and down day in Heads up, but ended the day up about 3 buyins after being up nearly $250, then down to less than even over the course of about 1600 hands. That puts me up about $220 in the last two days, and over that sample I'm up about $40 in all-in equity, I flipped really skillfully today.

See you next time,

Ross

It's Not How You Start....

2009-04-28T03:43:00.013-05:00

I decided to go on an MTT assault today since I was off of work. I started off with a bunch of sattelites where I tilted a good amount and should have won a couple of tokens and 50/50 seats if I was playing optimally, but only won one of each. Didn't help that I got gayed Heads-up twice as well, though I guess I did 3-out someone to win one of the seats. I played the 35k, both Daily Doubles, sattelited (sattelit?) into the 50/50, played a 3r, a $10, and the Riverchasers, the 28k and finally the 4k HORSE.

Well, I never got anything going in any of them except the Riverchasers and the 3r where I had a huge stack and squandered it when a guy kept limp-calling with 79 offsuit and the like and hitting every flop. Blinds were so big it only took a couple of pots for me to be short and then I lost a flip AQ vs 66 nearing the bubble. Also mincashed in the Double A where I basically nursed a shortstack and busted AK vs. JJ shortly after the bubble burst. As for the riverchasers-

If I hadn't pulled this one out it would have been a pretty bad night of tournaments for me. It was one of the last tournaments I registered for, and I was lucky enough to win it. This is the first bloggament I've ever won, and it feels really great because I struggled mightily when I started them. Part of it is me running better and part of it is me adjusting to the players better and building reads on the players I see over and over.

This one I got a few gifts, and had hands in the right spots, and think I played pretty well at the final table, making some decent sized mistakes along the way though. In the end of course I got heads-up with Lucko, the only one I didn't really want to see from the final 9 lineup, especially considering I was at a 2-1 chip disadvantage. Well I chipped him down a bit then got lucky enough to turn a straight where he rivered 2 pair, and doubled there. Then I called Lucko's all in with KJs and his A3o held. Then a few hands later I had KJs again and shoved over his 2.5x raise and rivered a K to beat his AT.

I think my shove is close there. Normally vs. Lucko I'd say its very profitable but he had been mostly limping with a wide range HU and in the back of my mind I figured he'd only raise with a pretty good hand. Basically I said fuck it and shoved and got lucky, such is life. Pretty excited about getting a chance to get into the TOC where first place is a seat into the Main Event.

After that I decided to fire up some heads-up, and things went pretty well.

I just played moron after moron after moron. Usually I have to quit an opponent or two when I find out they have a pulse, but twas not the case tonight. Didn't hurt that most of my hands held and I ended up about $25 in all-in equity on the night. I got tired a bit and stopped myself figuring it was time to call it a night. Plus one of the bigger fish I played all night just busted for the last time as they got in 50bbs pre with A2o.

Was a pretty good night of poker after a terrible start, with tilting my ass off in sattelites (in my defense satellite players are beyond moronic and I couldn't get a hand to save my life), and not getting anything going in any of my early tournaments. I'm closing in on being up 20 buy ins at Heads-up for the month, so I just set a goal.... just now... for myself to get there in the next 3.5 days. I feel like I've been playing good overall this month even though my winrate (and all in luck) is not where I want it to be. I think I can make my goal easily as long as I play well and the cards keep going my way like they have been.

See you next time,

Ross

Session Review, Part 2

2009-04-27T00:53:00.008-05:00

Let's keep it rolling, a few more hands here. Here's the link to the session again, remember it's quick, easy, and free to sign up if you don't have a CardRunner's account. Man I should be their spokesperson lol.

http://www.cardrunners.com/members/replayer/replayer.php?session_id=93157

Hand 108- He called here with 87dd. I think my play isn't exactly standard, but its easy to put him on a weaker 7 after he checks the turn. Luvvv value betting thin, maybe a bit too much.

Hand 121- Pretty much the perfect river to bluff. I think I dug myself in a hole by calling preflop, I definitely think I should fold there. After that I just try to find my way out of there and pull it off. I showed the bluff partly to needle him but also to make him think I'm bluffing him a lot when I'm just going to be value betting far more than I'm bluffing.

Hand 122- I'm really unsure of what I should have done here. I don't know how I could have gotten away considering he could have been steaming from the hand before. I just don't know, except that I could have played it more terribly by raising I guess.

Hand 138- Probably a fold pre and definitely a check-raise on that flop, not sure what I was thinking in calling. As played I have to fold that turn though.

Hand 141- Another thin vbet here. Pretty sure I'm just listing this to brag. He had 32hh, playing the board.

Hand 152- I think this is a fold pre, otherwise I obv have to fold to the 3bet.

Hand 159- Gotta fold to that 3bet imo, as played after that of course I have to fold that flop as he overbets again.

