Makin' Moves

Puppy and CR

2010-04-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

So last Saturday, my wife and I went and picked up our new puppy. We had gone to petsmart the weekend before to look at puppies because we were interested in saving a dog rather than purchasing one from a breeder. We found a dog there that we liked, but after some more looking my wife found one she liked even more. His name is Tucker Wynn, and he is a lab/retriever mix. He's quite the handful, but he is learning very quickly what is right and wrong.

As for poker, any of you who are CardRunners members may have seen on their website today that I will be one of their new instructors. I'm looking forward to it very much, as I enjoy coaching no matter if it's poker or golf. My first video will come out in a couple of weeks, when that happens I may move the blog over to the CR site but I'm not 100% sure yet. The only thing I know so far about the video is that it will be me 4 tabling 1/2 on FTP.

As far as actually playing poker this month, its pretty depressing despite being up $13k at 2/4. I'm down 12 buy ins at 3/6 and spewed 6 buy ins off at 5/10 on the 1st day of the month. Oh well, the 5/10 session was atrocious and I really just try to hard when I'm playing there. The 3/6 results... meh just not winning many hands. I've been playing quite well the last few days tho and I'll post some of the more fun/interesting hands.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($606.50)

MP ($530)

CO ($400)

Button ($144)

Hero (SB) ($551.50)

BB ($400)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K♠, K♣

1 fold, MP bets $12, 2 folds, Hero calls $10, BB raises $44, MP raises $96, Hero raises $539.50 (All-In), BB calls $352 (All-In), MP calls $422 (All-In)

Flop: ($1460) 4♦, 6♣, 10♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: ($1460) 3♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: ($1460) 9♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: $1460

Results:

Hero had K♠, K♣ (one pair, Kings).

BB had A♥, K♥ (high card, Ace).

MP had J♥, J♦ (one pair, Jacks).

Outcome: Hero won $1478.50

Why you never fold KK pre. But seriously. The opener is a TAG regular who probably isn't going to be playing back at me a lot, and probably not expecting me to play back at him super light. Since were 125bbs deep I decided to just flat, also the BB was squeeze happy from what I've seen from him so far so I decided to let him do his thing. He obliges and now the original opener 4 bets. His range here is probably JJ+/AK and with all the money in the middle I just decide to ship. I get called very quickly by both players and I'm pleasantly surprised to see I'm in the lead. Sick hold imo.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (4 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1457.15)

Hero (UTG) ($805.50)

Button ($421.15)

SB ($763.65)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 4♣, 4♦

Hero bets $16, 2 folds, BB raises $60, Hero calls $48

Flop: ($130) 7♦, 8♠, 9♦ (2 players)

BB bets $66, Hero raises $160, BB calls $94

Turn: ($450) 4♠ (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $580.75, BB calls $580.75

River: ($1611.50) 8♣ (2 players)

Total pot: $1611.50

Results:

BB had K♠, 9♠ (two pair, nines and eights).

Hero had 4♣, 4♦ (full house, fours over eights).

Outcome: Hero won $1612.50

Bink! Villain in this hand likes to 3 bet a decent amount, I flat obviously with 44 because we are deep. The flop comes very connected and drawy. I decide to bluff raise here, my hand is not ideal for it but combine the fact that this guy 3 bets quite a bit, and the board is very scary it's going to be tough for him to continue with many hands because he will be oop on a scary board with a lot of money behind. I bink the turn obviously, and I just decide to overbet jam and rep a draw, he calls relatively quickly with K9 and I have him drawing dead in the 400bb pot. One thing of note is that I would probably give up bluffing the turn on bricks.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($714.50)

Button ($394.30)

Hero (SB) ($839.30)

BB ($407.60)

UTG ($412.90)

MP ($630)

Preflop: Hero is SB with J♦, A♠

2 folds, CO bets $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: ($28) 5♠, 8♦, 10♠ (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $20, Hero raises $70, CO calls $50

Turn: ($168) J♣ (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $130, Hero calls $130

River: ($428) 7♠ (2 players)

Hero bets $627.30 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $428

Results:

Hero had J♦, A♠ (one pair, Jacks).

Outcome: Hero won $1052.30

Ok this is probably the most interesting hand that I've played recently. Villain is a reg, who coolers me non-stop. I flat his open pre, don't really like 3 betting this hand because of how deep we are. The flop is pretty raggedy, he cbets and I decide to c/r with 2 over, the back door nutflush draw, and some back door straight draw. Villain flats. I turn a J, and I decide to c/c. The river comes the 7s, and I just decide to turn my hand into a bluff and shove. I'm trying to rep something like 8x, Jx of spades and I think it's going to be pretty tough for him to call me with hands like sets, two pairs, and overpairs. I don't think many villains are going to be putting me on a bluff when I take this line, and I think this is going to be more +EV than c/c'ing(puke) or c/f'ing.

A little more on the HH I posted last time

2010-04-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

So I've been doing a ton of thinking and number crunching since I saw Nick's comment on my last blog which made me itch my head a little bit. Here is the comment

Nick said...

As a side note, just because you only have 45% equity against his calling range doesn't mean shoving isn't the best option. If you have 26% equity against his shoving range if you check, shoving here will be better than c/f even if you're only ahead 33% when called.

Ok, so at first I was confused because I was pretty sure you needed to have more than 50% equity on the river for value betting to be correct. After doing some quick numbers it looked like Nick was correct but I was still very skeptical. I've been out running errands all day and every so often I would think about this at it was driving me pretty crazy, damn you Nick... ha just kidding, thanks for the comment that really made me think. Also thanks to TJ for your comment a definitely look back through your HH's every so often to look for spots like this.

After doing some more work, what I've realized is that Nick is correct in some scenarios where shoving is going to be better than c/f'ing even when we have less than 50% equity. But those situations come up when you are afraid of c/f'ing the best hand some of the time which I'm not really afraid of in this spot, although admittedly I'm not 100% sure what Padirk will do with the 6 combos of AK he gets to the river with if I check.

Anyway here is what I did. I basically broke down villains range for getting to the river. He gets to the river by my best estimation with 26 combos.

6 combos of AK

3 combos of KQs

3 combos of KK

6 combos of QQ

3 combos of JJ

3 combos of TT

and 2 combos of KJs.

So we are ahead of 15 of those combos and lose to 11 of them. Lets assume he calls with all the hands we beat except QQ. So then we get 6 combos of folds, 9 combos of called by worse, and 11 combos of called by better. This is assuming about as wide of a calling range as we can give him(probably too wide for this particular player)

EV= ((6/26)*570) + ((9/26)*570+397) + ((11/26)*-397) = $298

Ok, and then the EV of checking assuming that he checks back all worse(never bluffs/never value bets worse) is

EV= ((15/26)*570) = $329

This is about as simple as we can make this calculation, so as you can see c/f'ing is about $29 better than shoving. And both are way better than c/c'ing. If you are wondering what the EV of c/c'ing is with our above assumptions is

EV= ((15/26)*570) + ((11/26)*-397) = $161.

The really tricky part of all of this is figuring out what he's going to do realistically with those 26 combos on the river. My best guess is that he folds all of his QQ, KQs and maybe hero folds 2 of the 6 combos of AK. So now we are at 11 combos that fold to our shove, 4 that call and lose, and still the 11 that call and win.

EV= ((11/26)*570) + ((4/26)*570+397) + ((11/26)*-397) = $222

Now we have to guesstimate what he is going to do with AK when we check. This is the most important part of everything because this will decide whether to shove, c/f, or even (gasp!) c/c.

My best guess is that he shoves at most 1/2 or 3 of the AK combos he gets to the river with, and never turns a hand into a bluff. So now the EV of c/f'ing the river is

EV= ((12/26)*570) = $263

And even with him shoving 3 combos of AK that we beat c/c'ing the river is

EV= ((12/26)*570) + ((11/26)*-397) + ((3/26)*570 + 397) = $207.

So in general it appears that check/folding the river is always going to be the best play vs this player given the above tendencies. With all of my number crunching I don't think I ran into a scenario where shoving was the most + EV play however. So I'm still not sure what Nick is referring to. Maybe Nick you could post a scenario? My brain is a bit too fried to go through the scenario you described above with regards to the 26% and 33% equity.

The only scenario I've come up with where shoving is better than c/c'ing is when c/c'ing then becomes the best option. And that comes up when I think the player will hero fold 2 of his combos of AK when I shove into him, but valueshove the 6 of his combos of AK when checked too.

Those EV's look like this

Shove = ((11/26)*(570))+((4/26)*(570+397))+((11/26)*(-397)) = $222

C/F = ((9/26)*(570)) = $197

C/C = ((12/26)*570)+((11/26)*-397)+((4/26)*(570+397)) = $253

Ok. phewwwwwwwwwww that was a lot of work. I'm out. If anyone finds and discrepancies or problems leave a comment. Later.

Tax Season :(

2010-04-14T15:10:00.001-07:00

So, I'm wrapping up my taxes and it is pretty depressing. Last year sucked because I didn't really anticipate the upcoming tax deadline, and this year is much the same even though I know I should have been preparing and setting aside money well in advance. Oh well. Hopefully I will learn this time.

Anyway, April is going pretty well considering I lost $6k on the first day spewing at 5/10. Since then I have played strictly 2/4 and 3/6 and also tried to cut down on the number of tables I'm playing. I think I would rather sacrifice a small %(if any) of my hourly for a slightly higher winrate(resulting generally in less variance which is always nice).

I'm going to try and keep my sessions to 6 tables and a maximum of 8 if the games are really good. I had been trying to play 8-10 at all times and that just doesn't work as well for me. With 6 I am very confident. It's when I get to 8 or 10 tables and something goes wrong when I generally get into trouble. What seems to happen a lot is something bad happens or I make a mistake, and then simultaneously I have another difficult decision/thin spot and what happened 3 seconds ago affects my decision making skills. With 6 tables this scenario is a bit less likely to happen and will probably result in less spew from me.

