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(no subject) [Sep. 13th, 2006|01:07 am]
The last week's been kinda up and down. After that sick downswing, I decided to take a couple days off from playing online and went to the bar downtown to play live. I had $1000 on the Steelers game (through the Mansion thing, where they would refund your bet if you lost; I'm not a degenerate) and had the spread at -4.5, so when Joey Porter scored on that interception at the end I nearly had a heart attack; what a huge relief, especially after losing $800 playing online the last couple days. The only cash game going on was a 1/2 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo game, and I had a sick run and made $750 in that game. I was up about $150 when some guy that had never played Omaha before sat down, and he was a pretty loose and aggressive player so I made a killing in two hands where I hit the nuts against him and he couldn't fold TPTK (in Omaha! LOL!) and second set. Friday people on 2+2 were talking about clearing the Mansion deposit bonus by exploiting the Keno game, so I did that and only lost about $250 while clearing the $1000 bonus for a profit of $750; so, in just those two days I was up $2500 without playing a single hand of NLHE. I finally started playing again on Saturday, when I had a great session of running sick hot and making $650 in 1500 hands. Sunday I played a quick 500 hands and made $350; I don't remember why I quit so early, maybe I just wanted to book a win. Then last night (Monday) I only put about 800 hands in and dropped two buyins; tonight I played a little before dinner and had a nice +$220 session in 700 hands, but played about 500 hands more after dinner and lost $400. At my peak during the day I was +$400 and went down as far as -$300 before stacking someone right at the end, so it was a pretty ugly -7 buyin swing in the middle there. Here's all of that wrapped into a graph (from Wednesday to today):



I'm starting to wonder if I really have the emotional strength and control to be a good poker player though. In the second set of 500 hands I played today, I took a couple beats but also made a couple really bad calls. Some total nut who was opening to $10 some hands stacked me 150bbs deep with Q2 vs my TT - it was a re-raised pot and the flop was QQx, and I figured it was really unlikely he flopped trips even though you would figure that a min-3bet on the turn probably means he has a good hand. Another time I flopped TPTK with AK and paid off a rivered flush; I bet my hand strongly all the way and called $45 on the river when it was completely obvious that the guy was drawing to a flush and hit. Of course, after the hand was over I knew that these were both ridiculously bad plays on my part, but it's frustrating that I can't seem to identify when I'm playing my C-game and should stop playing until I blow two buyins making stupid calls. I don't have tilt problems or anything, I just get into states of mind where I'm not playing optimally.

Furthermore, I get frustrated easily and stop playing too quickly when I lose. Having losing sessions is an inevitable part of poker and will happen regardless of how well I'm playing, but I still get frustrated when it happens and if I'm not running particularly well in a session even when I'm playing great, I'll pre-emptively start shutting down tables and end the session if I'm worried that I'm gonna start playing worse as a result, and then likely spend the rest of the night pissed off at the fact that I lost. I started the day with $6940 in my account; I arbitrarily set a goal of $8k for moving up to $1/$2. Five hours ago I was really excited about moving up and was eager to start getting a lot of hands in; I played the 700 hands, made a couple hundred, felt great, couldn't wait to start playing again after taking a break for an hour or so. Then I played the 500 hands, lost $400, and now I'm just frustrated and in no mood to put any more hands in tonight. I guess it's just annoying that I get so tempermental about poker and have to resort to quitting for the night and hoping I feel better when I wake up tomorrow if things start going bad.

In that graph above I'm running at 6ptbb, including a couple sick beats and bad calls; but even though that's about how I should expect to be running, the stress I put myself through while experiencing those swings is way too unhealthy. Maybe getting back to school and playing basketball and hanging out with friends will help balance my life a little more, since there is nothing to do here in Oregon which probably compounds the problem.
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(no subject) [Sep. 6th, 2006|12:10 am]
today's session, I quit poker
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(no subject) [Sep. 5th, 2006|01:37 am]
today's session
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(no subject) [Sep. 3rd, 2006|04:57 am]
Just played a reeeeeally weird session. I felt like I was playing really well, and I stacked a lot of people (six), and only got stacked once, but somehow I only made three buyins. I totally thought that I was up like $800 at the end of the night, but it was just $280.



I suppose it's good that I was able to get into a state of mind where I could just cruise playing 6.4 tables (on average) for about 3 hours and get a lot of hands in, while I felt like I was playing my A-game. But, still, I have to wonder how the fuck I was -$274 in hands where I put less than $60 in the pot. The session easily could have gone the other way if not for a pretty beautiful one-outer I hit when I got it in with someone w/ set under set on the turn.

I ran at about 17/11, which I think is relatively aggressive for me when I'm in 6-tabling cruise mode; recently I modified the mousewheel script (an AutoHotKey script which lets you scroll the mouse wheel to change bet amounts by +/-1bb, or right-click to bet 3/4 pot, mid-click to bet full pot, etc) to randomize my bet amounts - so, any time I used the mouse wheel or clicked one of the buttons, the script would randomly adjust it by about +/-10% to create bets like $13.79 or $4.42 - basically, make it look like I'm using the slider for all of my bets. I feel like people call me more often when I do this (entirely possible that this is psychological, although when I first started using it I did have a few sick pots where I was raising or even 3betting AA and got like three callers to the flop) so I had been running at like 15/9 while using that script, but tonight I felt like playing a little more creatively so I went back to the regular non-slider script.

First, happy stackage hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?485793 - Villain is TAG, hand played itself
http://www.pokerhand.org/?485794 - Hand played itself again, villain in this hand sucked though
http://www.pokerhand.org/?485795 - the 1-outer
http://www.pokerhand.org/?485796 - Villain had smartLAG type stats (like 35/23 or so) and I think was multi-tabling; anyway, I love making little probe bets with sets like this b/c it usually looks like a weak hand, and overpairs or TPTKs (assuming an aggressive villain) pretty much ALWAYS raise them. Makes it easy to 3b AI (on this board), or on a drier board I would probably call and c/r turn AI.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?485797 - Horrible villain (like 80/30), so pretty standard, I was playing 250-300bbs deep with him for awhile but didn't get any other big hands. This guy stole blinds a fuckload, which I honestly didn't really know how to deal with when playing deep against someone who calls too much - I mean, pretty much the only way to exploit that is to get a good hand and value bet - BUT, then you run into the problem where if his Att. to Steal is 60% (which it was) he doesn't have a 2nd best hand often enough to pay me off. I guess that means I should 3bet more, but I'm a wuss, and when I have a ton of money on one table I turn into more of a nut peddler.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?485800 - I felt pukey shoving here, but his flop bet just felt way too weird for a monster - on one level if he had 22/A9/whatever he could be trying to trick me into calling with AK, but at the same time why would he risk losing TPTK with such a huge bet? He was like 70/4/1.5 or so, IIRC.

Next, interesting hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?485801 - Villain was 50/11/1.9. This was pretty much the pukiest river ever; obviously a flush draw is a likely hand for him, but KQ got there as well, and the river made it much less likely that any Q was calling a value bet. I think he would pretty much always check behind a lone K/Q, there are pretty much no missed draws except 65; the only hand I could see him having here that I beat is something like pocket 5s that he was too dumb to fold on any prior street and figured he had to bluff with on the river, but that's pretty far out there. Should I have blocked the river? I'm just not really sure how often he's bluffing big enough to blow me off my hand when I check, or how often he calls a block with something like QJ/QT.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?485806 - Villain was 63/5/0.8. I'm not really sure what the best play is in situations like this - a draw just hit, but I picked up an ok redraw against any smaller diamond SCs that just hit a flush, I still have outs against a jack, and I don't think villain ever raises me when I'm ahead. That said, I'm probably behind his range, even though he could still call with a nine or big diamond quite often. So, do I bet, or check behind and call a bet on a safe riv, and why?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?485811 - Villain was 60/17/2.0. Even in position I thought this was an awful flop to CB, and the turn was of course super standard up until the min-3bet from villain. I guess I have to ask myself "is this ever AQ?" and while the answer might be yes against a villain that plays badly and overvalues top pair, even against a bad player I think this is more likely to be a badly slowplayed set/straight or an ace-rag that just hit two pair.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?485817 - Probably the most weak-tight hand I've ever played. Villain is someone I've played a lot against - he's 69/10/2.4 and I have a note on him saying "never folds top pair." So, my logic with this hand was:
1. I think (based purely on his stats, I haven't paid enough attention to what he's shown down to know his 3betting range) he has TT+ or AK, and probably not AQ here
2. Shoving is retarded when I'm <50% against that range and have very little fold equity against a player this bad
3. Calling is retarded because I'm never pushing him off an overpair when I miss, and when I hit he's not bad enough to go broke with QQ on a K-high flop or whatever; so, I'm pretty much splitting the pot with him, or losing to AA/KK.
4. Since shoving and calling both suck, I should fold.