Hand 161- Getting caught going for then value again. I'm not sure about my bet but I'm fine with my fold.

Hand 172- Some times I fall all over myself thinking I'm a value betting genius. Last couple of hands show that I may need to tone it down at times.

Hand 186- Um.... thanks. Him 3betting me so small definitely made me think something was up, usually this guy mashes pot or overbets with strength. One miracle flop later and I've got all the chips.

Well there we go, he opened shoved the next few times and was on extreme life tilt hence my call there with the J8. All in all I think I played OK, and am definitely fine with the result.

This was pretty good and interesting for me going through the session, I really learned a lot about myself, and hopefully things like this will help me to grow as a player.

See you next time,

Ross

Sesion Review, Part 1

2009-04-27T00:19:00.006-05:00

First a short update. Played another session of HU the other day and and won after being up $200, down $30, then ending up about $220. Some hands defnitely went my way, I beat KK on a KQx flop when my KQ hit running hearts for the flush in about a 150bb pot. No way I was getting away there, jut got lucky, what can you say. Other than that I think I played well and booked a nice win in about 1k hands. Pretty excited to be up almost 10 buy-ins in my last two sessions. Heads-up is definitely swingy.

Anyways, as I talked about last time I'm going to post an entire long session I had vs. a player. I was actually kind of surprised, after removing hands where the SB folded or the SB raised and the BB folded I went from 620 or so hands to 190. In this post I'll be breaking down the first 100.

http://www.cardrunners.com/members/replayer/replayer.php?session_id=93157

There's the entire session, if you don't have a CardRunners account it's super easy to sign up for one and it's free.

Anyways, I guess let's get into it.

Hand 17- Theres a legitimate argument for getting it in on the flop here, but minreraise probably means he's not going anywhere and I elect to take one off. The rest of the hand plays itself.

Hand 27- I really think I need to bet out this turn, and probably call the river. Unless he has a 3 or actually rivered an Ace or hit 42 not much makes sense for him.

Hand 33- Probably should bet the turn here.

Hand 34- I think I should have raised a bit more preflop, and its really hard to continue with him betting out in a 4bet pot as an Ace hits. Sucks, oh well.

Hand 36- Not sure wtf was going on, I don't know if I should have 3bet pre nor should I have fired that turn, where he's likely not going anywhere after calling the flop. Definitely played this one badly.

Hand 52- Not sure about that turn, I see arguments for betting and for taking the free card.

Hand 56-Should have raised that flop, and the river is probably way to thin to value bet, but I always try to make ninja value bets. I actually nearly timed down all the way in deciding whether or not to bet. Should have just checked it though.

Hand 69- There is some argument for calling this all in, but I'm fine with my fold against this player, who doesn't seem to be getting too crazy. This is a snap call against a lot of people though.

Hand 77- Ballin'

Hand 77- Seriously though I think his minraise was garbage and figured theres nothing except exactly a 7 he plays that way, and took the risk and reraised him. Worked out this time.

Hand 86- Downright retarded call. I timed down again here, and somewhere along the way convinced myself to call. Just about no hands I can beat. Whoops.

Hand 91-I need to go ahead and fold that flop, his overbet is almost always extreme strength protecting from the draws out there. Terrible flop call by me.

Hand 97- Ugh, I really don't like this hand, he seems to have it every time he shows any strength, kind of like that A2hh hand where he min RR me with KK. I don't know, maybe I couldn't have gotten away.

That's it for now, so far I'm ok with my play but definitely misplayed some hands in key spots.

See you next time,

Ross

The Man Can't Keep Me Down

2009-04-24T02:47:00.007-05:00

Had a great day of poker. Due to another temporary change in my work schedule I missed all of my important regular tournaments, so was able to focus on HU completely today. All in all it was a great night, even though the rigged poker site known as Full Tilt tried to keep me down. I ended up winning $240 in a pretty long session getting in 1700 hands or so. It was a very satisfying session, because I was down $138 in all-in equity. Most of it coming in huge flips that I lost, a diamond draw + pair all in vs. top pair and my 99 got it in vs. KQcc which won in a $150 pot (I put him in, bad call by him, fine with my shove, personally).

About half of the money came from a looong 560 hand session vs. one guy. I busted him, he doubled, busted me, I doubled, etc. etc., it was a huuuuggee back and forth and in the end I busted him and likely his account, because he reloaded for $16 and change and then left when I took that.

My VPIP and PFR were a bit low today, I know I played a couple of people calling every hand and peeling every flop, so I had to tighten up and just get value out of my good hands. Kind of boring sitting around and waiting to be paid, but that's how you have to play certain people.

I'm very encouraged by my play today, and I'm likely going to post the entire HU session vs. that guy for review and entertainment. I definitely made some retarded plays and mildly tilted in spots, but if anyone takes the time to review it they'll see that I both played and controlled myself better than my opponent, and won in the end (tyvm ATs). Plus theres a few hard soul ownages I put on him which obv I need to brag about.