An interesting HH I played today....

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($2014.90)

UTG ($729)

MP ($679.05)

CO ($1386.15)

Button ($669.05)

Hero (SB) ($1310)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A♥, A♠

1 fold, MP bets $21, 2 folds, Hero raises $69, 1 fold, MP calls $51

Flop: ($150) K♣, 7♥, 5♦ (2 players)

Hero bets $70, MP calls $70

Turn: ($290) 10♥ (2 players)

Hero bets $140, MP calls $140

River: ($570) J♠ (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $397.05 (All-In), Hero folds

Total pot: $570

Ok so villain in this hand is a 22/14 reg who is a little tighter than most post flop. So he opens in MP and I 3 bet him from the blinds. The flop is very dry and I just make a standard cbet of about 1/2 ish pot. The turn is meh, and again I bet 1/2ish pot planning to shove most rivers. However the river is a J, which in my eyes is a pretty bad river for me. KJs and JJ both get there.

So now I'm like, crap. Here I that shoving was just not going to be +EV for me. If I were to give villain a range for getting to the river it would look something like, KK, QQ, TT, JJ, KJs, KQs, AK. Against that particular range(which we actually want to look at his calling range, so I think we can remove QQ from his calling range because he probably folds that a significant portion of the time) I have 45% equity which is not enough for me to profitably value bet the river, and this is assuming he calls me with every single combo of AK and KQ that he gets to the river with which I'm not even sure is the case because I think the J can act as a bit of a scare card for him as there are not a lot of hands that I'm shoving that he beats anymore.

Now some might be wondering well how come you don't c/c the river? In my opinion, if I check to the villain on this river he is going to play pretty straightforwardly and not turn a lot of hands into bluffs. I don't think he's going to shove KQ, or QQ and quite possibly not all of the combos of AK. So lets just say he only shoves AK 3/4ths of the time. The flop is also so dry, that is really really difficult for him to show up with air here.

Against his river shoving range of all the hands that beat us, and some of the AK combos we only have 31% equity. Now its $397 for us to call and the pot is $570 + his $397 all in. So $397/($570+397+397) = 29%. So we need 29% equity to make a break even call but we only have 26% equity against his range. Therefore I think c/f is the best play in this scenario. Obviously this would change if the flop texture was a little more conducive to him have possibly more hands that he could shove as a bluff.

Also just to show how big of a difference that river J has vs a blank, if you change the Js to the 3s and give him the same range of getting to the river I have like 75% equity. I also think if the river is a 3s it makes him a little bit more likely to call my shove with KQ, and maybe even QQ/JJ some of the time which would make it an easy shove. I think a lot of people would just shove it in here and hope for the best, but I think through some solid analysis and reasons to believe your opponent will play certain hands in their range a particular way you can avoid making these medium mistakes that will go a long way to improving your results.

Later.

Tiger Tiger Tiger

2010-04-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

It's finally here. He's finally back. LETS GO TIGERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

My prediction.... gonna go bold

Tiger by 4 finishing at (EDITED Thursday morning) -8

As for poker, blah. I started off the month not playing that great, spewed 6 buy ins at 5/10 on the first of the month. Grinded hard all week to finally get in the green during my latest session. I waste all of my run good at 2/4.

Finally, a Desk! Pics and March Recap.

2010-04-01T09:22:00.001-07:00

Well I finally got my desk today, which is exciting because I no longer have to 6 table on my laptop while sitting on my couch. I ordered it almost 3 weeks ago and after some problems, it was finally delivered today. Weeee.

Here’s a pic of my setup.

Now the cool thing about this desk is that I can raise and lower it at the touch of a button. I think its range is anywhere from 24” to 52” off the ground, which is awesome because sometimes I get tired of sitting so now I can stand and play poker if I’d like.

Sitting mode

Standing mode

Pretty awesome if you ask me. Now I was waiting for the desk so I could also put up pictures of the new condo my wife and I just moved into. Its a pretty spacious 1600 sq. ft, 2 bedroom, 2 bath. We bought all new furniture just before we got married and have been receiving bits and pieces of it every week since we got back from the honeymoon. The desk was the last piece of the puzzle, so here goes.

Right when you walk in, look to the left and you get the living room.

Living room, shot from kitchen. The left side of this picture is where you enter the condo.

To the right as you walk in is the master bedroom.

Master bedroom, different angle.

Master bath, there is a huge walk in closet behind that door.

Master bath, garden tub and walk in shower. Toilet is across from the shower behind a corner.

A look at the kitchen, which is just to the right of the living room as you walk in. Breakfast area to the left.

Kitchen again

My office

Guest bathroom

Guest bedroom, converted into golf room.

Obligatory Lil’ Wayne poster. Picture taken by my wife at a concert we went to.

As for poker. March started off sooooooooooo bad. I just look at this graph and laugh because for the first 30K+ hands I was breakeven in showdown winnings. Wow was I running bad. Coming back from the wedding/honeymoon break and being a bit rusty probably didn’t help either. It took about a week to knock off the rust and the runbad, and then I think around the 19th things just took off. All in all, can’t be to unhappy. I did eclipse the $10k mark if I include rakeback, and I’m proud of how I was able to bounce back during the last 1/3rd of the month.

Well that’s all I got for now. Run good at life everyone.

Links

2010-03-30T16:11:00.001-07:00

Check out some of the links I added on the right of the blog.

Suited Aces Poker, a blog about 2 guys who play Mid-High Stakes NLHE on FTP and Stars.

DoubleFlyPoker. A midstakes FR player who I believe is making the transition back to 6 max.

Poker Playing Pitcher. A 6 max/FR reg who plays midstakes on FTP.

All of them seem to update their blogs pretty regularly and they all seem like good players/good guys in general.

Pretty Sick Pic

2010-03-26T09:31:00.001-07:00

So we got a little preview of what are wedding pictures are going to look like because each of the photographers posted a few pictures on their blogs. Here are the links

http://www.carrietabbblog.com/

If you stop by Carrie's blog, please leave a comment because there could be some extra goodies for us if we get enough comments.

http://blog.davidshirkphotography.com/

As for poker, I finally hit the green for the month. It was a very rough start, especially the week following the honeymoon. Full Tilt just wasn't giving me any breaks and that definitely started to wear on me as I found myself playing a decent amount of my B and C game rather than my A game.

One thing I know that seems to help me when I'm running bad, is to not feel like I need to grind all my losses back as quickly as possible. That's when I get myself in trouble, sitting playing 5,000 hand sessions trying to eek out every ounce of value I can. What I will do is after I've been running bad for a bit I will have a few days where I just try to "book a win". Everyone has heard of a "stop-loss" but I like to impart a "stop-win" so that I quit playing once I've won X amount of money. For me I tend to stop after winning 2-3 buy ins. During a majority of my sessions there will be a time when I am up that amount, so whenever I reach that number I just quit, I don't care if I win a stack on each of the first 3 hands I played that day, I'm done. It helps me build up some confidence and after a few days I seem to have a lot of my confidence back and I'm ready to really start grinding again.

Things started to turn around last Wednesday and since then I've been on quite the heater, winning 12 buy-ins at 2/4 and 16 buy-ins at 3/6. Here are a few of the more interesting hands since last Wednesday.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (UTG) ($839.25)

MP ($1418.90)

Button ($420.75)

SB ($803.50)

BB ($929.85)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q♥, Q♣

Hero bets $16, 3 folds, BB raises $56, Hero calls $44

Flop: ($122) 4♦, 8♠, 10♥ (2 players)

BB bets $88, Hero calls $88

Turn: ($298) J♠ (2 players)

BB bets $196, Hero calls $196

River: ($690) 3♥ (2 players)

BB bets $585.10, Hero calls $494.50

Total pot: $1679

Results:

BB had K♠, A♠ (high card, Ace).

Hero had Q♥, Q♣ (one pair, Queens).

Outcome: Hero won $1679.75

Alright, the villain in this hand is a pretty good 2/4-3/6 regular that I tangle with quite often. Preflop is obviously pretty standard, no reason for me to 4 bet here bc I'm not too happy to get in QQ from UTG vs a BB 3 bet 200bbs deep. So we see a flop, pretty good flop for me and he makes a cbet. I call and I get what I would say is a pretty decent turn card for me.

First off that card hits my range much harder than it hits his range. If I had to give villain a range for preflop, it would be AA-QQ, AK, and AQs for value and then a decent amount of suited connectors and whatnot. So as far as his range is concerned, he shouldn't be all that excited about the board texture, especially bc I have every set in my range, as well as some 2 pair combos, and pair+draws that aren't going to give up too easily.

So when that turn hits and he bets, my first thought is I'm winning this pot unless he hit something screwy like J8s, or a straight with 97s. I felt like this villain would probably bet the turn with AA/KK the majority of the time, and then he would c/f them on the river on enough cards for me to be able to turn my QQ into a bluff. I also didn't think this villain would be going for 3 streets of value with AA/KK because like I said he's pretty good/thinking and he's probably not expecting to be ahead of my river calling range with those hands so it doesn't make any sense to shove them.