Do you guys think this is good thinking? I guess my strategy against this type of player would be to wait for QQ+ and shove when he 3bets me like that. Even if you add AQ to his range, I doubt he calls a shove with that and the times when I stack him on an A-high flop would be very infrequent.

Anyway, I'd love to hear some thoughts on the latter hands.
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(no subject) [Sep. 1st, 2006|11:44 pm]
God, I'm so lazy at updating this.

I'm running so-so at $100. I finished off the month about +$3k (which is pretty much what I was shooting for/expecting), the last few days I've been running really shitty though and just taking ridiculous beats every other hand. Here's August:



I played live last night and made $380 ($80 at 1/2 PLOL8, $300 more at 1/2 NLHE). After losing a couple buyins the previous night on Party I didn't really feel like playing online again, but it didn't really do much for my confidence b/c live is just ridiculously easy. I played 1000 hands so far tonight and lost a couple more buyins to more ridiculous shit; I played a couple hands badly though and that's what I'm worried about more than anything. Making one stupid play for your stack per 1000 hands drops your winrate by 5ptbb/100, and it seems like I keep finding ways to do just retarded things every now and then that add up and really kill my winrate. Here's today's winner:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?483979 Villain was loose and retarded, but that doesn't keep this from being the most retarded river call in history.

It didn't help that I didn't really feel like playing at all tonight, but I felt obligated to because it's Friday and probably the most profitable night of the week. So, I was definitely bringing my C-game to the tables. I probably only "feel" like playing 20k hands a month or so though, so if I only play when I really want to then I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time. I have big aspirations in terms of moving up, but I get discouraged really easily when I have a couple off-nights in a row and then I don't get enough hands in to pad my bankroll enough to move up. Ugh.

I guess it's good that I'm doing better than breaking even at $100 nowadays, but I'm still making pretty much the same $$/100 as I was at $50, which is frustrating.
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THE STATE OF GOOFYBALLER [Aug. 20th, 2006|01:53 am]
So I got back from Vegas and didn't really play for a couple days. I got this really dumb idea that I should try playing NL $25 and LAGging it up to improve my hand reading skills; it was kinda fun, but I don't really think I learned much, and even though it would probably be +EV to keep trying it and improve my hand reading skills (which definitely need work), I move back up to $50. I play like one session, decide that I'm sick of grinding it out there when beating the game for like 9ptbb isn't teaching me anything new, and move up to $100. I have aspirations; I'm rolled to play way higher than I am right now, so I might as well start trying to move up. Grinding $50 is no way to make a living.

I've been lazy as hell since getting back from Vegas though, 4k hands in the last week. I need to play more.

Adventures at NL $25 and $50 after Vegas:



Adventures at $100 the past two days:



I'm running hot. Favorite hand from tonight:

Douchebag shortstack (they're all douchebags) is in the BB his first hand at the table, we're 3-handed. He has $20, I have $200something, so does SB. I open AJ to $4 on the button, SB folds, douchebag shorty (hereby known as "DS") calls. Flop is Q8x with two clubs; I have the Jc for the third nut backdoor flush draw. DS open-shoves for $16. FUCK YOU BITCH, THIS IS MY POT, I CALL! He has 98s, ACE ON THE TURN, SHIP IT! GTFO OF HERE YOU MINBUYING SHORTSTACK DOUCHE! He sat quietly for a few hands without rebuying, then left. I felt fantastic.
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(no subject) [Aug. 14th, 2006|06:04 pm]
I messed around with playing a LAG style at $25 NL last night; I ran at about 33/25 and lost two buyins over 700 hands. I felt like I was getting my stack in too often with marginal situations; also, I had a lot of difficulty putting people on hands even though that's the most important skill when playing a LAG style. Here are a few hands that went badly:

***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 14, 07:10:25 ET 2006
Table Table 108147 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 4: StuntPlane ( $65.19 )
Seat 6: keiron2409 ( $14.10 )
Seat 5: jojos255 ( $25.49 )
Seat 3: Loop_John ( $18.81 )
Seat 1: Hero ( $25.35 )
Seat 2: Knights_Tale ( $10 )
StuntPlane posts small blind [ $0.10 ].
jojos255 posts big blind [ $0.25 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
CALL keiron2409, $0.25
RAISE Hero , $1.25
CALL Loop_John, $1.25
FOLD StuntPlane
FOLD jojos255
CALL keiron2409, $1

BAM! No limping on my watch, bitch! More callers than I would like.

Flop: (Pot: $4.1) [ ]
BET keiron2409, $1.25
RAISE Hero , $4.25
FOLD Loop_John
CALL keiron2409, $3

Good flop for my hand; paired board and I flop a gutshot. Some clown bets into me for like 1/4 pot, GTFO with that shit. He calls anyway, probably with some crappy pocket pair or an 8 that he thinks is good. Villain is 30/12/0.45 through 50 hands.

Turn: (Pot: $12.6) [ ]
CHECK keiron2409
CHECK Hero

I don't think villain will fold a pair here, as that card wasn't scary in the slightest to an 8 or crappy pocket pair. I take a free card to try to hit my draw; a nine is probably good as well.

River: (Pot: $12.6) [ ]
CHECK keiron2409
Hero...

Bluff this card? It seems to me like generally NL donkeys will call a bet like this with any pair, unless the river is an ace or king; checking the turn makes them think I'd be FOS on the river here (which I am).




***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 14, 08:08:35 ET 2006
Table Table 108053 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: uareanidiot2 ( $46.61 )
Seat 6: Hero ( $24.10 )
Seat 5: disa001 ( $23.28 )
Seat 4: slotti111 ( $19.19 )
Seat 2: holeinone666 ( $26.48 )
Seat 3: Pityu85 ( $20 )
uareanidiot2 posts small blind [ $0.10 ].
holeinone666 posts big blind [ $0.25 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD slotti111
CALL disa001, $0.25
RAISE Hero , $1.25
RAISE uareanidiot2, $2.15
FOLD holeinone666
FOLD disa001
CALL Hero , $1

Villain is 37/11/2.4.

Flop: (Pot: $5) [ ]
CHECK uareanidiot2
BET Hero , $3.75
CALL uareanidiot2, $3.75

An aggressive player checked to me on a pretty ugly flop after 3-betting preflop, so I don't think he likes it at all. I bet, he still calls.

Turn: (Pot: $12.5) [ ]
CHECK uareanidiot2
Hero...

Is this a good or bad card for me? Can I fire again representing a big spade?




Very next hand. Disa is 41/2/1.3.

***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 14, 08:10:24 ET 2006
Table Table 108053 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: uareanidiot2 ( $53.06 )
Seat 6: Hero ( $25 )
Seat 5: disa001 ( $23.03 )
Seat 4: slotti111 ( $19.19 )
Seat 2: holeinone666 ( $26.13 )
Seat 3: Pityu85 ( $19.50 )
Pityu85 posts small blind [ $0.10 ].
slotti111 posts big blind [ $0.25 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
CALL disa001, $0.25
RAISE Hero $1.25
FOLD uareanidiot2
FOLD holeinone666
FOLD Pityu85
FOLD slotti111
CALL disa001, $1

Flop: (Pot: $2.85) [ ]
CHECK disa001
BET Hero , $2.25
CALL disa001, $2.25

Turn: (Pot: $7.35) [ ]
CHECK disa001
BET Hero , $5.50
CALL disa001, $5.50

River: (Pot: $18.35) [ ]
ALL-IN disa001
FOLD Hero
disa001 shows [ ] a flush ace high .

I think this hand is pretty standard, and even though I lost I like it a lot; I forced villain into a really bad turn call and made him shove the river while he was playing the board. The amount I actually lost on this hand is minimal compared to when I stack villain when I have a hand here.





***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 14, 07:24:05 ET 2006
Table Table 108015 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: ewiggin5732 ( $63.95 )
Seat 4: El_Dudelino ( $20.65 )
Seat 2: DergiXBodrey ( $5.25 )
Seat 5: achmed66 ( $19.78 )
Seat 3: Hero ( $27.15 )
El_Dudelino posts small blind [ $0.10 ].
ewiggin5732 posts big blind [ $0.25 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD DergiXBodrey
RAISE Hero , $1
RAISE El_Dudelino, $1.65
FOLD ewiggin5732
CALL Hero , $0.75

Villain is 20/7/2.0.

Flop: (Pot: $3.75) [ ]
BET El_Dudelino, $0.25
CALL Hero , $0.25

WEAK, he obviously doesn't have a hand here. Rather than raise right away and create a big pot with a couple streets left I decide to wait for the turn.

Turn: (Pot: $4.25) [ ]
BET El_Dudelino, $0.25
RAISE Hero , $3.25
CALL El_Dudelino, $3

Small raise, but he can't have a very big hand.