Since its such a long session I'm going to personally weed out any pots that where either someone folded the SB or raised from the SB and the BB simply folded. Even then it's probably going to be wayyyyy tl;dr but I think if me or anyone wants to gain something from it their going to have to see the entire gameflow, so even taking out those hands does a disservice to the session imo. Whatever, even if no one watches it, I know I will and will probably break down some hands in a post.

Or I'll forget about it and never post it, who knows.

See you next time,

Ross

Stuck in Neutral, and an Interesting HU Spot

2009-04-21T22:30:00.011-05:00

I've been playing a good amount of MTTs the past few days, can't really get anything going. Posting all the HH's would be kind of dumb, and make me sound even more like a complainer. Let's just say I got 2 outed with only the river to come a couple of times and keep getting coolered and bad beated late.

I made it deep in the Riverchasers yesterday, getting fourth. I really felt like it was my tournament to lose, but either made some missteps late or had hands where there was nothing I could do, I'm not sure. Didn't know a guy was calling off 22BBs or something with A5o, my bad.

So doing meh in tournies probaby half me and half bad luck and doing meh in HU which is also the same.

Today I played a short session of about 750 hands and made $10. I'm actually just pleased to have come out with a positive result the way things have been going. I ran a bit under in all in equity, about $30. I'm not happy with a few of my plays but I think I did pretty well overall.

I played one opponent for only 22 hands because they hit and run me, and they gave me my head scratcher for the night. I think I just pussed out and should have made the call, not sure. First, some history.

Hand 5

This was the 5th hand of the match and obviously the guy doesn't seem too bright. So why did I fold here-

Hand 7

Well, I guess we'll go street by street.

Preflop is super standard, I'm obviously opening an A9 here. On the flop, I could have bet out with my gutter plus overcards, but I chose to check it and keep the pot small. I could see an argument for betting here.

The turn is pretty favorable, though it does bring the 3rd heart. He checks, and I elect to bet out the full pot to make draws pay the maximum. The last thing I was expecting here was to get raised. Wasn't really sure what to do here. I think I could have shipped it in but I elected to just call and see a river. Folding doesn't seem like an option here considering that we know he played a draw aggressively.

The river is actually not terrible, it gives me top and bottom pair with a meh kicker. He leads out for the pot, which surprises me again. Now, what does he have? There are just so many hands to put him on. The problem with playing spazzy players like this one is that it's difficult to know what they are doing, and next to impossible to get in their heads. He could have missed hearts, maybe something like a 5x8h, or an already made straight that he slowplayed or a made flush that he check/raised on the flop. A weaker Ace is also a possibility, though very unlikely in my mind. There are quite a few hands he can represent with his line.

In the end I hit the time bank and decide to fold. I think looking at hand 5 there is a hugely legitimate argument for calling, but I can only beat a bluff here, and since he made it exactly the pot he has to be bluffing or betting a weaker Ace 33% of the time for this to be even a breakeven call, let alone a profitable one.

I'm not sure. Maybe I pussed out, maybe I made the correct fold. This one kind of stuck with me as I was reviewing tonights session. What do you think?

See you next time,

Ross

P.S. See, I CAN fold a pair, I even had TWO of them :-P

P.P.S. In the old days I would have already been on lifetilt from the T4 hand and would have snapcalled no matter what, hooray progress.

Return To Form

2009-04-20T01:53:00.002-05:00

Since coming back I've avoided tilitng really badly and tilting off buy-ins. I've had some mild tilt where maybe I call with a bad hand preflop, or 3bet the wrong person light, but mostly I've kept myself in check.

Well, not tonight. I managed to get it all in with 44 preflop for about 100bbs vs KK and allin drawing nearly deat to TT on a Txx flop with 66 or 44, cant remember. Also didn't help that I lost a 4 outer with only the river to come, also for a buyin.

So I played really really really badly and tilted like I haven't before tonight and lost 5 buy-ins, keepign the ups and downs I have been on going.

I'm not really mad, I'm just disappointed in myself. Usually when I go card/flop dead I get a little testy, but I just went wayyyyy off the deep end today, and I'm just more disappointed in myself than anything. I don't think I'm going to take any time off since I just took off the last two days.

I've been on a pretty bad run this month, I think I'm winning 1bb/100 over 16k hands which is rather laughable. Doesn't help that the cards aren't going my way.

It's kind of a cop-out to post that picture. I can point to it and say HEY THIS IS WHY IM DOING BAD, but I know if I'd been playing optimally I would be up much more than I am this month. Things may even out or they may get worse, the only thing that is for sure is that I'm only going to pull out a positive month if I get my shit together and play better.