The river comes a complete brick and now he shoves. Ok, I hit the time button and go back through my thought process. Would he value bet AA/KK here?... not with these positions and this board texture. Does he 3 bet 88-JJ in this spot pf?... not in my experience. The J is a pretty good card on the turn for him to continue with AK/AQ, or maybe a hand like 67s, 56s, 89s. So I get down to, his value range is razor thin, maybe J8s and 97s. I don't think this villain 3 bets JTs, or pocket 4s or something. I'm not even sure he would jam T8s if he did have it. So I make the call and he has AKs, for the turned FD + gutterball that bricked.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($800)

BB ($934.25)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A♣, A♠

Hero bets $8, BB calls $6

Flop: ($20) 4♥, J♠, Q♠ (2 players)

BB bets $16, Hero raises $42, BB calls $26

Turn: ($104) 6♣ (2 players)

BB bets $76, Hero raises $205, BB calls $129

River: ($514) J♦ (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $542.25, BB calls $542.25

Total pot: $1598.50

Results:

Hero had A♣, A♠ (two pair, Aces and Jacks).

BB didn't show

Outcome: Hero won $1599.50

Here is a fairly interesting HU hand. I'm starting a table with this villain, I haven't played a ton with him but I've seen him a round a bit. A few hands before this he donk/called KxJd on a J 8 9 dd flop 200bb's deep against me. So I knew he's capable of donking marginal hands and then not really wanting to fold them too much.

So here I raise AA, he flats and donks the flop. I decide to raise, if I get 3 bet here I'm not going to be loving life, but with the As I'm going to be calling and seeing what he does on the turn. Luckily for me he doesn't raise, and rather he just flats. So I put him on some sort of Qx hand.

The turn is a brick, and to my surprise the villain donks into me again. Now this is pretty weird, but I have the feeling that he has a very weak hand that he is not really looking to fold. He probably would have bet/3 bet 2 pair or better on the flop, so again I go for a value raise. I think I was raise/folding the turn because I didn't ever expect him to bet/3bet me on the turn as a bluff or semibluff, so if he did bet/3bet I would pretty comfortably give him JJ, 44, QJ and tell him well played as I fold. Again however he just calls.

The river is a J. Fine card for me as I would say that this villain absolutely never ever ever has a J considering how he has played the hand up to this point. We have about a pot sized bet left, so I just elect to jam. Villain times down for a bit and much to my surprise calls me down with 86s. His play is very strange, and definitely something that I took note of.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($400)

UTG ($998.20)

MP ($809.75)

Hero (CO) ($977.95)

Button ($1143.25)

SB ($400)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 9♣, 9♦

UTG bets $8, 1 fold, Hero calls $8, Button calls $8, SB calls $6, 1 fold

Flop: ($36) 7♦, 9♠, 4♦ (4 players)

SB checks, UTG bets $12, Hero calls $12, Button raises $84, SB calls $84, 1 fold, Hero raises $223, Button raises $1050.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $734.20

Turn: ($2070.40) K♠ (2 players)

River: ($2070.40) 2♠ (2 players)

Total pot: $2070.40

Results:

Button had 7♣, 7♥ (three of a kind, sevens).

Hero had 9♣, 9♦ (three of a kind, nines).

Outcome: Hero won $2070.90

Here is the last hand that I'm going to post and the only thing to really talk about here is bet sizing. So I flop top set on a very dry board 4 handed with really bad relative position, which means that I act right after the pf aggressor and still have 2 other players to act behind me. I decide to flat the pfr's continuation bet, hoping that someone behind me would squeeze us with some sort of hand. I get even more than I hoped with the player directly behind me raising, and the last player to act flatting that raise! The pfr folds and its back to me. Now obviously flatting here is a pretty big mistake, because I will be out of position on the turn and there are a bajillion turn cards that I do not want to see. So now the question is how much to make it.

Well I'm super deep with the initial raiser. Starting the hand around 250bbs deep with him, however the player that flat called the raise only started the hand with 100bbs and has $307 left after calling the flop raise. So now we have another predicament, I don't want to raise to an amount where if the 3rd players goes all in it doesn't re-open the betting. Like if I make it $320 here, lets say the raiser calls, and then the 3rd player goes all in for $60 more or something. That would be a disaster for me because the raiser is going to be IP against me in a huge pot and is probably going to play just about perfectly against me. So I need to avoid that situation.

I decide to make it $235, or $151 more. That way if the player directly behind me calls, I don't think the 3rd player is ever going to flat, so when he shoves the betting is re-opened and I can trap the deep player in the middle.

However the way the hand played out, the player behind me ended up just shoving himself, the 3rd player somehow folded which I wasn't expecting at all, I get a ton of money in as a huge favorite, and fade the 1 outer for a big pot. Just something to think about when you are contemplating raise sizes.

*sorry holdem manager's HH's mess up the betsizing a little bit. Just to clarify the pfr bet $12. The raiser made it $84, and then I made it $235.

Well that's all I got for now poker wise. On the golf front, I'm really starting to make some progress and can't wait to get out and actually play some golf in the coming weeks. Yesterday I swung by the PGA Superstore and picked up some golf necessities to transform the extra bedroom in our condo into the "golf room". Here's a picture.

No more rainy days for me! Until next time. Run good everyone.

Some pictures

2010-03-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

Hey whats up everyone, again its been awhile but I have more reasons than just running bad! I got married earlier this month, and that was one heck of a weekend followed by an awesome week in St. Lucia. A lot of people I hadn't seen in a while made the trip to Atlanta for the wedding, so we had a good crowd and a lot of fun people. Unfortunately I won't get any pictures from the wedding photographer for another couple of weeks, but I do have 1 or 2 as well as some pictures from the honeymoon.

Well lets get it started, disclaimer some of these pictures won't really be in order.

Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Adcock

Being introduced at the reception

Probably the best groom's cake ever

Our Beachfront Rondoval Suite

The private plunge pool and hot tub accompanying our suite

Now same picture as above except from the other direction

Looking over the fence

St. Lucia sunset

My new left hand accessories and wife's favorite picture

I got that watch 10 mins before the wedding ceremony as a gift from my wife to be. Here is a better picture of it.

Well that's all the pictures I got for now. I'm going to update with some pictures of our new condo in the next few days, just waiting for some final deliveries.

As for poker this month... blah. I think in the past few days I've actually gotten my showdown winnings into the green for the month. I know, pretty impressive huh? It's been pretty brutal, I'm calling the month "Turn Month" because I literally turn what seems to be the best card in the deck all of the time, when in fact it is actually the only card in the deck where I will get stacked. The run bad was the worst right when I got back from the honeymoon, as if coming back from my longest break from poker (9 days) in at least a few years and being a bit rusty wasn't enough for the poker gods they decided to just pile it on. I'm definitely not going to claim that I have been playing my A game since I got back, but running bad doesn't help ever.

The last few days have gone really well tho so I'm looking forward to turning this month around. My desk should be getting here in the next couple of days, so it will be nice to have an actual office set up rather than 6 tabling on my laptop while sitting on my couch.

Oh and one last thing....

(for those that don't know, the tradition at the Masters is for the previous years champion to help the winner put on the jacket. Thus Angel Cabrera will be helping Tiger with the jacket in a few weeks)

Also, 95% sure I'm going to be there on Thursday following Tiger in what is likely to be an epic comeback. So if you are going to be there let me know.

February Recap

2010-02-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

Well February continued to go well and ended nicely. If this was the PGA Tour my comeback stat would have just increased. That stat tells you how often a tour players makes a birdie or better after scoring a bogey or worse on the previous hole. I considered January a bogey and February a birdie. So good job me I guess. It always sucks to start of the year on a bad note, but I feel like I've really gotten my act together and I'm looking forward to good things.

Here's my February graph and stats.

So a pretty solid month. Pretty happy that I was able to keep my winrate over 6bb/100 but I was really shooting for 8-10. I really felt like I ran somewhat poorly cooler wise towards the end of the month, but eh I'm not going to complain really.

As for March I'm not really exactly sure what I'm going to do. I told myself that I was going to make 50 buy ins at 2/4 before I moved back up to 3/6. So technically I need to make another 11 buy ins or so, but I only said 50 buy ins so that I would get my online bankroll up to 100 buy ins for 3/6(yea I'm a bit of a bankroll nit). So I'm going to count rakeback, but even then I'm like 5 buy ins short. And since I only have a few days to play in March before my wedding I'm just going to play 2/4 and relax before the big day next weekend. When I get back from the honeymoon I will begin to play 3/6 again and maybe even game select some 5/10. Well that's all I got for now. GL grinding, hope you guys had good Februarys and even better Marches to come.

Update

2010-02-25T21:23:00.000-08:00

Hey, whats up everyone. Been grinding quite a bit recently, really trying to put in a solid amount of hours this month at 2/4. The last few days I have put in a TON of hands, and I have been running pretty horribly in a lot of cooler type situations and all in EV which doesn't help the results too much. I've been playing pretty well though in my opinion, especially when things start to go bad I've really kept my composure and made sure I think through ever decision thoroughly. Ive put in about 17k hands since Monday, at a pretty weak 4.2bb/100 but I'm running a little below expectation and I feel like I've been on the wrong end of a lot of coolers.

So far for the month I'm pretty happy with my volume. The first week I put in 18.5 hours running OK. The 2nd week I ran pretty good but only put in 17 hours. I seem to play shorter sessions when I'm winning big, should probably change that although it feels so good to book a nice solid win, I hate ruining them! The 3rd week I put in 19.5 hours and again ran pretty well. So far this week I've already put in 23 hours running pretty terribly. I'm going to try and put in a few hours tomorrow to get over 80 hours for the month which is pretty solid for a short month, and considering I hardly ever play on weekends. Hopefully I can win a little bit tomorrow and boost my winrate back over 6bb/100 since I've fallen to 5.94bb/100 over 57k hands for the month thus far.

One thing I really think I need to work on is taking a few more breaks during long sessions. From now on I'm going to try and limit myself to playing in 2 hour stretches, and then make a point to take a 30 minute break to read a book, watch TV, or play a video game. This should help me clear my mind a bit, and refocus for another good solid session. For example today I was playing a pretty long session, running pretty bad and really getting nowhere, just sort of swinging from up 2 buy ins to down 2 buy ins. Then I took a little break for lunch, came back and definitely felt a little more refreshed and was able to win the few buy ins that I lost towards the end of my first session back.