River: (Pot: $10.75) [ ]
CHECK El_Dudelino
BET Hero , $7.25

I wouldn't be surprised if he had no pair at this point, and this is a horrible board for him. I don't think I need to bet much to get him to fold, but, he tanks and...

CALL El_Dudelino, $7.25
Hero shows [ ] a pair of twos .
El_Dudelino shows [ ] a pair of twos .

El_Dudelino wins $24 from the main pot with a pair of twos with ace kicker .

God damn it. I'm not sure what to think of this hand; it all seemed right at the time, and I thought I had good FE against a tight player like him, but he called anyway. WTF?





***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 14, 07:29:47 ET 2006
Table Table 108147 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 4: StuntPlane ( $30.94 )
Seat 3: Loop_John ( $17.46 )
Seat 1: Hero ( $51.40 )
Seat 2: Knights_Tale ( $11.97 )
Seat 6: Drdokka111 ( $17.79 )
Knights_Tale posts small blind [ $0.10 ].
Loop_John posts big blind [ $0.25 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD StuntPlane
RAISE Drdokka111, $1
CALL Hero , $1
FOLD Knights_Tale
CALL Loop_John, $0.75

Flop: (Pot: $3.1) [ ]
CHECK Loop_John
BET Drdokka111, $2
RAISE Hero , $6.25

Villain is unknown. This is a pretty standard raise, right?

FOLD Loop_John
RAISE Drdokka111, $8.50

...great, now I've committed my stack. Might as well just get the rest in and hope to hit.

RAISE Hero , $44.15
ALL-IN Drdokka111

Turn: (Pot: $19.85) [ ]

River: (Pot: $19.85) [ ]

Drdokka111 shows [ ] three of a kind jacks .
Hero shows [ ] a pair of fives .
Hero wins $33.61 from side pot #1 with a pair of fives .
Drdokka111 wins $34.88 from the main pot with three of a kind jacks .

Is this inevitable when I flop a draw against a big hand and I'm playing aggressively?





***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 14, 07:59:08 ET 2006
Table Table 108147 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 4: StuntPlane ( $34.36 )
Seat 3: Loop_John ( $19.77 )
Seat 1: Hero ( $25.10 )
Seat 2: Knights_Tale ( $11 )
Seat 6: holdhond ( $8.90 )
holdhond posts small blind [ $0.10 ].
Hero posts big blind [ $0.25 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD Knights_Tale
FOLD Loop_John
RAISE StuntPlane, $0.50
CALL holdhond, $0.40
RAISE Hero , $1.50
CALL StuntPlane, $1.25
CALL holdhond, $1.25

Flop: (Pot: $5.25) [ ]
CHECK holdhond
BET Hero , $4.25
CALL StuntPlane, $4.25
FOLD holdhond

Villain is something like 25/8/2.0, but he minraises way too often preflop to be considered a TAG. I've already stacked him when I hit a set and he called me down with TPNK and he shoved when he hit two pair.

Turn: (Pot: $13.75) [ ]
Hero is completely clueless and needs a plan; there's $19 left in stacks
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VEGAS [Aug. 14th, 2006|02:48 am]
This is the synopsis of my Vegas trip that I wrote at TightPoker; the names refer to people from that site.

Day 1

I leave Redmond, OR at about 2:30PM to head to Portland for my 6:30 flight. As I arrive in the parking lot, I get a call from Orbitz that my flight is delayed until 11:30. Grrrreat. I get a meal voucher from the airline for $8 and find somewhere to set up my laptop; fortunately the airport had free (albeit kinda slow) wireless, so I started 4-tabling Party NL $50. Except for pausing for a few minutes to grab a couple slices of pizza, I played for the next 5 hours and made about $150. Not awful. The flight finally takes off at 11:30 and we get into Vegas at about 1:30am; I call Scotty, and he/JP/Jay (scottie_g)/Biggle are at the MGM and about to head back, so I take the shuttle to Bellagio and walk over to the Jockey Club. Apparently Scotty/JP/Jay all had crappy nights at their rock garden NL games, but Biggle just tore up $3/$6 limit and made 60 bets ($360!!! ZOMG!!). Psycho. We sleep.

Day 2

We eat breakfast/lunch at about noon at Caesar's Palace, and walk over to the Venetian. Me and Jay sign up for comp cards (which give back $3/hour, nice deal), Scotty/JP/Biggle are too lazy to do so yet; this will bite them in the ass later.

Me and JP get on the same $1/$2 NL table, while Scotty and Jay are at the other. JP's in seat 1, I'm in seat 3. Hands:

I start off playing a couple hands pretty shitty. First, AcQc in BB. A lady that seems pretty TAG (surprisingly) open-raises to $10 in CO or CO-1. Folded to me, I call in BB. Flop Q-5-2 with two diamonds. I check-call $20. Turn is a blank (offsuit 8? sure why not), I check-call $40. River is an offsuit 2, I check, she pushes putting me all in for $125 more. I fold. I'm not really sure how I should have played that better; block river? Check/raise flop and keep betting? Bet out flop? Regardless, I hate the way I played it.

AKs in MP. A couple limpers, including UTG who hasn't been at the table long but has been splashing around a little bit. I raise to $15, two people call. Flop is As Qd Ts (I don't have spades obviously). UTG bets out $45, approximately the size of the pot. I glance at the old dude to my left, and he looked like he was gonna fold when action got to him, so I called. Turn is 3s. UTG bets out $45 again; I don't think he has a flush. I push all-in; I don't think he has a set, he might have two pair, but the flush card might scare him and I still have gutshot outs plus two pair outs. He pretty much insta-calls the $90 more or whatever to him, river is a brick, he shows QTo and it's good. $15 preflop? Niiiice.

Some hands I played better: QQ in MP; I raise it up to $12, calling station-ish lady calls in LP, someone else calls too. She seems to call down with any piece and almost never raises (she check-called a rivered baby flush once). Flop 3-4-5 with two diamonds. I bet out $25, station lady calls, other caller folds. Turn is 8s; I bet out $60, she thinks and folds.

QQ again, in LP. I raise to $12 or $15 or whatever depending on how many people limped, calling station lady calls again. Flop J-T-8 two clubs. She checks, I bet my standard $25, she calls. Turn is a brick, she check-calls $55. River is an offsuit 8, she checks; I think about her range, and I think I'm definitely ahead. She honestly might c/c trips here but she's more likely to have something like a jack that she'd probably call a bet with, so I bet $50. She thinks for a sec and folds.

AK somewhere, I make it $15 preflop, some old guy that hasn't been playing well calls. Flop is A-T-x, I bet $20 or so, the guy calls with only $40 left. Turn is a blank, I put him in, he thinks and calls with KT and bricks the river.

I get aces twice; both times I raise it up, get called in one or two places, and everyone folds the flop.

I don't remember many other hands; we played for about 6 hours, and then took a break for dinner. I had $400 in my stack, but I was down about $300 from the AQ/AK hands plus blinds and stuff so I was still down $100 on the day. Me and Jay had comp cards so we went to the 'nice' food court (they had a couple upscale-looking deli and grill-type places) and got some pretty good burgers and fries for free, while everyone else that didn't get comped $18 had to pay for their food. Afterwards we head back to the tables; me, Jay, and JP are all at the same table that me and JP were at before (a few of the same people were still there) while Scotty sat at a different table. More hands:

I limp 9s8s in LP behind a couple limpers, flop is 7s6x2x. Checked to me, I bet $10, one guy thinks and calls. Turn is Qs; he checks, I bet $20. I'm not sure if this was the greatest play; if he calls then the river is kinda awkward if I brick, and getting check-raised off a 15 out draw would be a disaster. But fortunately, he folded.

I limp a bunch of pocket pairs; I hit zero sets on the day. ZERO! Rigged.

Eventually I decide that our table is too tight (there was like maybe one visibly bad player at the whole table, and a couple others that had some exploitable tendencies but weren't downright awful) so I move over to Scotty's table, which he said was good. Behind my new table were two guys playing $25/$50 NL heads up; one was apparently an amateur, and the other seemed pretty drunk. The amateur was just getting run over with aggression but doubled up when his Q9 turned two pair against AA; after that they increased the stakes to $50/$100 and the amateur busted the other guy when he shoved with A9 on a ATx flop and got called by T4. Pretty funny.

