Merry Christmas!

Hey, what's up everyone. Hope you're having a great holiday season. I'm having a good time in Va Beach so far. I got in Wednesday morning and finished my Christmas shopping with my brother. I played some poker on Wednesday afternoon, and despite being up 5K at one point, I disappointingly finished at -2.5K... Super Fail. On Thursday my Dad, brother, and I went shopping for a piece of jewelry for my mom to round off my Christmas shopping. I played a little poker before Christmas Eve dinner and won around 3k which was nice. I feel like if I focus and play my A game on 4 tables or so I can be quite a force.

Friday was Christmas, and I can honestly say that I was more excited to give presents than to receive them this year. I got my brother an Xbox 360, so that I have someone to play Modern Warfare 2 with (which by the way is an awesome game). I got my dad a hybrid golf club, and my mom a heart rate monitor watch as well as some earmuffs that she really wanted. My brother and I both pitched in to get out parents the PowerMat, which was probably the coolest present of the year. It is a wireless charger, where we bought different backs to our parents Blackberrys and an Ipod dock so that our parents could charge their mobile devices without having to plug them in. All they do is place them on top of the PowerMat and the charge wirelessly. Pretty cool.

As for what I got for Christmas, I got quite a bit of clothes (a pair of jeans, some dress pants, a button up shirt, a golf shirt, a tie, and a couple sweaters) as well as "Super Freakonomics", "When Genius Failed", season 2 and 3 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well as $50 in iTunes gift cards, a $100 in Visa gift cards, and $50 cash! A pretty nice Christmas. I'm excited to get back to Atlanta and exchange gifts with Kim (can't tell you what I got here yet!).

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas, and I really would like to get back on board the December heater train to finish the year off. Talk to you all later.

Sigh

Well, I got crushed today. Mostly by playing pretty badly, especially towards the end of the session. I started the day down 6K pretty quickly after an untimely bluff at 10/20. Then for the next few hours I grinded back and was up 3K at one point. Then disaster strikes for the 2nd day in a row and I find myself down $13k for the day. When you lose over 100bbs 9 different times in a day, that is just horrific. Arg. Oh well, not gonna let it affect me too much. Still have a good month going.

Here some of the hands from today.

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($5478)
BB ($12251)
UTG ($4708)
MP ($2000)
Hero (Button) ($7818)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, Q
1 fold, MP bets $80, Hero raises $220, SB raises $470, 2 folds, Hero calls $260

Flop: ($1060) 8, 6, 5 (2 players)
SB bets $670, Hero calls $670

Turn: ($2400) 9 (2 players)
SB bets $1200, Hero calls $1200

River: ($4800) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Total pot: $4800

Results:
Hero had 9, Q (two pair, nines and eights).
SB had 10, 10 (two pair, tens and eights).
Outcome: SB won $4812

Here I make possibly the worst check in the history of poker on the river. So preflop, I call his cold 4 bet with a hand that plays OK just because he made it so small and we are really deep. I flop a gutter and he makes a continuation bet. I call. I turn a pair and he bets against. Now here I think it's pretty interesting that hes firing against, because if he has AA/KK I'm not sure what he's expecting me to call with that he is ahead of. I will surely be folding QQ/JJ here a decent amount of the time. So when he double barreled I really felt he was full of it. So I call again, the river is an 8 and he tanks and checks to me. I should be shoving this river like 100% of the time because I just don't see him having a c/c range. But during the hand I leveled myself into thinking that my pair of 9s was going to be good often enough. I suck.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) ($2523)
SB ($1616)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, 7
SB bets $25, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60) 4, 6, 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $50, Hero raises $170, SB raises $320, Hero raises $2321.50, SB calls $1214.50

Turn: ($3229) J (2 players)

River: ($3229) 4 (2 players)

Total pot: $3229

Results:
SB had A, A (two pair, Aces and fours).
Hero had 10, 7 (one pair, fours).
Outcome: SB won $3231.50

Here I spew shove the flop with my gutterball and bd flushdraw because I couldn't really see all too many hands that this villain would 3 bet the flop with. Owned.

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($4135)
Hero (SB) ($4171.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, 4
Hero bets $40, BB calls $30

Flop: ($100) 7, 6, 3 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $80, BB raises $360, Hero calls $280

Turn: ($820) 3 (2 players)
BB bets $520, Hero calls $520

River: ($1860) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $1283, Hero raises $3238.50, BB calls $1919

Total pot: $8264

Results:
Hero had Q, 4 (two pair, sixes and threes).
BB had 7, 7 (full house, sevens over sixes).
Outcome: BB won $8269.50

Here is some more spew. I float the flop c/r with my gutter, bd flushdraw and overcard. I turn a flushdraw so I decide to call villains turn bet. The river pairs the 6 to put 2 pair on the board. Villain bets the river again, at which point I decided I could rep 6x a decent amount and get him to fold a lot. Unfortunately he had 77 for the nut full house. GG Me.

I probably won't be playing too much poker in the next few days, which is probably a good thing after the beat down I took today(especially the last 300 hands of todays session). I will keep you guys updated if I do as well as if anything noteworthy happens while I'm home in VB. Later.