As for some actual poker talk, one thing I'd like to talk about briefly is pf 3 bet sizing. I constantly see people at 2/4 squeezing pf to literally anywhere from $60-$90 on a pretty regular basis. Like for example MP opens to 14, the BTN flats 14, and then the BB squeezes. I see people just mash the pot button in this scenario. In this hypothetical situation that would be a 3bet to like $60ish... I think, or imagine the SB had also flatted and now a pot sized 3 bet is like $72. I mean that is just overkill so often.

Once you go over a certain number, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $48-$52, people are no longer going to be flatting your 3 bet at all. They are going to be in 4 bet or fold mode for the most part, unless of course you are 3 betting a huge fish in which case BOMBS AWAY b/c there is no need for balance. So if people are playing 4 bet or fold once you get over $48-$52, then that should really be the highest you ever 3 bet.. You are actually costing yourself money when you want to squeeze in that spot with air, wouldn't you rather be able to 3 bet bluff to $48 rather than having to risk $60 each time?

Not to mention the fact that if you make it $60 or more preflop, you basically take away the ability for your opponents to 4 bet you small as a bluff. There are definitely hands that you squeeze with where a lot of its value comes from the fact that it looks like you are squeezing in an obvious spot, your opponent realizes this and then makes a small 4 bet. Hands like 99/AQ come to mind as hands where this is fairly important in a lot of scenarios. However if you make it so large that they are unable to 4bet/fold preflop you cut out a large percentage of their bluffing range which results in you getting it in worse because they aren't 4 bet/shoving as a bluff nearly as lightly as people are 4bet/folding as a bluff.

Anyway, just something to think about. Talk to you guys later.

How to have an Infinite return on investment

2010-02-22T09:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this is one of the sickest things I've heard of in a while. My friend Kyle, who was my roomate in Vegas a few summers ago got invited to play in this freeroll, $250k gauranteed poker tournament at the Monte Carlo(? i think that was the casino). He was invited by their casino host because he like to play quite a bit of blackjack. When he told me about it, we both concluded that it was a pretty sick opportunity assuming that most of the people playing in the tournament would have very little knowledge about poker since they are mostly just huge table game whales.

The tournament was this past weekend, and although I'm not sure how many runners it got(maybe a few hundred at most would be my guess), Kyle ended up taking it down for $75k. Now that is a sick score. I haven't heard from him yet this morning, so hopefully he survived last night because God only knows what kind of trouble you can get into in Las Vegas with 75,000 newly acquired dollars. So shoutout to Tymo for an awesomely donkament, and for turning all of those -EV hours at the blackjack tables into a profitable proposition!

As for me, I just got home from Virginia Beach last night. Kim and I went home because my mom and some of her friends threw her a bridal shower. The weekend was a lot of fun, and now we are on the homestretch, sprinting towards the wedding that is now 12 days away.

Poker wise, I played a little bit on Friday before I went to pick Kim up for work and head to the airport. I managed to make $500ish then. I played a little bit on Saturday afternoon and made about $600. And today, I just got done with a very short session, netting about $800. I had to quit the session tho because my internet is acting very weird. I don't know what is wrong but it is painfully slow. Hopefully Comcast fixes the problem in the next couple of hours so that I can get a few more hours of poker in today. Talk to you guys later.

My golf swing, a work in progress

2010-02-17T12:18:00.000-08:00

Alright, as promised in one of my recent posts, I'm going to go over what I've been working on golf wise to start off this year. I have some fairly ambitious golf goals for the year, and I'm really trying to work very hard to accomplish them. I do however need the weather in Atlanta to start cooperating a bit more so that I can actually get outside and put in some serious practice sessions.

Here is a short video of the software that we use to analyze my golf swing. This is just me showing you my swing from the front and behind view, as well as showing you how we can move and zoom all over the room to see my swing from every angle imaginable. (Sorry the video is a little choppy, i guess camtasia isn't able to capture my movements quickly enough. You get the drift of the software anyway)

Anyway, the things that I'm working on right now are stabilizing my lower body throughout the entire swing so that I have a much better foundation. As you will see later my swing from last June has much more movement in the lower body, which really makes my upper body work way too hard to get the club into the right position to hit good, solid golf shots. By stabilizing my lower body I'm able to make a much more complete turn to the top of the backswing, and my body stays centered over my legs as opposed to getting too far on my backside.

June Swing

Current Swing

Having a stable lower body enables me to start my downswing a little more efficiently. When my weight sways to my backside too much, my hips tend to slide to start the downswing and try to get back into proper position. This results in me laying off the club far too much and keeping my weight too far on my right side throughout the remainder of the swing. As you can see in the pictures above, nowadays I have a much better shoulder turn on my backswing, and its somewhat tough to see but in the swing on the left you can sort of see my weight starting to creep to the outside of my back foot. That is a big no no for me and really causes me problems as I start my downswing.

June Swing

Current Swing

So as you can see, the difference between these two positions is fairly drastic. In my old swing my hips are sliding forward, and my leading hip is quickly getting out ahead of my front foot. In my current swing my weight is again much more centered over my more stable lower body, and my hips are doing a better job of rotating which in turn gives me more clubhead speed. I think the difference between these 2 swings is about 5 MPH which is a fairly huge difference.

June Swing

Current Swing

Here is where you will see another pretty big difference. Nowadays I'm much more "stacked up" on top of the ball, using a lot more leverage than I was last June. In the June swing again you see that front hip much more forward than we would like, and I'm not posting up on my front leg as much as I should be. My upper body is also hanging back to far which leads to losing a lot of leverage, more simply put as power or club head speed. The current swing is just so much better and will enable me to hit consistently better, longer golf shots.

June Swing

Current Swing

These two images just reiterate how much better my lower body is working and staying stable in my current swing as opposed to last summer. The lead leg is going a much better job of posting up, and my head is not nearly as far behind the ball as it used to be.

June Swing

Current Swing

The only other thing we are working on is my club position here, which is midway through my downswing. I had tendinitis in my left wrist in high school, and ever since then I've had a lot of trouble trying to get the club in a really good position coming down. Ideally you would like the shaft of the club to lie in between your forearms from this angle, but we are really just trying to get it to go over my right forearm because that is manageable. As you can see the club is in a much better position in my current swing as opposed to my old swing, and even though were only talking about a few inches of difference, that is quite a bit when you are talking about the golf swing.

Overall I'm very happy with the progress that I've made. I think working out a lot during the winter months is really going to help me play some better golf this year. I can't wait till the weather turns around and I can get out and play some. If you have any questions, or want any golf tips/advice don't hesitate to leave a message, I love talking golf.

As for poker updates, I played about 3 hours this morning and made like $1200. Not too bad, might play a little bit later tonight but right now I'm headed to the hospital to check on Kim's grandfather. Talk to you guys later.

Long grind today, and something that irritates me

2010-02-16T21:47:00.000-08:00

Just got done with a pretty long day of pokering, all in all I played around 4800 hands and finished up about $800. Pretty happy with how I played except for a few miscues during the middle stretch of my day, in which I went from +$1500 to -$2k. I stayed composed and focused though and grinded my way back into the green for the day, which is always nice.

Not too many interesting hands have come up recently to talk about so I will talk about something that irritates me a lot when I'm playing. It is when someone makes a very terrible play but I have a cooler hand that no matter how badly they butcher the hand they are going to get my entire stack anyway. Here is an example of what I am talking about.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($400)
UTG ($391.10)
Hero (MP) ($610.60)
Button ($756.50)
SB ($400)

Preflop: Hero is MP with Q, A
1 fold, Hero bets $12, 1 fold, SB raises $42, 1 fold, Hero calls $32

Flop: ($92) A, Q, 4 (2 players)
SB bets $56, Hero calls $56

Turn: ($204) 2 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $75, SB raises $300 (All-In), Hero calls $225

River: ($804) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $804

Results:
SB had A, A (three of a kind, Aces).
Hero had Q, A (two pair, Aces and Queens).
Outcome: SB won $801

Its just like why can't I have like KT, JT, KJ or even AJ/AT rather than having a cooler hand where this retarded c/shove on the turn gets rewarded. I mean, what is going though the villain's head(a regular in these games as far as I know) when he c/shoves the turn. He has the deck annihilated, and he even has the Ah so no need to worry about me having Axhh. The overwhelming majority of the time on the turn i have 0-20% equity yet this villain is check/shoving and cutting off any hope of me possibly bluffing the river with who knows what. Arg.

Here is another perfect example of what I am talking about from last month.

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1333.60)
Hero (SB) ($1294)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 3, 3
Hero bets $12, BB raises $54, Hero calls $45

Flop: ($120) 5, A, 3 (2 players)
BB bets $70, Hero raises $165, BB raises $215, Hero calls $120

Turn: ($690) 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $225, BB raises $988.60 (All-In), Hero calls $724 (All-In)

River: ($2588) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $2588

Results:
Hero had 3, 3 (three of a kind, threes).
BB had A, A (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: BB won $2627.10

I mean, lets think about this for a second. Why in the world would he ever want to c/shove the turn. Actually lets pause this discussion for a second and go back to the flop. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? This is one of the worst boards in the world(apart from maybe A 2 2 r) to bet/3bet top set in a 3 bet pot. What in the world is he expecting me to call him with? He has all the Aces, so he must be expecting me to float him a large % of the time(?) Which seems very optimistic at best. Ok so lets just assume he is expecting me to float him a ton, so then he checks the turn to me expecting me to bet all of my floats, but then he somehow c/shoves the turn? Going back to his expectation of me floating a lot of flops(????) that would make my turn range consist of a lot of floats, and very very few value hands, just about all of which I am going to bet the river with if he c/c's the turn. So the only thing c/r'ing the turn accomplishes is again shutting me out from possibly bluffing the river and isolating himself against the range that he has coolered and was going to win money from anyway. Doesn't make much sense does it?