My second hand at the new table I get AK, raise it up, flop top pair, and take it down on the flop. That's just about the only hand I won at that table. I played one other interesting one though:

Good aggressive thinking player that's been splashing around a bit (raising blind, straddling, etc.) opens for $10 in EP. I call in CO with 6s5s. Two more people call. Flop is Qc 7c 4d giving me an OESD. Checked to him, he bets $15, I call, everyone else folds. I plan on representing a flush draw if a club comes; turn is Kc. He bets $20, I think for a moment and raise to $60. He thinks for a little bet and says "so it's $40 more, and you're playing $110 behind?" and I said "yeah, roughly." He called. Turn is an offsuit T. He thinks for a minute or so and checks. I start thinking about whether to bluff at the pot; I have $110 left, and there's about $190 in the pot. He starts talking though and says "I have the best hand, I'm gonna call you. A king is no good. KQ is no good. 77 is no good. KK beats me though...I think I've narrowed down my hand range a bit." So apparently he has a set, and I doubt that I can blow him off it even though I've been representing a flush. I check behind, he turns over QQ, and I muck my six high. At least I didn't have to show it. I really thought I could get away with making a move there because I'd been pretty much folding every hand for the last few orbits, and I probably would have gotten away with it if I didn't run into a set. Anyway, we leave at about 3am; I'm down $300 on the day, everyone else just killed the games. Scotty was up $1400 (JESUS CHRIST), JP was probably up...$400? Jay was up $600 or so. Those numbers could be way off, but basically I was the only one losing. :( Biggle made $60 at $3/$6.

Day 3

(I'm now writing all this in the airport terminal, so days 3/4 might be a little hazy; rather than start every sentence with "I think I remember", just assume that goes everywhere")

Scotty, Biggle, and JP went to the Aladdin buffet; me and Jay went to the Venetian to eat for free again. This time I got a tuna salad sandwich which I wasn't that impressed with, but whatever. Jay wanted to check out the Wynn, so we headed over there to play the $1/$3 NL game. The room is pretty nice, long wait though. We finally sit down at a new table; Jay's in seat 2, I'm in seat 3, Scotty's in seat 4, JP's in seat 6. It doesn't take long to figure out that seat 7 (young Canadian guy) is a pretty good TAG, seat 8 is a decent aggressive player that splashes around a lot. Seat 9 is a donk (I actually don't remember the original seat 9, but I swear that every single player in seat 9 throughout the night sucked) and seat 1 had a clue but was too loose. The game used these goofy $3 chips which made betting a massive headache; when you're used to betting with $5 chips and all of a sudden a stack becomes worth $60 instead of $100, it just messes up your thinking a bit.

KK in MP. I raise to $15 or so, LAGgy seat 9 calls on the button. Flop A-A-J two spades (I have the Ks). I bet out $24, dude reraises to $84, I fold. I think that was a bad move; it's not very likely he flopped trip aces, and if he did he would probably flat call the flop rather than try to scare me out with a worse hand. I think I folded the best hand there.

AA in MP. I was playing pretty tight at that point. Seat 9 is UTG and raises to $12; seat 1 re-raises to $24. Due to my tight imgae, I figured that if I 3bet I might as well have turned my hand face up, so I flat called. Seat 9 calls as well. Flop is KKQ. YUCK. Seat 9 checks, seat 1 bets $24, I call hoping he'll give up on the turn with AQ/JJ, seat 9 folds. Turn is a blank, seat 1 bets $60, I say "if you have jacks, nice bluff" and fold. He shows me QQ for a flopped full house. Great, I can't flop a fucking set to save my life but I can get aces cracked with one.

Scotty bustoed somewhere around this point with AA; some seat 9 donk flopped two pair with K9 on a K95 flop. He checked, seat 1 bet, Scotty raised, and seat 9 3-bet big; I think Scotty should have folded there, but he pushed all in pretty fast and got called. Eventually he decided he didn't like the game (which is probably good thinking since there were very few bad players at the table) and went over to the Venetian.

KQo in LP. A limper or two, Jay raises to $12, I call because I know he's raising a lot of trashy hands there. 3-betting there wouldn't be a bad idea, but I decided I'd rather play hands against the limpers than just isolate and likely steal Jay's raise. Flop is Q-4-2, two clubs. The good TAG in seat 8 bets out $24 or so, folded to me, I call. Turn is the 8 of spades; he bets out $60. I start wishing that I had raised the flop; he might have a flush draw, but if not I think he has KQ at worst. I fold. After we all cashed out later I asked him what he had, he said KQ, so we were splitting. He was a cool guy; he noticed that we were good players too, and we told him to check out the Venetian and he came and found us there later and we talked a bit.

Anyway, I basically couldn't win a hand at the Wynn and cashed out about -$250 on the session. -$550 or so on the trip so far. Ouch.

We eat dinner at the Wynn and then most of us head back to the Venetian to play. Jay stays at the Wynn after getting a new table. Our original table broke when I got up for dinner; it was just a god-awful table though, the players that eventulaly landed in seats 4 and 5 when Scotty and the original player in seat 5 left (he was somewhat good too) were complete and utter old nits, and I started stealing their blinds with any two cards when it was folded to me. I doubled one of them up when she slowplayed QQ preflop and flopped mid set against my top pair. Actually, it's quite possible that she wasn't actually slowplaying but was just convinced that anyone raising her had AA or KK, or she wanted to make sure AK didn't flop top pair against her. Jesus christ. She was short so I pretty much had to call. She later doubled up again slowplaying AA. I wanted to punch her.

Later at the Venetian, I wound up at the same table as JP; we were in seats 5 and 6. I don't remember a lot of hands from this session, probably because it was the only night I was drinking heavily. We had a good time though, and it was a fun table when all the drinks started coming.

JP had a hand where some guy in seat 4 who was a total agrodonk opened to $15 or so and JP folded. As he threw his cards in though, they got flipped up and he had TT! I of course was in total disbelief that he folded this hand, and the rest of the table was too. This turned out to be an excellent metagame play though, as JP later flopped a set with 55 on a 765 flop against a preflop raiser and stacked the raiser's AA. The raiser said "what the hell, you fold TT to him but call 55 against me?! I thought you couldn't have possibly hit that board!" The agrodonk later doubled up with some ridiculous hand (I think he probably sucked out on someone, or went all-in with some ridiculous hand like 33 and had it hold up against overs) and INSTANTLY got up from the table and left. Like, as soon as the hand was over he started stacking chips and left. JP then went to the bathroom and came back saying he saw the guy in there counting his chips on the counter. Wow.

Once I started drinking I was playing a lot more aggressively; I started raising hands like T8s etc and taking pots down with cbets. The fact that I was able to open up more and play more aggressively without being like ZOMG I JUST PUT IN $15 WITH TEN EIGHT SOOTED made me start wondering if I play better intoxicated. Take the following example: AKo in MP. I raise to $12, I think Jay called next to me (he was back from the Wynn and joined our table). Some new guy re-raises to $40 or so in LP. He probably sees me as some goofy drunk guy splashing around, and I'm only crushed if he has AA or KK; I have a lot of fold equity against smaller pairs that I'm flipping against, so I go all-in (pot-sized raise would have been to $130 or so). He folds. Normally I would probably just call preflop and check/fold a rag flop, losing a ton of value. Anyway, I think I made about $200 or $250 that session.

We head back at about 5am.

Day 4

We head to the Aladdin to try to eat lunch at their buffet, but it's closed by the time we get there at 3pm or whatever so we wander around and find a Mexican restaurant. Some of the guys wanted to play some table games, so we head back to the casino floor and JP, Scotty, and Biggle sit down at a Let It Ride table. It's a game where you put 3 bets out and get dealt 3 cards; the object is to get 10s or better. The dealer turns over 2 cards one at a time, and after the first two rounds (getting your 3 cards and the dealer turning over his first card) you can either pull back one of your bets or "let it ride" and keep your bet out there. The optimal strategy is of course to only keep the bets out when you either already have a pair of 10s or better, or when you have a flush draw or open-ended straight draw after 4 cards. There's also a "3 card bonus" bet you can make; that bet pays out on just the first three cards you're dealt. Pair is 1:1, three-card straight is something like 8:1, three-card flush 6:1, I think.

Anyway, JP was hitting 3 card bonus hands (mostly straights and flushes) like crazy while Scotty and Biggle were running kinda cold. Jay went over to play craps; he had a hot hand and had a pretty good roll for maybe 20-30 minutes. I don't understand craps at all and had no clue what was going on but everyone at the table seemed to be enjoying themselves. I decided to go back and play a little Let It Ride; I sat next to JP and got $200 in chips. My first hand I think I hit a 3 card straight and was thinking LOL THIS GAME IS EZ; I got up to about +$90 pretty quickly I think, and was slowly losing a little back. With a $5 bet, you can lose a maximum of $10 each hand playing the 3 card bonus like me and JP were (since you can pull 2 of the bets back). Eventually just for the hell of it I decide to throw $10 on the 3 card bonus, and I get my 3 cards. I turn them up to see ZOMG 7C 6C 5C THREE CARD STRAIGHT FLUSH!!! 40:1!!! $400!!! I'M RICH!!!!!11 Of course, this hand isn't worth anything at all yet (as far as my other 3 bets are concerned) so I pull the first one back, dealer's first card is a 3 so I pull my second bet back as well. Last card is a 4 though, so on top of the $400 for the three card bonus I hit a straight which paid another $25. We play for a little more, on my last hand I decide to throw $25 on the three card bonus along with my standard three bets and get dealt a pair of aces, and improve to aces up by the river; +$40. Total in Let It Ride: +$510. The only time I got my ID checked the entire trip (I'm 21) was when I cashed that out, haha. JP made about $150? at that game, Scotty blew through $200 and I think Biggle lost a little bit (but he's such a luckbox at limit games it doesn't matter).