See you next time,

Ross

It Don't Mean a Thang if You Can't Take a Swang

2009-04-16T23:15:00.004-05:00

Been a rollercoaster couple of days I'd have to say, lost $250 today and overall I'm really happy with my play, just some stuff happened that..... well here-

Puke

That one speaks for itself, here was the very next hand I wanted to act like I was on tilt, obviously I got what I wanted, he had outs and hit. What can you do

http://weaktight.com/1001175

Ah well, such is life. Really need to go to bed, have to be at work at 5:30. I just didn't want to quit the guy, looks like I should have (lol).

Oh well, probably not going to play again til Monday, a few days off should be good.

See you next time,

Ross

And the Winning Numbers Are....

2009-04-16T02:57:00.003-05:00

Hit the lotto today, I guess its a good thing I didn't quit for a few days.

As you can see generally I got my money in good, and it just held, only sucked out in one big pot where I had 36% equity going to the river anyways. Up about $200 in equity and up about $700 in real money overall for the day HU, most of it from that one person. I was in for $30 on that table. Just kind of numb right now, I don't know what to say.

I feel really lucky, I mean this guy was going to lose his money to someone, and I'm glad it was me obviously. I can't even be too proud, this was just the easiest money I've ever made at heads-up. A spewy lagtard who can't hit a hand while I'm in god mode. Pretty sure I busted their account at least twice, lol.

Probably taking the next few days off which is what I planned to do because my work schedule is temporarily changing and I have some stuff to do over the weekend. Don't know what else to say, I love poker today (And I make things out of clay and lay by the bay).

See you next time,

Ross

Shoot Me

2009-04-15T01:53:00.005-05:00

Seriously. Someone find me and shoot me. Ok, not seriously. But got gayed in every tournament I played, thought I'd play some heads-up.

That about sums it up. Lost $250 in about 2.5k hands and down about $300 in all-in equity, meaning if I had been running normally I would have made a buy-in. Also had some dumbassed coolers and other shit that happened. It was a really shitty night. I definitely tilted a little but it was subtle tilt and I didn't recognize it and probably should have quit a looooong time before I did. I don't think I was playing too badly but my play was definitely affected.

Thats all for now, in no mood to do anything, really feel like quitting poker right now. It'll be better later. Maybe i'll take a few days off, maybe not, I would for sure if I felt like I was playing badly. Which I probably am, I don't know, nights like this make me question myself lol. Sorry again for being a whiny bitch.

See you next time,

Ross

Rape Me, My Friend

2009-04-14T00:57:00.006-05:00

Been a ridiculous few days, I've been playing badly probably and most definitely running badly in both MTTs and Heads-up. In tournaments I've been getting so close, the good thing is I feel good about my play 95% of the time but sometimes I have lapses where I play really bad. I feel like I'm really close to a big score, I had a good look at the 28k tonight but lost this hand which would have put me 2nd in chips with 64 remaining-

Gayness

The guy flopped a flush draw and had the Ace as an out on the flop, so it wasn't really a bad beat, but oh well. Also have cashed small in the daily double tournaments a few times, I feel like I'm a couple of pots away from a good score.

Also had a chance late in the $24+2 HORSE but just couldn't get anything going late. I've final tabled that before and cashed in it a few days ago. I'm thinking of regularly adding it to my schedule, a lot of the players seem to not even know the rules to all of the games. If you play pretty straightforward and tight you can chip up enough to make a run.

As far as heads-up, I really am beginning to think I'm just some fish who was on a heater haha. I can't win a pot or get any hands it seems, I think I need to do better at adjusting when that kind of stuff happens. I think I'm down a good bit since the last post, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 buy-ins.

Sorry for the whining, but it's been a rough week or so, hopefully things will be looking up. I really had a good feeling about the 28k tonight, even when the cards were shown down in that pot. Such is life in tournament poker though.

See you next time,

Ross

P.S. See you next time pre-dates thanks for reading :-P

I Was Right, Kind Of....

2009-04-08T04:08:00.004-05:00

Last post I mentioned that I can't keep having +$200 days at 50nl HU, and I was due for a downswing. I think I also mentioned that I was due for a cash in one of the donkaments I play, I think I was on an 0/25 streak or something like that.

Well, I was right about both. I'm down two buyins since my last post in 50NL HU, I know that doesnt sound like anything, but it was much worse at one point-

Been running pretty badly, which was causing me to play badly as well. Overall I think I've been playing ok in review of my sessions, I'm also about $150 under all in expectation over this span, though I was $200 over before this started so who am i to complain :-P

As far as tournaments, I had something pretty big happen to me. I know it was a pretty small score but I could not be happier. I won the $1 rebuy at full tilt for almost $650. I've been playing a schedule of small tournaments ranging from $1 rebuy up to $24+2 lately and it feels great to get a score. This is the biggest field I've ever overcome, though it's not most amount of people I've beat nor my biggest score, I am still proud of myself. Late game was like taking candy from a baby, a lot of these people were just happy to make the money and only one other player at the final table was stealing with any frequency.