Anyway, that was just something that I find frustrating and then it turned into a pretty long post. But it is definitely something that you should look at in your game, and really hits on a very fundamental aspect of poker which is to always have a reason for making a certain play. Obviously the villains in the previous 2 hands had no real reasons for c/shoving the turn, they just have a very very very strong hand and want to get the money in as fast as possible not taking into account what hands that I could possibly have and trying to maximize value from them. Luckily enough for them I have a cooler hand each time and their play is rewarded but so is life. When you are analyzing and reviewing your plays, or you are at the table playing, always ask yourself "why am I doing this?" "is this the most profitable way for me to play this hand, this street?". Asking yourself these questions and being able to provide solid reasoning behind all of the plays you make will be a huge help in improving yourself as a player.

Well thats all for now, I'm off to bed. Later. Gl grinding.

The poker gods reward me for returning to blogging?

2010-02-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Haha, obviously the poker gods could care less about me updating this blog but they did do me a bit of a favor yesterday. They gave me some of my EV back and quite a bit of run good resulting in me winning just over 12 buy ins at 2/4 yesterday in about 3k hands. I ran really really well for the first session in quite a while and it felt amazing. This month was going good before and is now going great. I feel much more focused when playing, thinking though decisions more thoroughly and definitely tailoring my game much more to the specific opponent that I am up against in a particular hand. This has led to some great results this month, winning 9.2bb/100 over a little more than 30k hands. I hope to put in at least another 30k hands as I'm trying to up the amount of hours I put in and hopefully I can keep my winrate above 8bb/100. That would be great.

As for other things, our new mattress and living room set was delivered to our condo today. I really dislike the fact that moving companies give such large windows for delivery time. Like our mattress delivery was scheduled for between 2 and 7 pm, and the living room was to be delivered between 1 and 5 pm. I wasn't looking forward to sitting in an apartment all day waiting for those deliveries. Luckily for me the mattress came earlier than expected, and then the living room came shortly after and I was only sitting there for an hour or 2. Not to bad. I cant wait to see what the condo will look like when it is fully furnished, and I will post pictures on here when that finally happens.

On the golf front things are really starting to come around. My swing looks night and day different from last summer and I finally got a copy of my swing so I can post that here in the next couple of days, showing you a before and after as well as detailing the things that we are working on.

On a more serious note, my fiance's grandfather is going to undergo open heart surgery on Thursday, so say a prayer or have him in your thoughts. Typically open heart surgery is a fairly trivial operation, with a risk rate of 1-2% but given that he is 88 years old the risk obviously increases with age, so we can only hope everything goes according to plan.

That's all for now, ill talk to you guys later.

Been a while....

2010-02-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

It sure has been a while since I've updated here, mostly because January was a very frustrating month. There was a lot of up and down, and unfortunately the month ended on a down. Not a great start to the year. Since then things have been going alright. Ive been fairly busy getting the final details of my wedding finished up. I'm getting married on March 6th, and I'm really looking forward to it. After the wedding I'll also be moving to a new condo and then heading on a nice honeymoon in St. Lucia. I cant wait, should be a blast.

As far as poker is concerned, due to a crappy January and having to withdraw some money for taxes/wedding I've decided to play 2/4 until I make 50 buy ins. It's going pretty well so far, I've been putting in a decent amount of volume but I would really like to get to around 25-30 hours per week, I'm around 20 hours per week right now. I'm working with a new coach and I like where things are going with him, I look forward to seeing where the hard work I put into to stepping up my game will pay off.

So far this month I've played 26k hands and I'm up like $5500 at 2/4 for a decent win rate of 5.3bb/100. My goal for the stretch that it took me to win 50 buy ins was to have a winrate above 8bb/100 and currently my ev bb/100 is at 9.28 (im running like 10 buy ins below expectation) so hopefully I will be around 8bb/100 when its all said and done. I feel like I'm playing very well this month other than a blunder maybe a couple times per session. Im in a good mindset and I hope that maybe I can knock out these 50 buy'ins before my wedding.

That's all I got for now. I'll keep you guys updated on my progress. Talk to you later.

Weak month, fun hand if you make it to the end of the post!

2010-01-19T21:23:00.000-08:00

Alright, so don't got much going on this month. Poker is frustrating. I'm up at 10/20(lol 21 hands) down at 5/10 running bad, running like Jesus at 3/6, and playing and running bad at 2/4. So overall I'm up a little bit, probably a shade under 3k including rakeback but damn, I'm frustrated. I just played a session where I reversed my day from -1300 to +$1000 so that is nice.

I've been sick for the past like 5 days which is frustrating, because I cannot for the life of my get over this cold. I haven't been able to work out or really play much poker, so I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty 4 with my brother. My cold however has not stopped me from getting back into golf mode. I've had 2 lessons in the past week and we are really working on some good stuff.

The instructor I work with is a really awesome guy and has one of the best teaching facilities in the country. He has what is called the MATT system by TaylorMade at his club(1 of like 6 clubs I think in the country). MATT standing for Motion Analysis Technology by TaylorMade.

Basically what the MATT system is, is a room that is probably a 25ft X 25ft, lined with 10 or so cameras near the ceiling around the room. The golfer is then fitted with sensors. I'm not 100% sure how to explain them but you put the sensors on via things like elbow straps, knee straps, sensors that go over your shoes, a belt that goes around your waist, a piece of material that goes over your shoulders, some straps around your wrist, and then a hat with sensors in it. (It seems like a lot, but all of it is really light weight and doesn't disturb you at all when you are swinging the golf club)

You then stand in the middle of the room to get calibrated by the cameras, and then you are basically ready to go. It is the most awesome piece of golf equipment I've ever come across. As I make swings all of the cameras track every little movement by my body and produce a computer image of me, just like I'm in a video game(except in this "video game" you are the Silver Surfer because that is what you look like in the display". We are able to go back and look at swings from any angle imaginable, a 360* view of the golf swing which is incredibly more helpful than just about every other camera set up out there. We can even start from behind me, pass though my chest and look down to see what my hands are doing at impact, it's really cool.

So basically what we are working on is trying to give me a little bit more leverage going into impact. I have a tendency to hang back a little bit. At the top of my back swing I will lay the club off, my head and upper body will move away from the target ever so slightly and I will end up well behind the ball, wasting a lot of my potential energy. So what we are doing to correct this is to try and get me to feel like from the top of my back swing, my head and shoulders are moving towards the target(that's what it feels like to me, but obviously my head is actually staying very still rather than moving backwards) and I'm really getting a lot more leverage. I'm also not laying the club off nearly as much, which has been a real issue for me since I got tendinitis in my left wrist(I'm right handed) a few years ago. The result of this change is a much more powerful, consistent swing that will enable me to control my trajectory and ball flight much better and I'm pretty excited. Obviously we are not where we would like it to be, but I had a lesson this morning and we made a lot of progress.

In one of my future lesson I will try to get a DVD burned with my golf swing on it so I can try to upload it on here and you guys can see just how awesome this technology is.

And speaking of golf, my Bachelor party is not this weekend, but the following weekend and I just booked an incredibly sick villa in Myrtle Beach for me and my friends. There's going to be about 10-12 of us going to play golf and party. The villa is amazing, I'm gonna post the link but I'll list some of the more awesome points.

6 bedroom/5 bathroom

Each bedroom has a King sized bed

1 bedroom also has 2 queen sized sleepers as well as 2 additional queen sized pullout couches in the living room

Home theatre complete with a 60" HDTV with PS3 and Nintendo Wii

Game room complete with a 42" HDTV with XBOX 360, a pool table, and a foosball table.

http://www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/39972.html

Not to mention that we got the place for under $800 for 3 nights, which is incredible even if it is the off season in Myrtle Beach. So I'm really looking forward to that, hopefully the weather is mild. I'm gonna try and get 1-2 more golf lessons before I go down there so that I can hopefully play some really good golf. Anyway that's all I got for now, hope you guys are running better than me at poker and bonus points to anyone who actually made it to the end of this post. Here's a little reward for you/an actual poker HH.

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($1090.20)
Button ($699.30)
SB ($694.50)
Hero (BB) ($1334.05)
UTG ($880.20)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6, 7
1 fold, MP bets $18, 2 folds, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($39) 7, 3, 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $27, Hero raises $90, MP calls $63

Turn: ($219) K (2 players)
Hero bets $140, MP raises $324, Hero calls $184

River: ($867) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $658.20 (All-In), Hero calls $658.20

Total pot: $2183.40

Results:
Hero had 6, 7 (one pair, sevens).
MP had 9, A (high card, Ace).
Outcome: Hero won $2180.40

LOL Turn Raises. To talk a little bit about actual poker content, on the flop I decided that since we were deep to just go ahead and turn my hand into a bluff/semi-bluff of sorts. On the turn it gets interesting because I get RAISED! Raising, for those of you who don't know is one of the strongest moves you can make in unlimited texas poker hold'ems. (Going all-in being the strongest) So seriously, what on earth would possess someone to raise this particular turn card you ask? Probably someone who floated the flop and then decided that since the turn was a SCARE CARD that it would be a great spot to RAISE, even though raising this particular turn card makes just about 0 sense with anything for value. OK, well I was bluffing, but if you want to do the honors go ahead, I CALL! River is a brick, I check and he shoves. Now at this point the only thing I'm really worried about is whether or not he is spazzing with a better hand then mine, like 99 or something, who knows. So I use the time bank to tell myself how stupid I'm going to feel if he is bluffing with a better hand than me, but I cannot pass up the chance to snap off this incredibly hilarious bluff. I CALL.... BINGO!