Scotty hadn't had enough gambling yet, and was bummed about losing $200, so of course the obvious solution is to go play craps. He throws down $100 and just immediately kills the table. A couple guys crap out instantly after starting (including Scotty), until even the casino employees at the table told him "this table's no good, just go somewhere else." Scotty blew through the $100 before realizing this, however.

Jay heard the games at the Monte Carlo were pretty good so we decided to head over there. They had two $1/$2 tables going; me, Jay, and Biggle got on one table, Scotty and JP on the other. It turns out the seat I picked was the worst one; I decided to sit to the left of a couple of young guys with big stacks that looked drunk, but it didn't take long after sitting to figure out that they were pretty good and the bad players were the ones to my left (which Jay had position on). Oops. Anywyay, something like our third hand at the table Jay raises UTG to $10 or $12 or whatever. MP repops to $35; I look down at KK. I really hate 4-betting so I flat call. A third guy cold-calls in the blinds, and Jay says "raise", thinks for a second, and goes all-in. MP folds, I call because I have KK and I hate money, and the third guy calls too. I have $17 left on the flop, so I go all-in on a rag flop and the third guy calls. Jay: AA, me: KK, third guy: JJ, and MP says he folded QQ. STUPID RIGGED JOPKE BS OMG BULLSHIT!!!!! None of us hit a set. Great way to start a session. Also, "third guy" is henceforth known as "French guy" because he had a foreign accent (probably French, although I'm no expert) and he played wayyy too aggressive and loose. Raising ace-rag in the blinds, calling too much postflop, etc.

AsJx in LP. We're short-handed a little (6-7 people?) so I raise to $12 or $14 behind a couple limpers. The drunk guy to my right with a huge stack calls. Flop is Ts 6s 5s; I have the NFD with two overs. He bets out $20 or so; I calculate a pot-sized raise at about $80something so I raise to $75 hoping to take it down. He goes all-in; oops. I'm not quite getting 2:1 but my overcard outs might be good so I call. He has Qs Tx and I hit a spade on the turn to win it. And wow, he played that hand pretty ridiculously bad.

The two decent young players to my right leave and I decide to move into seat 10 (to Jay's left) to get position on the donks. My stack's at about $400/$500 so I'm about even.

AA UTG. I raise to $12, a couple people call, crazy French guy repops to $30 or so in the blinds. As much as I hate 4-betting, it would be nice to get the pot HU, and I also saw him call a large 4-bet earlier from another player so I didn't think he'd lay down. I made it $80; everyone folds to crazy French guy (and everyone probably knows exactly what I have, except him), he calls. Flop is Q-x-x, he pushes, I insta-call and flip AA. He mucks after blanks on the turn and river and says he had KQ. I'm up to $700 maybe.

AsKs in EP. I raise to $12, SB re-raises to $24. The size of his raise confused me a little bit. I think I should have 3-bet to $70 or so and folded to a re-raise; that would have made postflop a lot easier. I just called. Flop was 9-8-3 with a couple clubs. He bet $25; again, this confused me a little as it seemed a little weak for him to 3-bet preflop and lead the flop for only 1/2 pot. I called planning to raise the turn. Turn was an offsuit 7; he bet $25 again. At this point I thought he had to have a weak pair or whiffed overs; I raised to $125. He goes all-in for about $60 more to me; SHIT. Unfortunately I raised so large that I'm pretty much getting odds to call with my overs. I call. River bricks, QQ good, I muck. I should have made a much smaller raise on the turn; pricing myself in on the turn to call hsi shove was massive spewage. The factor I didn't consider is that live players tend to interpret straight bet sizes more than pot odds; if I raised to, say, $85, he probably wouldn't have thought "I'm getting great odds to call this", he probably would thought ZOMG $65 MORE TO CALL TOO MUCH MONEY!!!!1 So, my bet would have had the same fold equity without risking as much.

I was kinda pissed off that I lost a big hand like that in my last orbit; we left to eat dinner and instead of being up $300 I was only up about $90 or so. We walked to the Bellagio to look at the poker room (and Biggle was playing $4/$8 there; he left Monte Carlo shortly after our game started when he flopped top two pair against bottom ste and all the money went in), and we took a cab to the Venetian (kinda long walk) to eat for free.

While we were eating we got a call from MJ, who had just gotten in from London; he really does exist! He said he'd come up and meet us at the Venetian. When he arrived, we went to go play some $1/$2 at the poker room. I was totally card-dead.

AJs in EP. I raise to $12, MJ calls (just the guy I want to my left! He actually was limping a lot and not raising very much), kid in seat 10 calls. Flop K-T-7; I check (didn't really want to c-bet into two people out of position), it's checked around. Turn is an 8; I decide I can probably stab at it since I've picked up an OESD, so I bet $20 and everyone folds. MJ later said he had JJ.

MJ had a hand where he raised preflop with QJ and the flop came J88 with a couple clubs. MJ cbet, some old nit that called in position minraised. MJ puked all over the table (not really, but I could feel it) and folded. Later he raised AA and the flop came JJ8 with a couple clubs or something; he cbets, some guy calls and leads a Tc turn for $25. MJ folds. Guy turns over KK; another brilliant play from a $1/$2 idiot making sure all hands worse than his that might pay him off fold! I cashed out -$9 for the session.

Day 5

We head over to the Aladdin to meet up with MJ, who's just getting out of a meeting. We eat at a restaurant called "Cheeseburger" and he picks up the tab, which was very awesome of him; afterwards we head over to the roulette tables to try out MJ's expert strategy. He said that if you play three numbers, you have a 50% chance of hitting one within 8 spins. So, if you start out betting small and slowly increase your bets if you keep missing to cover your losses, then you have a good chance of hitting before you go broke. Still -EV, but the general idea is that you have to be really unlucky to go broke before you hit (and cover your losses, plus adding a little profit). Jay, Scotty, JP, and Biggle all tried the strategy as well, although they were playing $200 while MJ threw about $2000 down. High rolling at the Aladdin! We picked a bad place to do it though, since the Aladdin wheel has two zeros instead of one (which offers a lot better odds than two, obviously). I guess we were too lazy to walk somewhere else though. MJ hits one of his numbers after maybe 10 spins, and is up $500; he offers to let me go in with half of it on one bet, since he was my affiliate at Party (where I've thrown a ton of rake over the past 1.5 years; when I first mentioned that I signed up through him, he said "Really? You want me to take you to a strip club?" and I started laughing and he said "No, I'm serious, let's go!"). Jay always says "always bet on black" so I said "throw it on black", but the bastard wheel came down on red. That was the beginning of the end; MJ didn't hit another number, and Scotty/Jay/Biggle all blew through their buyins without hitting. JP was the only one to hit, so he threw half of his $160 profits on black and it landed on green. He took the remainder over to Let It Ride, where it lasted a solid 30-40 minutes before he busted.

After that, Jay said he wanted to hit up the Bellagio and try the 2/5 game. I was reluctant at first, but hey, it's just $500 and I didn't actually expect the game to have better players than 1/2. It seems like 1/2 has a lot of nitty regulars and decent young kids that don't have the bankroll to play higher; to true gamblers wanting to play poker, $200 isn't that much money to buy in with, so they play higher. This definitely proved true at the Bellagio. It took about 30 minutes to get on a table; MJ and Jay sat together, while I went to a different table. Scotty and JP went to Caesar's Palace to try the 1/2 there, and Biggle played $4/$8 as always.

AdTh in the BB; a few limpers, I check. Flop is J-x-x, all hearts. Checked around. Turn is a fourth heart, checked around again. River is the Ah putting a flush on board, I'm pretty sure I have the best hand and bet $5. I forgot I was playing $2/$5 and that was the minimum bet; I think it should have been like $10. Anyway, three people called all hoping for a chop, and my ten of hearts won it.

AQs in MP; I raise to $25 or $30, massive donkey calls OTB. He calls way too much, has gone all-in on river multiple times when checked to (hasn't gotten called). Flop is 8-4-2 with a couple diamonds; I CB, he calls. Turn is 6d, check-check, riv is Ks, this is a good card to bluff but I don't think this guy's good enough to fold if I bet. I check, he predictably goes all-in, I fold.