I'd like to think I didn't hand any bad beats out, maybe I just can't remember them. Most of all though I just flipped in god mode and all of my hands held up. I did lose a big flip at the final table but battled back a couple of times and came away with the win. I got heads-up against the toughest player there, but he played badly calling a raise with J6 vs. my KJ and we both flopped jacks. I also got 2nd in the Blogger Skillz series for $102 and made a mini cash in the Daily Double B, so all in all it was a good night.

I'm not sure if I'm going to make a post about it because I just kept stealing and winning flips basically LOL. I'm going to enjoy this win for about half a day and be back at it tomorrow, hopefully with more good news.

See you next time,

Ross

Breaking it Down, Final Thoughts

2009-04-05T03:00:00.007-05:00

So, starting from scratch and through the end we see how I did and should have (in the case of QQ vs 34) adjust to this player. In between all of these bigger hands I just took pot after pot from this guy. I know I won about $30 and coolered him for over $70, but once I lost those first few pots and he coolered me for about $30 I really feel like I dominated the match, I won 57% of the pots total, the majority later in the match when I figured out how loose/passive he was preflop.

I know that 367 is a small sample size but I think there are a few trends we can gather from the stats. First of all, we see that I was right about his passivity. His river aggression is really high because this is when he is finally ready to go with his hand and tries to get value. On the flop and turn he is generally in "wait and see" mode, and decides to go with his hand at the river.

I normally run about 51/45 heads up, and we see here that I was both playing and opening more pots than usual. Also, I was really aggressive on the flop and preflop. My turn and river aggressions kind of surprised me, but when you think about it I probably called few hands at the river because thats when he knew his hand was good, driving up my AF.

All in all I must be doing something right, on two separate occasions since this session I've sat at his table and he's refused to play even one hand against me, instantly quitting. Sucks that he won't play me, but I'll take the compliment of him refusing me action.

Hope this was helpful, it was cool for me to go in depth into my own thought process and evaluate the good and the bad. I know for a fact there was a point in my career where I would have not folded the J9 and and A9 and likely cost myself at least a buy-in.

And for a small update, I won about $300 yesterday and lost about $30 today. Yesterday I played a complete maniac, and another loose/passive player who each gave me a few buyins. I may post some hands of the maniac later on, there were some pretty crazy hands. Today I played badly today and quit because I was tired and was unfocused. I probably shouldn't have played at all, but quit and decided to do this post to keep me thinking about the game.

Call me paranoid but I feel like its time for a good ol fashioned downswing, I've had lots of big winning days, and virtually no big losing ones. Also I'm up $225 in all in equity overall, so that could come down. But, as they say you're always even so maybe it won't... I don't know.

Part of me believes if I just continue to play good poker and more importantly game select well I'll just keep on winning. But of course in the back of my mind I just feel like I'm due for a bad patch of variance which hasn't happened yet. Very pessimistic of me for sure, hopefully I'm just being paranoid and will continue to win every day for the rest of my life ;-)

See you next time,

Ross

Breaking it Down Pt. II

2009-04-05T01:57:00.013-05:00

Continuing from the discussion of our opponent. So far I've made some pretty marginal calls, but we see the value in getting to showdown, he's got it seemingly every single time he bets, otherwise he just folds or calls.

Hand 136

A pretty interesting hand, I'm fairly confident in my river fold. I'm not sure my reasoning for betting small on the turn, could have been a misclick or could have been me mixing it up, not sure. I tend to make a lot of misclicks/typos when I don't have my wireless mouse + FTP Shortcuts (an AHK script). On this turn I elect to call, even though I've said multiple times that hes got it when he bets. But, there are a couple of draws out there and I have a gutshot as well so I elect to call.

The river seems like a pretty clear decision, sure this guy could be bluffing, but he showed aggression on the river and the turn which is rare for him. I go with my read and fold, feeling pretty comfortable with it. I think I saved myself 40bbs by going with my read here. If he was bluffing, good luck to him, I got outplayed.

Hand 196

A pretty odball hand here, I'm ok with how I played it. This was the first time I'd seen a minraise out of him, so I called to see what would happen. I was out of position so I definitely see an argument for folding, but I had been taking down 3bet pots left and right by leading the flop, and maybe he got tired of it. If I didn't spike the king I'd be willing to bet we'd get to showdown and I'd have the best hand unless he hit a good hand. Not sure though.

Sifting through these later hands, there are much fewer big pots. Looking at the session I adjusted to his play. Since he had little resitance in letting me pick up hands, I just ramped up the aggression and 2 barreled more and 3bet more almost always taking down the pot with a cbet. If I was shown resistance I shut down most of the time, though I did 3 barrel one hand and get raised on the river.