* A little piece of information that helped me in this spot, is that I knew this player is probably a decent regular even though he is one of the biggest bumhunters a live. I also know for a fact that this player, for some reason loves to bluff raise turns that make absolutely no sense to raise with value hands. So these 2 factors led me to making this call, so don't just go around snapping every turn raise that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. :)

Getting some confidence back

2010-01-14T09:28:00.000-08:00

So the past couple days I've spent a decent amount of time playing 2/4 and 3/6 to try and get some confidence back, because I've lost quite a bit of it from my recent swings. It really makes me want to work a lot harder at this game so that I don't have to deal with such vicious swings. The last time I updated I talked about how I just implemented my first stop loss ever pretty much. Well.... later that night I played some more and continued to run like crap and had to implement a 2nd stop loss for the day, frustrating but whatever.

The last 2 days I've made about $2500 in 5K hands or so playing mostly 2/4 and 3/6. Most of my profit is coming from 3/6 however as I cant seem to get anything going at 2/4. I'm going to continue to grind these limits and game select 5/10 a little bit better to raise my confidence.

I'll go ahead and post some interesting hand since my last update.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($4561)
SB ($4512)
BB ($2080)
UTG ($2117)
Hero (MP) ($2820)

Preflop: Hero is MP with K, J
UTG bets $35, Hero calls $35, Button calls $35, 2 folds

Flop: ($120) 9, 5, J (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $90, Button raises $240, 1 fold, Hero calls $150

Turn: ($600) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $485, Hero calls $485

River: ($1570) A (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $3801 (All-In), Hero calls $2060 (All-In)

Total pot: $5690

Results:
Button had 5, 9 (full house, fives over nines).
Hero had K, J (two pair, Jacks and fives).
Outcome: Button won $7428

This hand was pretty frustrating, I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the river call but hmmmm. Villain in this hand is a very crazy mid/highstakes regular. He plays like 40/32 or something like that. I just sort of figured that he would have enough busted draws in his range for calling to be profitable. I need to be right like 36% of the time, and I have a feeling its pretty close to that. If I assume he plays hands like QTs/o, T8s, KQs, AJ, 99, and 55 like this then its a call. Even taking out all of the combos of QTo, and adding the 1 combo of JJ he could have, then my equity is like 45% on the river and it is infact a profitable call. However it seems that I'm constantly running into the top of people ranges in these spots, or maybe it's just that I am making terrible assumptions about their range. I dont know.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($285)
Hero (MP) ($800)
Button ($400)
SB ($989)
BB ($222.50)

Preflop: Hero is MP with Q, A
1 fold, Hero bets $12, Button calls $12, SB raises $50, 1 fold, Hero calls $40, Button calls $40

Flop: ($162) Q, 9, A (3 players)
SB bets $110, Hero calls $110, 1 fold

Turn: ($382) A (2 players)
SB bets $250, Hero raises $638 (All-In), SB calls $388

River: ($1658) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $1658

Results:
SB had J, 10 (straight flush, Queen high).
Hero had Q, A (full house, Aces over Queens).
Outcome: SB won $1655

This was a pretty fun 2/4 hand.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($400)
MP ($955)
Hero (CO) ($816.10)
Button ($1790.65)
SB ($992.35)
BB ($800)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 10, Q
2 folds, Hero bets $12, 2 folds, BB raises $42, Hero calls $34

Flop: ($94) 9, 2, J (2 players)
BB bets $65, Hero calls $65

Turn: ($224) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $105, Hero raises $704.35, BB calls $583.25

River: ($1600.50) 9 (2 players)

Total pot: $1600.50

Results:
BB had K, K (two pair, Kings and nines).
Hero had 10, Q (one pair, nines).
Outcome: BB won $1602

I don't really like how I played this hand, it's not terrible but I think calling the turn and then bluffing the river a lot if he checks to me or he bets really weak again is better. I sort of just pounced on his really weak betsizing, and got called by quite a speculative hand that unfortunately removes 4 of my outs. It was pretty apparent to me on the turn that he had a fairly weak hand that he was sort of timid with, but I think shoving there is a little bit too much and actually looks weaker than calling which I guess is why he snapped me off with KK no spade.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($3528)
Button ($486)
SB ($2320)
BB ($2015)
UTG ($2699)
Hero (MP) ($3803)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, K
1 fold, Hero bets $35, CO calls $35,2 folds, BB calls $25

Flop: ($110) J, 2, A (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $70, CO calls $70, BB calls $70

Turn: ($320) 4 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $230, CO calls $230, 1 fold

River: ($780) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $530, CO calls $530

Total pot: $1840

Results:
Hero had A, K (two pair, Aces and twos).
CO had J, A (two pair, Aces and Jacks).
Outcome: CO won $1837

This hand is against the same villain as the very first hand I posted, and all I can say is that this river bet by me is a little to thin, but I'm not sure whether c/c'ing or c/f'ing the river is better especially since it was 3 way to the turn.

Anyway those are the interesting hands from the past couple day. Hope you guys are running goooooood. Later.

Well, meh results and my first stop lossed session

2010-01-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, hope you had a good weekend. I didn't play too much poker over the weekend. It snowed here on Thursday night, and Friday Kim didn't even go into work so I didn't play too much poker but did manage to win about $1100. Then I didn't play at all Saturday, instead I did a lot of apartment shopping as Kim and I are trying to find somewhere to live when we get married.

All the apartments we looked at were pretty nice, except it is so tough to find an apartment with any space in it. All the 2 bedroom/2 baths we looked at were like 1,000-1,200 sq ft. The bedrooms in apartments also tend to be pretty small which is a bit of a problem since we bought a king sized mattress last week. The last place we looked at was actually the most spacious place we could find and everything about it is pretty awesome. It's a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo that is about 1,600 sq ft for around $1100/month. The master bedroom is huge which is really nice, and it has a lot of living space.

The lady informed us that they were getting quite a bit of interest in the condo since it is the last one available for lease in the community, actually when we went in to look at it there was another couple exiting.

So we decided to go ahead and reserve it. We drove out the next day with everything we needed and reserved the condo. Awesome. When we dropped everything off the place had only been open for an hour or 2 and already 2 more people had come to look at the condo.

Sunday I was able to play a little poker at night and made around $2400 in a few hours which was nice. Today, however, I just got done with a session and unfortunately I made myself quit after losing slightly more than $5k from my peak. I started off the session with a set over set for 200bbs playing some HU which is always a nice way to start. Then I ran pretty hot and I was up a little more than $5k. After that, I couldn't win a showdown to save my life. There was a mega fish at 3/6 and he was owning the crap out of me. I lost a biggish pot at the end and then decided to quit. It's a bit frustrating going up so quickly in a session only to have it topple back down pretty quickly but I'm proud of myself for just sitting out rather than try to get it back as fast as possible.

I'm trying to get to the gym before a lesson so I won't go into much detail at all about some hands, but I figured I'd post some of the bigger pots from the last couple days.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (MP) ($2599)
Button ($4107.50)
SB ($1074.50)
BB ($2019.50)
UTG ($2386.50)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, A
1 fold, Hero bets $40, Button raises $140, 2 folds, Hero raises $400, Button calls $300

Flop: ($895) 10, J, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $625, Button calls $625

Turn: ($2145) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $1532.50, Button calls $1532.50

River: ($5210) 10 (2 players)

Total pot: $5210

Results:
Button had K, J (two pair, Jacks and tens).
Hero had A, A (two pair, Aces and tens).
Outcome: Hero won $5214.50

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($708)
UTG ($1087)
Hero (MP) ($2307.25)
CO ($2452)
Button ($401.25)
SB ($1125)

Preflop: Hero is MP with K, J
1 fold, Hero bets $35, CO calls $35, Button calls $35, 2 folds

Flop: ($120) 2, K, J (3 players)
Hero bets $80, CO calls $80, 1 fold

Turn: ($280) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $210, CO calls $210

River: ($700) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $590, CO raises $2127 (All-In), Hero calls $1392.25 (All-In)

Total pot: $4664.50

Results:
Hero had K, J (two pair, Kings and Jacks).
CO had K, 10 (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won $4661.50

These next 2 hands were against the huge fish at 3/6 today. I might be able to fold the first river but... i have a flush vs a fish so I dont think so. Although some of my students will get on me and berate me for not paying attention to the c/c c/c donk pot river as the ultimate monster line from a donk.

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($3577.45)
Hero (BB) ($1772.10)
UTG ($1199)
MP ($1101)
CO ($1195)
Button ($620.95)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 7, 8
4 folds, SB bets $15, Hero raises $54, SB calls $42

Flop: ($120) 5, Q, A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $80, SB calls $80

Turn: ($280) 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $252, SB calls $252

River: ($784) K (2 players)
SB bets $714, Hero calls $714

Total pot: $2212

Results:
SB had K, 9 (flush, Ace high).
Hero had 7, 8 (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: SB won $2215

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($3027.45)
Hero (Button) ($1330)
SB ($1853)
BB ($1197)
UTG ($3667)
MP ($1124)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, Q
1 fold, MP bets $18, CO raises $30, Hero calls $30, 2 folds, MP calls $12

Flop: ($99) J, 8, Q (3 players)
MP checks, CO bets $60, Hero raises $285, 1 fold, CO calls $225

Turn: ($669) K (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $540, CO calls $540

River: ($1749) 10 (2 players)
CO bets $2171.45, Hero folds

Total pot: $1749

Results:
CO didn't show
Outcome: CO won $3923.45

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($876.50)
Hero (BB) ($1230)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, 9
SB bets $12, Hero calls $9

Flop: ($30) 2, 9, 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $21, Hero calls $21

Turn: ($72) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $48, Hero calls $48

River: ($168) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $144, Hero raises $475, SB raises $647.50, Hero calls $316.50

Total pot: $1751

Results:
SB had Q, Q (full house, Queens over nines).
Hero had 10, 9 (three of a kind, nines).
Outcome: SB won $1752.50

Here I think I should make my river raise slightly smaller, and then obviously fold to the shove. Perfect spot for the raise/fold line I was talking about in one of my recent blog posts.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (MP) ($3370.25)
Button ($5155)
SB ($1397)
BB ($1000)
UTG ($965)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 10, A
1 fold, Hero bets $30, Button calls $30, 2 folds

Flop: ($75) 10, A, 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $50, Button raises $150, Hero calls $100

Turn: ($375) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $310, Hero calls $310

River: ($995) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $850, Hero calls $850

Total pot: $2695

Results:
Button had 3, 3 (three of a kind, threes).
Hero had 10, A (two pair, Aces and tens).
Outcome: Button won $2692

And then this is the hand I quit today's session after. Blah. Oh well, I'm headed to the gym. Run good everyone.