AK in MP, I raise to $30 behind a couple limpers, flop JTx. They check, I check behind; I think I should have CB, but playing at the higher stakes made me a little weak-tight. Turn blank, someone bets $25, I call, riv blank, he bets $50, I fold.

QQ in MP, I raise to $30 behind a limper, he calls, bets out $50 or $60 into a AJT flop, I fold.

AJo in EP, I raise to $25 because I hadn't been playing many hands lately and didn't want my image getting TOO tight. Guy to my left goes almost all-in for $45 more, huge donkey calls, I call. Flop is K77; I check, almost all-in guy bets his last $11, huge donkey calls, I call, turn Q goes check-check on the side, riv blank goes check-check, huge donk has AQ and takes it. Guy to my left flipped TT as well.

At this point I'm down about $220 on the session and getting depressed. Jay comes over and tells me to rebuy, and I know I probably should so I do.

KQ in BB, flop JT8r. Checked around, turn is a 9; beautiful card. I bet out $15, two people call. River is an ace, so I still have the nuts. SB checks, I check; I think the other player likely has a queen and will bet it. He bets $25, SB calls, I raise to $150. Other guy shoves all-in (he has me covered), SB folds, I call and his Q2 is no good. I'm up to $900something in my stack.

I move to the other side of the table to get position on the donks as well as an aggressive player that just sat down to my left. He's won a lot of pots early and quickly got a stack about the same size as mine. I get KK in MP; aggressive dude (young kid from Sweden) raises to $20 in EP, one donk caller, I raise to $100. I made a large raise to give him the worst possible odds while possibly still getting called since I knew I probably couldn't get away from it postflop, and we're deep-stacked. Everyone folded, but I still took $40 on the hand.

KQ in BB...again. Flop QT7 two spades, I bet out $10, some crazy guy raises to $35, folded to me, I call. Turn is a K. I think I probably have the best hand but am reluctant to check-raise with a lot of money behind and a lot of possible draws on board, so I check-call $60. River is a jack, putting TJQK on board. I check, he bets $100, I think for a little bit. I put him on something like two pair throughout the hand, and if he just had one pair then he only beats me if he had an A or 9 kicker to go with it. I was getting 2:1 odds or so, so I decided to call and he had 75o, so I took that pot down. That was the last big hand I played; +$400 on the session. After that we head back, and I woke up today and got on the plane back home. Ta da!

EDIT: Oh, and I only hit two sets all week out of ~40 pocket pairs (and I hit them two hands in a row after bricking on my first ~30), and I didn't get paid on either. Talk about running cold.
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(no subject) [Aug. 7th, 2006|03:48 am]
Leaving Bend in 10 hours and driving 3 hours to Portland where I'm flying to Vegas; back on Saturday. Haven't played at all (except a short live session after a stupid live donkament, made like $10) in the last two days. I'm sure I'll have a very long and very detailed trip report when I get back from LV though.
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(no subject) [Aug. 5th, 2006|12:41 am]
Wednesday:



I don't recall having any interesting hands, I think I took some retarded beats early and spent the rest of the day trying to make my money back. Weak sauce.

Thursday I went to the bar in Redmond to play some live 1/2 PL. Last week they hired new people to manage the poker room, the result of which is that instead of a bunch of old dudes there are now SMOKING HOT girls working in the poker room. It's fucking impossible to concentrate when there's a model sitting in front of you dealing, wearing regular hot clothes (no uniforms or anything). I'm still not sure if that's a good or bad change. Anyway, when I first sat down I was at a table full of drunk people, and due to the hot dealer's inexperience and general drunkenness the table was probably moving at about 10 hands per hour. No exaggeration. Furthermore, playing pot-limit was just a bad idea because the hot dealer didn't know how to calculate a pot-sized raise. With $8 in the pot preflop and a $5 bet in front of him, a dude said "pot" and the dealer had him put out $13 as his bet. Jesus christ. Eventually we switched to NL by a table vote so we wouldn't have to deal with counting the pot all the time. I played one hand (raised up JJ, c/f'ed on a 4-way Kxx flop) and decided to rack up and move to the other PL table, where a more experienced dealer was sitting.

That table got short (5- or 6-handed) pretty quickly. I raised a couple pots and took them down with c-bets; only big hand I got involved in was with JJ in MP. UTG opened to $5; I didn't have a read on him but I'd seen him involved in lots of pots so far and a guy at the table I knew said that he was playing pretty loosely and crazy. I made it $18. Folded to him, he makes it $36. Odd raise. He has $48 more behind; I decide to put the rest in given what the guy I knew said about him. Sure enough, he had 99 and my jacks held up. The table broke after that hand, so I went back to the drunken NL table. I had a good seat; drunk people to my right, tight people (all 2 of them) to my left. I played a few more big hands there:

- AQ in MP; I raise to $12 or so, super drunk guy that barely has a clue re-raises to $22. He only has like $20 more behind so I just shove, he calls, QQ good. God damn it.
- AQ in MP again; I raise to $14 behind a couple limpers, super drunk guy and another dude call. Flop Q84 two spades, other dude bets out $20, my read is that he isn't that great but I'm a nit when I play live so I just call figuring I'll let him keep betting at it with QJ or whatever. Then super drunk guy shoves for like $36 more; first guy folds, I call, Q8 good, god damn it, every fucking time I raise he picks up a hand!!!!
- JJ UTG. I pop to $12, folded to UTG who is an awful table coach. He shoves for like $40 more, I call, he has K4o (nice one buddy) and I flop a boat to add insult to injury.
- 75s in MP. A couple limpers, I limp, flop 6-2-2 with two of my suit. Super drunk guy bets out $10, two callers to me so I call. Turn is a J giving me a flush. Checked to me, I bet $20 (for some reason I completely blanked and didn't realize there was like $50 or $60 in the pot already; of course, live donks have no concept of pot odds, so he might have folded to larger bets anyway), one guy who is kinda unpredicatly aggressive (in a "I have no clue how to play poker so I'll bet at random intervals" way) calls. River is a blank Q, he check-calls $35 and mucks to my flush.

Cashed out +$70. The guy I called a table coach was pretty funny; he looked like a 20-something frat guy, but was a MASSIVE nit when two guys sat down at the table and started playing behind the button without posting. House rules allow this, but this guy wouldn't fucking shut up about how they're not allowed to do that and he was really starting to piss off the hot inexperienced dealer. It was getting annoying listening him bitch about that, but it erupted into absolute hilarity when he lost a pot and told the winning player how badly he played the hand. He started saying shit like "I'm the only one at this table that has a clue what they're doing" and crap like that; maybe you had to be there, but it was just amazing. Finally he mentioned (probably in an attempt to cement his status as the best player at the table) that he frequents pocketfives.com. LOLOLOLOL that explains a lot.

All that happened before I moved to the other PL table; after I came back a new guy was at the table, and he made a bet with the table coach that new guy's fiancee was hotter than anyone at the table had ever dated. Table coach got STEAMED and somehow (I don't even know now, probably through the magic effects of alcohol) started arguing passionately with a girl that was sitting talking to a dealer two tables over. The whole room was in chaos, and we probably slowed down to about 5 hands per hour for a good stretch of time.

Today, I woke up early since I have to get up super early tomorrow for a live freeroll donkament at the bar, which is a $500 added tourney with $20 R+A's. It's a pretty good value, and it's fun to play live. I squeezed in a few hundred hands before dinner and broke even, and then after dinner played 8-10 tables for about 4 hours straight, setting a new personal record for hands in a day.



I had a lot of good hands, most of which you can read in the Weekend Happy Thread. Maybe tomorrow I'll dig up some hands that I specifically found interesting to talk about, but for now I should probably go to bed since I gotta get up by 9am.
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(no subject) [Aug. 2nd, 2006|03:03 am]
I was feeling kinda bummed about the mini-downswing I had at PL $1k, so I was hesitant to start playing again. I didn't start last night until about 4am at NL $50, but I kinda got into a groove and played about 1200 hands, making ~1 buyin. Would have gone for longer if it wasn't 6:30am already. Playing $50 is much more relaxing and easy for me; if I have an off-night at $100 then I get pissed off at the money I lost and am almost afraid to play poker again for fear I'll lose more, but I'm completely comfortable and confident at $50. Maybe that's why I can't win at $100? I don't really have a bad attitude while I'm at the table, but I feel crappy when I walk away from a losing session.

So anyway, I felt much better today after getting some hands in at $50 yesterday and felt motivated to play a lot of hands. I got in a good quick session before dinner which was +$150 in about...400 hands? I played 800 more hands of literally break-even poker after dinner, took a break to watch Rescue Me, then came back and went on a sick heater for like 300 hands, making about 7 buyins. Unfortunately my computer started running REALLY slowly (since Party's programmers are so talented), and I had to reboot it; I was hoping if I just sat out and killed PartyGaming.exe they would think I disconnected and hold my seats (pretty good tables and at some of them I was like 3 buyins deep against retards), but once I got back I wasn't at any tables anymore :( That, however, was when I glanced at my account balance and was like "WTF, I'M UP $500 TODAY?!?!?!?" 10 buyins, pretty sick. Rather than take my usual line of "omfg I'm up $$$, time to quit" I decided to play some more; after I datamined for an hour or so though, I came back and the tables were much nittier than before I rebooted my comp. I played about another 400 hands or so, dropped a buyin, felt like I'd lost whatever groove I was in before so I just quit.