Hand 245

This is the hand I regret most in this session, I'd shown that I'm capable of laying down a hand when he shows aggression, but I just couldn't bring myself to fold here. My timebank was winding down and I just let curiosity get the best of me. This is something that I've been getting better at but still have problems with. If I only I would take my own advice, HES GOT IT WHEN HE BETS!!! I should have recognized that this is a pretty easy fold given his tendencies, I managed to lay down trip Jacks, why can't I lay down 2 pair here? Puzzling and frustrating, but oh well I never said I played perfectly, far from it actually.

Hand 274

Nothing too redeeming out of this hand. I suppose I could have fired the flop but I was taking down pots with such frequency doing that, I decided to check here and hope he'd gotten a piece or would take a stab (lol). Given his tendencies I even paused for a split second at the river thinking "This is going to be so gay if he has quads" but obviously folding would be retarded, so I called. Somewhat of a cooler for him, I'm so aggressive that he can't tell the difference of when I'm bluffing or when I have it. If we switch cards at the river I probably just call, possibly even finding a fold, but the way I play he has to raise.

Hand 275

This is the very next hand so I think it's very possible that he's bluffing and on tilt, but given my previous read and the fact that I'd likely have to call most rivers if I'm calling this turn I opt to fold. Pretty comfortable with this fold as well, even though theres a small chance he was just steaming.

Hand 367

Pretty comfortable with how I played this hand. I'm not positive my hand is good on the turn, I assure you I was check/calling the whole way this guy plays. Once he checks the turn I'm sure I'm good and value bet the river where he's picked up a piece of the board. After this hand he sits out and leaves, having lost $65. I thought I'd won a buyin from this guy but apparently it was only $31 because of rake. Thank god for rakeback.

That's it for the hands, now I'm going to break this down in one final post, with some screenshots of both of our stats in this session.

See you next time,

Ross

Breaking it Down Pt. I

2009-04-04T15:06:00.019-05:00

Ok so as promised I'm going to talk about playing a specific opponent, starting from scratch. Now this is kind of experimental, so the way I'm going to do it this time is start with hand 1 I played all the way to hand #367 and go over some hands as I pick up reads, and adjust to the player.

I'm not sure if this will work or not or how I should adjust it, but for starters I'm going make it by each 100 hands. I'm just going to try it this way and see what happens. This situiation starts with me sitting with $20 as I usually do, and this guy shows up and sits in for $50. Generally I assume players who buy in full to be better than people who buy in short, but they almost always have major major leaks.

Hand 1-127

Hand 2

I cant explain my play here really, I guess we weren't that deep and only 2 hands in, I generally assume my opponents are bluffy retards until proven otherwise, which could be a mistake. The board was pretty drawy so I guess I could logically put him on a KQ or JQ or a J9 or any missed hearts. I think I should definitely find a fold somewhere, but I'm not extremely displeased, especially since it was for 40bbs lol.

I reload for $20 and a few hands later I 3bet AA and he shoves 99 and I hold, pretty standard by both.

Hand 6

Don't think theres anything I could do this hand, but what can we learn from it? K8 and like hands are in his preflop flatting range from the BB, flat calling and c/r the turn is in his arsenal and seems to be strength. Not too helpful if he balances his ranges for these things, but something to keep in mind. To answer your question I'm not sure about my turn bet, I just can't remember. I'm guessing it was a misclick because my standard turn bet with my whole range is either $4, $4.50, or $5.

I reload to $50 so I can cover. For the next 50 hands nothing spectacular happens, but we can begin to pick up on his tendencies. I raise nearly every every button, and he limps or raises about 50/50 on his button, which is terrible. I limp the button maybe 1 in 1000 hands if that, and thats completely dependent on gameflow and what type of hand I have and how my opponent is reacting. For example if I think my opponent is tilting and will 3bet or do something crazy, I'll limp something like JTs or 67s to just see a flop and try not to get the pot too inflated preflop. .

Anyways when I raise, he folds to a cbet nearly every time, which is key. Over these hands, he shows no resistance to the cbet, which is obviously a leak. You can't flat raises all the time without c/r or leading out with some frequency, you will just get run over, which he seems to be allowing me to do. So about 50 hands in, we have a good hand for picking up info, our first 3bet pot that he flats, and we get to showdown.

Hand 54

This hands showcases a couple of things that this guy is doing wrong. It appears that he's tired of me taking down all these hands with sheer aggression and flats my 3bet with K7s. He also continues to make a stand with 3rd pair, and checks behind the river. A river bet would have likely taken it down, but I'm fine with the way I played this hand at every point.

So what can we gain from this hand?

1. He does not respond to aggression well. If he wanted to "make a stand" he should either choose a better hand to do it with in my opinion or 4bet me light.