2 days where things actually turned for the better

2010-01-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, so far I've played a decent amount of hands so far this year. I'm running pretty terrible at 5/10 for the moment but running like god at 3/6 and winning a little at 2/4.

Yesterday I was down $4.7k at my peak, with nothing going right for me. I was extremely close to my 5K stopping point when things finally turned my way. I finished my first session of the day down $3k :( I ended up playing a 2nd session later in the night that started off good, with me stacking someone for >200bbs on one of my first hands with a set vs a gutter+flushdraw on the turn. So I'm only down $1kish for the day, then things start going horribly again and I cannot win a hand for the life of me. I again reach my down peak at $4.7k, ever so close to my $5k stop loss but I right the ship just in time. I then proceed onto a solid heater and end the day up over $2k. It felt amazing.

As for today, I had to go babysit my fiance's nephew for a few hours this afternoon. After I put him down for a nap I got to play a little 4 tabling session on my laptop. Things didn't go all that great, I played one hand pretty poorly but other than that, nothing was going my way. I feel like I've been trying way to hard recently to win, especially postflop and I've actually been spewing like a mad man. Anyway I finished the nap time session down like $3.3k. I got to play a 2nd session later in the night and I turned things around rather quickly and finished the day up like $300. Score! Another winning day, albeit a small one, will definitely help my mindset and hopefully get me back into the steady winning saddle.

Here are the most interesting hands from the past couple days.

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (4 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($1401.05)
BB ($1224)
UTG ($3335.70)
Hero (Button) ($2789.35)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, 2
1 fold, Hero bets $15, SB raises $51, 1 fold, Hero raises $135, SB calls $96

Flop: ($306) A, 2, 10 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $225, SB calls $225

Turn: ($756) 6 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2413.35, SB calls $1025.05

River: ($2806.10) J (2 players)

Total pot: $2806.10

Results:
Hero had A, 2 (two pair, Aces and twos).
SB had A, Q (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $4196.40

This hand is against my favorite Korean. His 3 bet stat vs the steal is out of this world which is why I decided to 4 bet, because it is basically printing money. He calls the 4 bet and I flop top and bottom pair, weeeeee. He c/c's the flop bet. The stacks on the turn are a bit akward, bc he has like 1K left and there is a little more than 700 in there. I decided that he was going to fold the turn no matter what I bet unless he had an A, and if he had an A he probably wasn't folding no matter what. So I just shoved, he tanked a little and called me with AQ.

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($582)
UTG ($254.20)
MP ($595)
CO ($1200)
Hero (Button) ($1617)
SB ($1638.30)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, Q
2 folds, CO bets $18, Hero raises $69, 2 folds, CO raises $168, Hero calls $117

Flop: ($381) 3, 8, Q (2 players)
CO bets $216, Hero calls $216

Turn: ($813) 2 (2 players)
CO bets $797, Hero calls $797

River: ($2407) 10 (2 players)

Total pot: $2407

Results:
Hero had J, Q (one pair, Queens).
CO had K, A (high card, Ace).
Outcome: Hero won $2409

This hand was against one of the best midstakes regs. We had a very interesting dynamic because he opens a veryyyy wide range so I was 3 betting him a lot. This hand is a great hand to 3 bet with the intention of calling a 4 bet and then making moves postflop when you flop something with even a little potential. So I 3 bet and call the 4 bet. I flop top pair, essentially the nuts in this situation and I call the flop and snap the turn. We run it twice and I fortunately hold both of them.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($583.95)
Button ($967)
SB ($1551.40)
Hero (BB) ($953.30)
UTG ($506.50)
MP ($800)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, 10
UTG bets $15.25, 1 fold, CO calls $15.25, 1 fold, SB calls $13.25,Hero raises $86, UTG calls $74.75, CO calls $74.75, SB calls $74.75

Flop: ($360) Q, 9, 8 (4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO checks

Turn: ($360) 2 (4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO checks

River: ($360) J (4 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $300, 1 fold,CO raises $493.20, 1 fold, Hero calls $193.20

Total pot: $1346.40

Results:
Hero had 10, 10 (straight, Queen high).
CO had A, K (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: CO won $1347.90

I butcher the river in this hand pretty solidly. You might think preflop is a pretty thin, but the opener was running like 50/40, and the first caller was like a 40/30. So a pretty obvious 3 bet for value. I wasn't really happy to see everyone call, and then when I saw the flop I was just planning on giving up. Well the flop checks through, and I think I should be betting the turn here but I chicken out. I hit a straight on the river and now I really dislike my betsizing on the river. I'm fairly sure it is infact a bet but I should be betting like $200-$250 here IMO just because I don't think anyone really has anything ever. And when I get shoved on I can probably fold, even tho its not much more, I'm essentially calling to chop and probably lose a decent % of the time to flushes and KT. Meh.

The next 2 hands are going to display me taking unconventional flop lines, and then getting crapped on, which literally ALWAYS seems to happen wheneverrrrrrrrr I get fancy.

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (3 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($760)
SB ($664.75)
Hero (BB) ($1208)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, 10
1 fold, SB bets $18, Hero calls $15

Flop: ($42) 9, Q, 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($42) 9 (2 players)
SB bets $30, Hero raises $115, SB calls $85

River: ($272) K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $250, SB raises $527.75, Hero calls $277.75

Total pot: $1327.50

Results:
SB had 8, 8 (full house, eights over nines).
Hero had J, 10 (straight, King high).
Outcome: SB won $1329.50

This first hand is against a good regular. I check back the flop here because I felt like he is going to be check/folding here a decent amount but I guess looking back on it, on this particular texture I think people have a much larger c/c range then say a Q 7 3 flop or something much drier. Anyway I check it back and we see another 9 on the turn. Villain now leads into me, and I decide to raise here. He calls and the river comes a K. He check/raises me all in, I call and he shows me a full house :(

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (CO) ($1885.20)
Button ($773.50)
SB ($1063.20)
BB ($553)
UTG ($757.10)
MP ($264)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 6, 5
UTG bets $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $12, 3 folds

Flop: ($30) 5, 10, 5 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($30) 8 (2 players)
UTG bets $20, Hero calls $20

River: ($70) 3 (2 players)
UTG bets $60, Hero raises $250,UTG raises $665.10 (All-In), Hero folds

Total pot: $570

Results:
UTG didn't show
Outcome: UTG won $1042.10

And here is the 2nd hand where I do something strange on the flop and then get a little more than I ask for by the river. So here I still like checking back the flop, because I think this is a texture that people will be c/f'ing a ton when they do check. The turn is an 8 and villain leads into me. Here I decide to just call, just because I think his range is so heavily weighted towards air/overcards and I want him to make a pair or something on the river. The river is a huge brick and villain leads again, this time for a fairly large bet. I make a fairly large raise myself. This is where it gets interesting because now villain shoves on me. ???

Sigh, villain in this hand was a little loose preflop but I hadn't really seen him do anything out of the ordinary postflop, or even been aggressive for that matter.

I felt at the time that villain would be calling me here with just about 99% of his range. Unfortunately this was that 1% where he decided to bet/3bet me on the river. I really rationalize the fact that maybe this player is shoving something worse than 56 for value, so that left me to calling it off because I thought he was bluffing and I have an extremely difficult time believing that. So I decided to fold, I'm still not sold on it but literally EVERY TIME I do something like this I always get more than I bargain for, and normally rationalize it with, "blah blah blah I'm so underrepped here, no way he thinks I have a 5 here" but for this to be useful you have to know that the villain is capable of realizing this. And I think I will errr on the side of being a little too cautious at 2/4 against a std reg that I have very little info on. Whatever, flame away.

No-Limit Hold'em, $8.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($2429)
Hero (SB) ($1975)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, J
Hero bets $16, BB raises $67, Hero raises $175, BB calls $120

Flop: ($390) Q, 9, 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $200, BB raises $575, Hero calls $375

Turn: ($1540) 7 (2 players)
BB bets $1205, Hero folds

Total pot: $1540

Results:
BB didn't show
Outcome: BB won $2744.50

This will be the last hand, and I still really have no clue what to do in this spot. I have a feeling since it's HU in an aggro match, and I have TOP PAIR it should be a lol snap call but I missed the boat here. This is against a HU regular with a very very good PTR. I think he generally plays HU or 3-4 handed and does very good even though he seems to table select very well. Anyway he was 3 betting me a ton in this match something like 23% and I decided this was a pretty decent hand to 4 bet since I'm not 100% comfortable playing it against his 3 betting range. Anyway he flats, and I flop the toppest pair on a drawy flop. I could check back here, but I decided to bet. I get c/r'd and I think its a pretty easy call on the flop (?). The turn is a pretty brickish card, and villain shoves. I'm not really sure what sort of range to give him but I really sort of wish I called because I am very curious as to what he had. Oh well.