The Jesus seat on a huge fish doesn't go exactly according to plan...

So I just got done with a session at 5/10 and 10/20 that started off pretty well, fell of a cliff, then resurfaced for a pretty good day. I started the day off playing 1 5/10 6 max table, 2 people HU at 5/10 and 1 HU at 10/20(all at 6 max tables to start games). Well all of those matches went pretty well. And I was quickly up a few buy ins.

I'm playing a pretty big fish HU on one of the 5/10 tables and another semi-reg fish asks the fish if he wants to move it up to 10/20. I tell the semi-reg fish that I'm waiting at 10/20 if he wants to play. He sits down but sits out and says we have to wait for a 3rd person before he will play(which I think is quite funny when people say this because 3 handed poker is literally the worst). So after about 10 mins of sitting, one of the biggest fish ever at FTP sits in. And obviously then the table blows up and the next thing you know the wait list is over 30 people long.

At this point all the heads up games I was playing have filled up, except one where I busted the other player and he just decided to leave. So I have 3 10/20 games going and 1 5/10 game up. About an hour or so into the session, after some biggish pots I find myself up about 10k. Wahooo. Then for the next hour nothing is going my way, I'm not winning any pots and my winning keep slipping away. I hit rock bottom at -3K for the day. Argggg. I don't even really want to keep playing, but I feel retarded leaving the Jesus seat against the huge fish at 10/20 who has by now amassed a stack of nearly 12k. So I keep grinding it out, win about 6K and finish the day up $3K after about 1500 hands.

I'll go over the big hands I played today, and I certainly made some pretty terrible mistakes in here.

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($3720)
Button ($11591.50)
Hero (SB) ($4172)
BB ($5068)
UTG ($6867)
MP ($3949)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K
1 fold, MP bets $60, 1 fold, Button calls $60, Hero raises $310, 2 folds, Button calls $260

Flop: ($720) 9, 7, 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $480, Button calls $480

Turn: ($1680) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $900, Button calls $900

River: ($3480) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $2469, Button calls $2469

Total pot: $8418

Results:
Button didn't show
Hero had K, K (two pair, Kings and sevens).
Outcome: Hero won $8433

This hand happened pretty early in the session against the big fish, he called me down with 88 :)

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($4000)
CO ($8605.50)
Hero (Button) ($5691)
SB ($4480)
BB ($6501)
UTG ($3994)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7, 10
2 folds, CO bets $88, Hero raises $240, 2 folds, CO calls $152

Flop: ($510) 8, 10, 4 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $360, CO calls $360

Turn: ($1230) 8 (2 players)
CO bets $740, Hero calls $740

River: ($2710) 2 (2 players)
CO bets $2300, Hero calls $2300

Total pot: $7310

Results:
Hero had 7, 10 (two pair, tens and eights).
CO had A, 8 (three of a kind, eights).
Outcome: CO won $7325

Here is a pretty terrible river call, but this was one of my first encounters against the fish and I thought there was a decent chance he was doing this with some sort of busted draw.

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($4502)
MP ($6878)
CO ($4158)
Hero (Button) ($5150)
SB ($4429)
BB ($7924)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, 10
UTG bets $70, 2 folds, Hero calls $70, 2 folds

Flop: ($170) 5, A, Q (2 players)
UTG bets $120, Hero calls $120

Turn: ($410) Q (2 players)
UTG bets $280, Hero raises $800, UTG calls $520

River: ($2010) 7 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1600, UTG calls $1600

Total pot: $5210

Results:
Hero had J, 10 (one pair, Queens).
UTG had Q, K (three of a kind, Queens).
Outcome: UTG won $5225

And here I make a pretty monumental mistake on the river against a tighish reg. I think my turn play is pretty good, as I think he will be bet folding hands like AK/AJ there on the turn quite a bit. But once he calls the turn I should pretty much just give up, however as my timer was running down I just threw in a desperation bluff since the diamond fd got there and got called by KQ after the villain thought for a little bit. Terrible.

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($3972)
SB ($8469.50)
Hero (BB) ($5917)
UTG ($2000)
MP ($8594)
CO ($4098)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, J
UTG bets $60, 3 folds, SB calls $50,Hero raises $260, UTG calls $220, SB calls $220

Flop: ($840) 5, Q, J (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $620, 1 fold, SB calls $620

Turn: ($2080) 2 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1600, SB calls $1600

River: ($5280) 8 (2 players)
SB bets $3360, Hero folds

Total pot: $5280

Results:
SB didn't show
Outcome: SB won $8655

I died a little bit on the river here in this hand. I wouldn't normally squeeze JJ here given positions, but the UTG opener was pretty laggy and the SB was a fish. I flop middle set and the fish c/c's 2 streets on a pretty wet board. The river completes a ton of draws and he jams into me. So taking into account that every other time he had taken the initiative and led into me I think its a pretty easy fold.

Well that's all I got for now. Bout to head to the gym for a quick workout, and then I have a couple of lessons to give this afternoon. Good luck at the tables everyone.