Pretty good day though.



Hands from today:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?437075
Just linking this one cause it has no value other than a brag hand. I checked the flop because I thought stylze_p would likely make a big bet with his obvious overpair; action ended up somewhat differently, but from the other dude's minbet it looked like he wanted to stick around, so I took a chance by flat calling the raise to keep him in the hand so I could stack both of them. It paid off.

Villain in this hand is something like 30/10/3.0 over 70 hands.

***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$50 NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, August 02, 03:23:44 ET 2006
Table Table 107954 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: BigFrancis ( $47.69 )
Seat 3: slab1 ( $91.24 )
Seat 2: yingying0207 ( $11.69 )
Seat 5: JVPalms27 ( $87.25 )
Seat 4: kolt04 ( $47.76 )
Seat 6: Hero ( $55.10 )
BigFrancis posts small blind [ $0.25 ].
yingying0207 posts big blind [ $0.50 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD slab1
CALL kolt04, $0.50
FOLD JVPalms27
RAISE Hero , $2.50
CALL BigFrancis, $2.25
FOLD yingying0207
CALL kolt04, $2

Flop: (Pot: $8) [ ]
CHECK BigFrancis
BET kolt04, $3
RAISE Hero , $10
FOLD BigFrancis
CALL kolt04, $7

Pretty standard; looks like villain is trying to see a cheap turn card, so I raise to deny him odds (although my raise was slightly wussy) and to force out SB.

Turn: (Pot: $28) [ ]
BET kolt04, $5
RAISE Hero , $25

Once again, villain makes a tiny bet that makes it look like he's trying to price himself with a draw. So, I raise, but I felt slightly uncomfortable doing so because if villain shoved, it would only be $10 more to me; I'd be committed to calling a shove, but I feel like playing the hand in this aggressive manner is leaving myself way open to getting trapped. On the flip side, failing to raise here would be suicide against a flush draw.


***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$50 NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, August 02, 05:33:09 ET 2006
Table Table 108005 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 5: JDGiants ( $137.98 )
Seat 6: PedroWaite ( $86.75 )
Seat 1: jungy121 ( $54.55 )
Seat 4: carl0_o ( $89.53 )
Seat 2: Hero ( $50.70 )
Seat 3: dlorgere ( $52.55 )
carl0_o posts small blind [ $0.25 ].
JDGiants posts big blind [ $0.50 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD PedroWaite
FOLD jungy121
RAISE Hero , $2
FOLD dlorgere
FOLD carl0_o
CALL JDGiants, $1.50

JDGiants is something like 44/12/3.2 through a decent sample. I haven't been at the table long. Given his loose stats and big stack, I assume he sucks.

Flop: (Pot: $4.25) [ ]
BET JDGiants, $4
RAISE Hero , $13
CALL JDGiants, $9

Raising to hopefully get a free card on the turn; maybe some pairs fold here, which I'm ok with too.

Turn: (Pot: $30.25) [ ]
CHECK JDGiants
ALL-IN Hero [ $35.70 ]

I've picked up 2nd pair, and now have outs to trips and two pair as well as the nut flush. I've represented a strong hand on every street, and putting my stack in the middle is only slightly more than a pot-sized bet. The problem: Villain is loose and sucks, so will he fold hands that he called the flop with?


***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$50 NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, August 02, 03:39:58 ET 2006
Table Table 109843 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 5: pwood275 ( $33.86 )
Seat 4: henryoscar ( $56.67 )
Seat 6: Chris_Grant ( $78.21 )
Seat 1: ER_man06 ( $64.86 )
Seat 2: sjapster82 ( $26.35 )
Seat 3: Hero ( $50 )
sjapster82 posts small blind [ $0.25 ].
Hero posts big blind [ $0.50 ].

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD henryoscar
CALL pwood275, $0.50
CALL Chris_Grant, $0.50
FOLD ER_man06
CALL sjapster82, $0.25
CHECK Hero

pwood is 65/20/2.2 through 150 hands, ChriS is 58/14/3.9 through 60 hands.

Flop: (Pot: $2) [ ]
CHECK sjapster82
CHECK Hero
BET pwood275, $0.50
CALL Chris_Grant, $0.50
FOLD sjapster82
CALL Hero , $0.50

Obviously not folding my flush draw to a minbet.

Turn: (Pot: $3.5) [ ]
CHECK Hero
BET pwood275, $0.50
CALL Chris_Grant, $0.50
CALL Hero , $0.50

Stiillll not folding.

River: (Pot: $5) [ ]
BET Hero , $3.50
RAISE pwood275, $7
CALL Chris_Grant, $7
Hero ???

Now things get interesting; I have the 2nd nuts and got minraised. Given pwood's minbets on each street, it's pretty obvious that he has a flush, or something odd like a horribly slowplayed set/2 pair; however, given my passive calling and sudden bet, it should be pretty obvious to him that I have a flush. Chris obviously doesn't have the nuts given his flat call, so I have to figure out how often pwood would minraise me here with worse hands and still call my 3bet with them. Thoughts?
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Ugly [Jul. 30th, 2006|11:14 pm]
I played like ass today and dropped 4 buyins in 470 hands. I was getting pretty steamed by the end of the session that I decided to just not play any more the rest of the day; I obviously wasn't playing optimally. I don't want to bitch about bad beats or anything, but hopefully posting some hands I played like complete ass will embarrass me to the point of not doing it again in the future.

Villain is something like 28/7/1.5.

***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$1000 PL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, July 30, 21:46:35 ET 2006
Table Monster #1280671 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: artyom4321 ( $299.33 )
Seat 2: SKOU2 ( $423.36 )
Seat 4: woodstockguy ( $152.09 )
Seat 5: ohyaloveit ( $132.48 )
Seat 6: BufordDalt ( $46.36 )
Seat 3: Hero ( $399 )
Hero posts small blind [ $0.50 ].
woodstockguy posts big blind [ $1 ].
Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
RAISE ohyaloveit, $3.50
FOLD BufordDalt
FOLD artyom4321
FOLD SKOU2
RAISE Hero , $11
FOLD woodstockguy
CALL ohyaloveit, $8
Flop: (Pot: $24) [ ]

BET Hero , $16
CALL ohyaloveit, $16
Turn: (Pot: $56) [ ]
BET Hero , $35
CALL ohyaloveit, $35
River: (Pot: $126) [ ]

At this point it's brutally obvious what villain has. I put him on AK throughout the entire hand, and he obviously just filled up. Regardless of the fact that he didn't have any kind of odds to hit a two-outer, there's pretty much no other hand he can hold here (he has to fold JJ/QQ by now).

CHECK Hero
BET ohyaloveit, $65
CALL Hero , $65

ohyaloveit shows [ ] a full house Kings full of twos .
Hero doesn't show [ ] two pairs, aces and kings.
ohyaloveit wins $252.50 from the main pot with a full house Kings full of twos .

Honestly, I should have quit right after this hand. I didn't make any huge mistakes during the remainder of my session, but when I make retarded calls like this I'm obviously in a state of mind where I could do so again. It also turns out that villain played a weaker hand than I thought; I made a relatively small bet on the turn because I didn't want to scare villain off of AK when I was still building the pot to be large enough to easily put him all-in on the river. My small bet, however, didn't consider the possibility of a flush draw; since I had the ace of spades, I thought the odds of him having a flush draw on the turn was really unlikely. I still think that's a relatively safe assumption, as a villain with relatively non-retarded stats is much more likely to have AK (and probably think he's calling down for a split) in this situation than to have KQ; I have no idea how villain thought his KQ could be good, and I made a note that he way overvalues top pair after this hand.


Other interesting hand:

Normally behind a 4-bet, this is a pretty easy fold, but everyone except UTG was clinically retarded. UTG+1 (who min-3bet) was something like 60/20 over a good sample, and Button was 40/20 or so over a smaller sample (this was all from datamining, I hadn't been at the table long). There were two questions on my mind that I didn't really know how to answer:
1. Is Button retarded enough to re-raise here with a worse hand than QQ in general?
2. Is Button smart enough to know that UTG+1 is an idiot, and is therefore trying to isolate with a wide range?

Also, if I do decide to play the hand, do I call or raise? 5betting is a very strong move here. Calling puts in 10% of the effective stack I have with UTG+1. Should I wait for a safe flop (it's probably likely that amidst all this raising are a lot of A's and K's) and get the money in, or get most of my stack in first (this is PL so I can pot it to about $80) and pray a.) I'm not against AA/KK b.) undercards flop?