2. He doesn't "believe me." I've had players tell me in chat "You are so full of #@%$" as they fold their hands away. I have a tendency to overwhelm people by continuing to bet, and they respond by calling with any piece of the board. So immediately after this hand I need to adjust and not cbet as much and value bet thinner.

3. I had something typed out about how he should fire the flop because this flop doesn't hit my range too hard. However, he's caught a piece and can try to get to showdown or spike a K or 7, so I'm fine with his check. Once again passive play from him though.

So in the next 50 hands or so I pick up about $15 without getting to showdown. I''m picking up how passive this guy is postflop, cbets and 2 barrels are taking down a lot of pots. To his credit he's being a bit more aggressive preflop, he's raising a lot of hands, and its close as to whether or not I should start 3betting him light. I opt not to yet, as he just showed that he can call with K7s and I don't want to be oop in a 3bet pot with a marginal hand. The purpose of 3betting is either to take the pot down there or for value.

Hand 127

Calling this river is a somewhat of a mistake on my part in my opinion. I'm getting 3 to 1 on my money, but after the hand and the session I can honestly say I doubt he's bluffing more than 25% of the time.

What's done is done though, and we need to take a couple of things from this hand.

1. Don't make typos preflop. :-) My standard 3bet is $5 and 5 is in close proximity to 4 on the keyboard. Oops

2. His calling range for 3bets pre still looks light, though I did just raise him 2.50 more and we are semi-deep, I don't hate his call at all.

3. He's peeling flops pretty light, still doesn't hand read. I would actually like a flop raise here from him, to push me off of hands like AQ and AK, but he takes the passive route by calling, which I don't think is terrible. But we see here he continues to like the call button much more than the raise button.

4. When he bets he has it from what we've seen, we've seen him call with weak hands, but not bet weak hands. This is very important.

I want to do this in sections so its not too tedious to read, so I'm going to stop right here for now. I may post the second part later today or in the coming days, not sure. I hope this is helpful, beacuse its really helping me go through my thought process and what I'm doing wrong and right to go through this session.

So far I'd say that my opponent is competent, and not a complete mouth-breathing drooler. However, he has some major problems which I hope to exploit.

See you next time,

Ross

Interesting Couple of Days

2009-04-03T02:34:00.005-05:00

The last couple of days have been swingy to say the least. I've been playing primarily HU but also I've been mixing in tournaments simultaneously which I am positive is a mistake for me. I focus too much on the heads up match and give up equity in the tournaments I'm playing, usually ranging from $24+2 to $10 to a $1r. I can set up a nice little schedule for when I get home from work, but in the middle if I'm only playing 2 or 3 tables I get bored and have been playing heads up which really hurts my tournament game. I stop paying attention to the tournaments and just try to focus on my opponent.

Heads up takes so much focus for me, I usually only 2 table because I'm not ready to play more than that. Some day I'd like to get to 4, but that will be when I have both a bigger bankroll and more experience.

So I've been winning in heads up, but it's only been covering my losses in tournaments the last few days, so essentially I'm breakeven. I've decided to play one or the other though, no more distractions for me, and hopefully it will help my tournament results where I haven't even cashed though I've had decent stacks several times.

Here's heads up for the last few days-

That big drop off is a mix of my first bout of tilt with somewhat coolers and a bit of missed equity mixed in. I had some 2nd best hands that I don't think a lot of people would have gotten away from, but a player like me (better than average, if only slightly :-P) should have gotten away from rather easily. I couldn't bring myself to fold some flush draws, 2nd nut flush at the river, and JJ on a T58r board 200BBs deep, among others.

Anyways, I'm very happy with my results, I'm also down about $140 in equity over this span, with minimal tilt, at least for my standards.

I'm pretty tired but wanted to get out some of my thoughts on heads up. With so many opponents that I play per day, it's kind of hard to post specific spots because everything is so opponnent dependent. In my old days of blogging I would just search for my bigger pots and post spots from those, but heads up is really about the small pots in my opinion, so that would be not as useful.

So, for my next post I've singled out an opponent that I've played a couple of times and am going to post some hands in order to explain my thought process and adaptation to certain types of players. This particular player is going to be loose/passive preflop and tight/passive postflop, one of the easier opponents to play. I made a few mistakes but overall I think I did well and won just over a buyin from this particular opponnent.

Should be interesting for me and hopefully for you.

See you next time,

Ross

Best Day to Date

2009-03-31T02:18:00.020-05:00

I've been planning on returning to the blogosphere for some time, and reserved this highly sought-after url and blog title after the first day I did good. I finally got the courage to start writing again after today, which was the best day I've had in HU Cash.