***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$1000 PL Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 31, 00:12:23 ET 2006
Table Monster #1280874 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: dntbap ( $208.22 )
Seat 3: voutre2baby ( $218.71 )
Seat 4: BigLC75 ( $87.56 )
Seat 5: narcissia ( $18.45 )
Seat 2: DeafLeopard ( $216.36 )
Seat 6: Hero ( $232 )
narcissia posts small blind [ $0.50 ].
Hero posts big blind [ $1 ].
Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
RAISE dntbap, $3.50
RAISE DeafLeopard, $6
FOLD voutre2baby
RAISE BigLC75, $23
FOLD narcissia
Hero folds/calls/raises??
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Yo [Jul. 30th, 2006|05:17 am]
Might as well introduce myself for my first entry.

Me
My name's Bryan, I'm 21, I'm going in to my 5th year of college at Cal Poly SLO, where I major in Computer Science. Hopefully I'll nab an awesome job programming video games somewhere once I graduate; making video games is always what I've wanted to do, and I've loved programming ever since I first took a class on it my freshman year of high school. The past couple summers I've worked as a video game tester for Visual Concepts (they make the "2K Sports" series of video games), which has been pretty cool, but this summer I decided to take a break and play poker for $$ instead of work. It's an ongoing experiment. Last summer my parents moved from the SF Bay Area to Central Oregon, so I'm kicking it with them and my sister for the next couple months.

My poker career thus far
I started playing in January of 2005; I was bored on a Saturday night, and just for the hell of it threw $50 into PartyPoker. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, and barely knew what beats what; I sat at the cheapest game I could find ($0.5/$1 limit) and donked it up, chasing down any pair, any draw, etc. because I didn't know better. I played enough hands to clear a $25 bonus, at which point I was up about $20 from playing (clearly by being lucky, as I was playing like a complete moron); fortunately, I had the good sense to do some research and invest some of my profits in Winning Low Limit Hold'Em by good ol' Lee Jones. That taught me the basics, and using what I learned from that book I beat $0.5/$1 pretty well for the next few months. I invested some more money in stuff like PokerTracker and other books to try to improve my game; in April or May or so, I started playing no-limit while clearing reload bonuses to try something new (I played donkaments for the same reason, but those were always pretty frustrating even though I did manage a decent ROI). I started at full-ring NL $25. Given that there weren't any books at the time that addressed no-limit cash game play, I kinda had to try to figure it out on my own; this was pretty disastrous at first, and I usually ended up losing the same amount of money as I cleared in bonuses. Eventually though, everything started clicking and I managed to make back the money I lost.



One of my friends eventually told me about the 6-max games and how awful the players are in them; I was reluctant to try simply because I'm a tight player by nature, and felt like the blinds coming around more often would eat away at my stack more easily and I wouldn't be able to compensate. I was pretty nitty back then, and I think my overall stats at NL $25 were something like 17/5 at that point. The games were great though, and even sitting there set mining turned a pretty good profit.



On top of the money I was making playing poker, I was doing a lot of bonus clearing at various sites which amounted to a decent amount of money as well. I used it to buy a second monitor (Samsung 213T, which I absolutely adore), and got a 50" HDTV last fall with a lot of the money I made grinding NL $25 during the summer.



Eventually I moved up to NL $50, where I had similarly good results. It wasn't until September or so of last year that I started reading 2+2 a lot (I'd been spending all my time until then on TightPoker.com, which I'd found through Google and I'd found to be immensely helpful to a beginning player like myself; unlike 2+2 which kinda has a lot of assholes, everyone on the site was really cool and glad to help someone like me out with learning the game), and it wasn't until early this year or so that I'd started reading SSNL frequently. I started making specific efforts at opening up my game a little more; early on, it had a slightly detrimental effect on my winrate at NL $50, but I didn't have that huge of a sample size.

NL $50, before I moved up to $100:


In April or so of this year I started playing NL $100, first on Party and then (for rakeback purposes) Full Tilt; that didn't go quite as well. I started off pretty much breaking even, and felt like I could beat the game but I was running bad (and to my credit, I was taking a lot of 5 outers and stuff after getting my stack in with an overpair). I was starting to take poker more seriously and put a lot more hands in, but I couldn't seem to put a winning streak together. I started losing a bit on Full Tilt, and then I put a sick heater together in the beginning of June where I made 12 buyins in about 3k hands. My confidence was riding pretty high, but then once I came home for the summer I hit an awful downswing (mix of running bad and bad play) where I lost more money than I even want to think about. Not a good way to start my summer as a "pro" player.

NL $100, up until July 1:


After the final straw, a 10 buyin downswing on Full Tilt, I decided to move my money back to Party and play NL $50, which I'd already proven I could beat. I felt rakeback wasn't worth playing games I was relatively -EV in (I felt like I had an edge in those games; the players are pretty god damn awful, but the results were saying otherwise). It was going to be a frustrating grind to make the money back since it was half the stakes, but besides a small initial downswing I started doing pretty well pretty quickly. After being at NL $50 for a few thousand hands and winning at the same ~10ptbb rate I had maintained before, I felt like being at the lower level wasn't doing anything to improve my game and I jumped back up to $100. I did okay, and had a couple big swings (+$800 at $100 one day, -$450 the next, randomly took a shot at $1/$2 NL and made $550 in 250 hands), and eventually moved back to $50 because I felt like I wanted to stay away from variance for a little bit and build up a bankroll at a game I knew I could be a consistent winner in.

That lasted until the Monster tables came along; since then, I've been playing the $0.5/$1 PL tables, which have a bug or something that let you buy in for $1000 instead of $100. I've been able to stack a few morons sitting with $200+, which is the cause of the spike in the graph below.

All my play in July:


This has definitely been the best month of my career thus far, both in $$ and the amount of hands I've played. At this point I'm hoping to get my account up to $4000 or $4500 or so, until I can start taking shots at $1/$2. It feels a little weird moving up like this, but I feel like at least getting a handle for the stakes at $200 will help my $100 game a little bit; I feel like part of the reason I'm playing really well at $50 these days is that the stakes feel kinda small, so I'm not timid about making more aggressive plays. If I could train myself to feel like $100 was small stakes, then I think that would fix a lot of the problems I've been having, which tend to revolve around playing like a little girl and folding anytime someone displays aggression in a pot I've raised preflop. I think my preflop game is pretty solid; I'm pretty tight, but I steal blinds a decent amount and play an aggressive game. However, mixing steals with relatively weak-tight postflop play is a recipe for getting run over, and that's my biggest leak when I play the $100 game right now.

$1/$2 seems like the level at which I could really start making a lot of money playing poker if I put the hours in; I really like playing poker, but on top of that it would be nice to be able to use it to give myself a financial cushion, both for life in general and for when I graduate next year and have to set out on my own. So, I'm trying really hard to get to the point where I can beat higher levels than I'm currently playing; as things are, I just can't beat $100 consistently, and I'm going to have problems until I can.

Obligatory hand post
Here's a hand I played today which all of you guys are gonna look at and say "wtf, standard" or even chide me for calling the flop instead of raising when he was obviously weak; however, bluffing is something I hardly ever do, even when it's painfully obvious that villain is weak. I need to do stuff like this more often. Sadly, if villain had checked the river I might have given up and checked behind; but, his weak $15 bet was just screaming that he wanted me to raise him out of the pot. His stats were something like 28/7/1.4, so probably wouldn't even raise this against a looser player; this guy seemed tight and weak enough though that he would lay down to a decent-sized raise against his obvious blocker bet.

***** Hand History for Game (?) *****
$1000 PL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 29, 23:31:27 ET 2006

Table Monster #1280594 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: Lord_Stanly ( $772.13 )
Seat 4: steveglucky9 ( $26 )
Seat 3: shubaman ( $109.09 )
Seat 6: ragman20 ( $12.36 )
Seat 5: Hero ( $1024.04 )
Seat 1: Visco44 ( $19.30 )
Lord_Stanly posts small blind [ $0.50 ].
shubaman posts big blind [ $1 ].
Holecards:
Dealt to Hero [ ]
FOLD steveglucky9
RAISE Hero , $3.50
FOLD ragman20
FOLD Visco44
FOLD Lord_Stanly
RAISE shubaman, $5
CALL Hero , $2.50

Flop: (Pot: $12.5) [ ]
BET shubaman, $3
CALL Hero , $3

Turn: (Pot: $18.5) [ ]
CHECK shubaman
BET Hero , $14
CALL shubaman, $14

River: (Pot: $46.5) [ ]
BET shubaman, $15
RAISE Hero , $55
FOLD shubaman

Hero does not show cards.
Hero wins $113
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