I started the day playing a bit badly and tilting slightly, because I had lost about $60 in heads up where I just kept having the second best hand over and over. The tilt made me not quit an opponent I was playing who wasn't particularly good, but wasn't the complete drooler that I usually look for. I played one hand extraordinarily bad, shipping it in with just A9 on an 8 high flop in a 3bet pot. He called with T8s and I rivered the Ace. Terrible hand from me, that's another reason I don't like to play deep, I get too..... "creative" (to put it nicely) for my own good. But, I won the hand and from there he went on complete tilt, here's some of the carnage-

Biggest pot since I've come back, usually I don't play this deep for one, since I can't afford it haha. Sick river hold.
http://weaktight.com/944486

Weird hand, not sure what I would have done if he bet the river.
http://weaktight.com/944487

He makes it a straight $50 a couple of times, sick holds.
http://weaktight.com/944488
http://weaktight.com/944490

The best hand of the session, I induced the bluff perfectly imo.
http://weaktight.com/944492

I quit him after this hand, I figured he'd lose his tilt and therefore I'd lose most of my edge and was content with leaving with what I had. Plus I had some MTTs in a few minutes and needed to calm my nerves, I was on an emotional high from winning this money from this guy so quickly.
http://weaktight.com/944493

After that I played some small MTTs without a cash except for my win in the NYRPS main event, which was the biggest buyin of the night for me ($33), 17 entrants good for a $255 1st place win for me. I may break that down in a later post, but the cliff notes are that I sucked out a few times and won some flips then took over with aggression short handed.

After busting in my remaining MTTs I picked off a couple short stacks at 50NL, making about $45 more. So overall on the day I made almost $500, and here I am.

The rake is sick on these tables, thank god for rakeback. I've been playing pretty good but have also been running good, you could almost say I was on a 5k hand breakeven stretch with a 2.5k hand super heater. I'm about $150 over expectation all-in before the river according to PokerEV. But, it's been a whirlwind few weeks and I know it could be over at any time if I don't control my tilt like I have been. I now recognize that at one point in my career I had no tilt control and was just lying to myself. I've had my entire bankroll on the line multiple times since I've come back, around hands 3800 and 5400 I believe I did. I'm on a sick heater in the last few k hands, running well and hitting hands, I know how cruel poker is and it could come crashing down.

I think with continued good game selection and self control I can ride this wave to even more $$$, but maybe I'm just delusional because this is a good run? The fun thing is that I don't know. It's just exciting that this could be my second to last blog post, though I know I'm basically on a freeroll, all this coming from $10.

I know these first couple of posts have been like shameless brag posts, for that I apologize, I'm just excited to have a chance for poker to be a big part of my life. I really love the game and am elated at the idea of me playing a lot of poker, I've really missed it during my time off. I promise to put some strategy and actual poker content in the next post.

See you next time,

Ross

Turn The Lights Back On (Re-Introduction)

2009-03-31T01:36:00.011-05:00

Hello there, I guess a little history is in order.

My name is Ross, I play as Tony Eusebio on Full Tilt and PokerStars and post as TonyEusebio on various forums. I joined the poker boom along with a lot of people around 2003. I played Party Poker and then PokerStars and FullTilt where I was primarily an SNG player. I was a winner in SNGs but had a pretty nice downswing and shut down my accounts and cashed out to take some time off. When I returned I was active in forums and made a blog, both of which improved my game immensely. I played decent sized MTTs and some cash as well. Then as a result of a couple of life beats I had to cash out my entire roll because I needed the money.

Now, it seems through a series of events (most involving rungoodness) that I am back on the scene with a decent poker bankroll. One day a couple of weeks ago I turned $10 into about $275 in heads-up cash off of one opponent, and I decided to ride that wave and have played to what I have now, which is enough to be rolled for some small stakes MTTs and HU Cash. Though I'm not fully rolled for HU 50NL Cash, it's the game that got me to where I am and what I plan on continuing to play.

Playing 50nl HU with as little as I have will be dicey (note blog title), but I generally buy in small because I think it lures bad players, and also reduces variance. I always top up to cover bad players though, and if someone buys in for $50 when I'm sitting with $20 I'lll buy in full. So technically I wouldn't exactly call myself a shortstacker. I also game select very well, if a 50NL reg called me a bumhunter I really would have no solid reply, except that it's true and game selection is the main reason that I have had the run I've had, along with the most complete tilt control I've ever managed and of course a little luck. I've had no ego, if I don't think the player is really bad, I don't stay sitting in, there are so many bad players at 50NL HU its massively lowers EV, winrate, and hourly rate to play someone who even 3bets with some frequency.

I'm really excited to be back blogging. Like I said in my first blog, this is not about getting hits, selling advertisements, or hoping someone thinks I'm cool when I make a post. I never had and never will have a counter or any kind of thing like that on this site. Blogging is just a great way for me to iron out my poker thoughts, and if someone learns something from it, or teaches me something through it then all the better. Just like last time, I promise to post with the utmost honesty, and try to keep everything in perspective, and hopefully grow more as a poker player as a result of this blog.

Well, here goes nothing, welcome back me.

See you next time,

Ross