Hope you guys are running better than me to start of the new year. Later.

Falling off cliffs....

2010-01-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

Well, not literally. But figuratively I seem to do it a lot at the poker table and it is beginning to irritate me. I'm supposed to be a better poker professional this year, so when bad things start happening I need to take a break. That is definitely a weakness of mine, I just continue playing when things aren't going my way and my play worsens as a result and all of a sudden, boom I lose like 5-10 buy ins very quickly.

Before today the new year was starting off fairly decent, I was always keeping 8 tables up and playing solid. On the 2nd I made around 2k, then yesterday I made like 1800, and today I was up 2800 after my first session. Then I come back and play tonight, start off good, up 4300 for the day. Then this hand occurs.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($500)
CO ($1820.10)
Button ($2959.45)
SB ($1137)
Hero (BB) ($2000)
UTG ($1363)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6, 7
2 folds, CO bets $35, 2 folds, Hero calls $25

Flop: ($75) 9, 6, 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $75, Hero calls $75

Turn: ($225) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $225, Hero raises $750, CO raises $1050,Hero raises $1140 (All-In), CO calls $435.10 (All-In)

River: ($3645.20) 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $3645.20

Results:
Hero had 6, 7 (two pair, sevens and sixes).
CO had 8, 8 (three of a kind, eights).
Outcome: CO won $3642.20

ok sighhhhhhh against a huge fish.

Then no more than a minute later I make this horrid call down vs the same fish.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($500)
BB ($3497.20)
UTG ($2924.45)
MP ($1254)
Hero (CO) ($2000)
Button ($1430)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 8, A
2 folds, Hero bets $30, Button calls $30, 1 fold, BB calls $20

Flop: ($95) 5, 2, A (3 players)
BB bets $95, Hero calls $95, 1 fold

Turn: ($285) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $285, Hero calls $285

River: ($855) 9 (2 players)
BB bets $855, Hero calls $855

Total pot: $2565

Results:
BB had A, 10 (one pair, Aces).
Hero had 8, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: BB won $2562

Next thing I know, I'm barely up for the day and obviously things are going south. This is where I need to just take a break, doing something else for 30 mins to an hour and then restart the engine. Unfortunately I'm extremely bad about this sort of thing, which is why I'm posting to sort of embarrass myself with how poorly I played.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($564)
BB ($2633.20)
UTG ($3532.45)
MP ($2504)
Hero (CO) ($2015)
Button ($1581.75)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 8, 8
2 folds, Hero bets $30, Button raises $105, 1 fold, BB calls $95, Hero calls $75

Flop: ($320) 3, 9, 2 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: ($320) 3 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $200, 1 fold, BB calls $200

River: ($720) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $720, Hero calls $720

Total pot: $2160

Results:
BB had 3, A (three of a kind, threes).
Hero had 8, 8 (two pair, eights and threes).
Outcome: BB won $2157

Amazing call here on the river against the huge fish. Well played me, lets burn some more money.

Next comes this hand

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($437)
UTG ($2030)
Hero (MP) ($2100)
Button ($2368)
SB ($1987)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, A
UTG bets $30, Hero raises $115, 1 fold, SB calls $110, 1 fold, UTG calls $85

Flop: ($355) 8, 10, 4 (3 players)
SB bets $250, UTG calls $250, Hero raises $750, 1 fold, UTG raises $1663.50, Hero calls $1163.50

Turn: ($4432) 9 (2 players)

River: ($4432) 6 (2 players)

Total pot: $4432

Results:
UTG had 10, 8 (two pair, tens and eights).
Hero had A, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: UTG won $4436.50

I think this is pretty butchered not even being results oriented. I was pretty comfortable getting it in vs the BB because I weighted their range heavily towards JJ-KK when they donk the flop. At the time I was just sort of praying for UTG villain to get out of the way but unfortunately they call the donk. Alarm bells should be going off in my head right about now. But I wasn't thinking clearly and decided to raise, and then awesomely(?) get it in vs UTG's top 2 pair. I brick the turn and river and now I'm pretty irritated. I don't really go on monkey tilt ever, and stay pretty level headed but my play definitely takes a hit.

Then this hand happens against the same opponent as the hand above about 2 minutes later, and you sort of get the idea on where this session is headed.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1047)
UTG ($2997)
MP ($1382)
CO ($2156)
Hero (Button) ($2000)
SB ($2945)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, K
UTG bets $30, 2 folds, Hero raises $120, 2 folds, UTG raises $290,Hero raises $1880 (All-In), UTG calls $1680

Flop: ($4015) Q, 10, 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($4015) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($4015) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $4015

Results:
Hero had K, K (one pair, Kings).
UTG had A, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: UTG won $4012

Next comes some pretty awesome spewage against a post flop nit, my god what am I thinking here????

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($421.50)
MP ($2000)
Hero (Button) ($3309.50)
SB ($1189.50)
BB ($1976)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, Q
2 folds, Hero bets $25, SB calls $20, 1 fold

Flop: ($60) A, 7, 3 (2 players)
SB bets $40, Hero raises $160, SB raises $330, Hero raises $3123, SB calls $793

Turn: ($2386) 6 (2 players)

River: ($2386) A (2 players)

Total pot: $2386

Results:
Hero had A, Q (three of a kind, Aces).
SB had 7, 7 (full house, sevens over Aces).
Outcome: SB won $2390.50

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($2114.50)
MP ($2061)
Hero (Button) ($2044)
SB ($2620)
BB ($2031)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 8, A
UTG bets $30, 1 fold, Hero calls $30, SB calls $25, BB calls $20

Flop: ($120) 4, 7, 9 (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets $90, Hero raises $270, 2 folds, UTG raises $560, Hero raises $1742.50, UTG calls $1362.50

Turn: ($4145) 7 (2 players)

River: ($4145) 5 (2 players)

Total pot: $4145

Results:
Hero had 8, A (flush, Ace high).
UTG had 7, 7 (four of a kind, sevens).
Outcome: UTG won $4149.50

This hand was the final blow of the session pretty much. I think it's fairly standard against villain because he is very aggro post flop. Doing some math, it looks like if his range for 3 betting the flop is all sets, 79s, 56cc, and JTcc then I'm winning about $83 in this scenario. Unfortunately for me everyone had the tippy top of their range barring the first 15 mins of the night session, and the poker gods crush all my hopes and dreams right on the turn so I don't even get the full sweat.

All in all after being up a little over 4k at my peak today, I finished down a disappointing 7K :( I'm now down 3k for the month, which isn't really bad, just super frustrating. Oh well, I need to start staying on top of this blog even during the rough times to help me improve so that is what I'm going to do this year.

Also, I am implementing a new rule, where anytime I lose 5 buy-ins at whatever stake I'm playing from my peak for that session I have to take a 30 minute break. I think this rule is going to be pretty hard for me to keep up with(mostly because I HATE losing so much, and it pains me to quit a session down), but I think the discipline will pay off in the long run. Hope you guys are running better than me. Later.

Might as well put in a graph here for ultimate shame.

Slackerrrrrrrrrr

2010-01-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

So I've slacked off pretty hard on this blog, no surprise that this slacking off coincides with an end of the year downswing that was flat out brutal. Oh well, what can you do... nothing really except bounce back in 2010. My 2009 overall was pretty good. I made a good amount of money and feel like I really progressed as a player. I went from a pretty weak 2/4 grinder maybe making 3-4bb/100 to having an ~8bb/100 winrate at 2/4 in over 200k hands this year. My 2009 went a little something like this....

start off with best month ever...

play bad for a few months with mediocre results...

get some coaching....

play a little bit better...

slack off as far as getting better is concerned...

mediocre results...

back on the getting better horse....

good results....

oh maybe finish the year off with a sick heater....

NOTTTT big downer in the last week... :(

2010 is going to be different. I'm going to work harder than I ever have before and will not be slacking off like I did during a couple months last year. I'm really going to spend a lot more time this year reviewing my own play, with the help of this blog and think that it is an integral step to improving as a player. No more constantly making the same mistakes session after session, or failing to pick up on certain tendencies(that either I have or that my opponents have that are leaks). No more auto-pilot, sure I will be playing 6-8 tables for the most part, but I'm going to try to cut out a lot of distractions during my grinding and really focus on making the best possible decision every chance that I get.

If you didn't see the boywonder thread in BBV on 2+2 then I would recommend you take a look. He recently signed with Leggo and produced a video for them, and I must say that it was probably the video I was looking forward to watching the most in the past few months.

His results are outstanding and he attributes a lot of it, not to his actual poker skill, but more the way he approaches the game and applies his skills. I totally agree with him, that a lot of poker is mental. Confidence plays a huge role in just about everything you do and poker is no different. I know when I have been winning for a while, and my confidence is sky high, I feel unstoppable and definitely play my best poker during these stretches.

Something else that he advocates, is reviewing hands from previous sessions before you start playing for the day, and this is something I've sort of always wanted to do but kind of slacked off on doing. Not anymore, I'm going to really get on a better schedule in 2010 and apply myself much better. This year I'm going to start every poker day by reviewing the biggest pots I played from my last session(Ive been doing this recently for this blog so that has definitely helped me) It will get me into the right mindset to play, get me thinking about ranges and what not properly, as well as help me realize the mistakes I made the day before and to try to steer clear of those in the upcoming session.

I'm really looking forward to 2010. I got a lot happening, so it will be a busy year but an exciting one at that. I'm getting married in March. Honeymoon after that in St. Lucia. Then hopefully a run at the World Series of Golf sometime in May(not sure of the exact dates). All of this while I really devote myself to getting much much better at poker.

My goals for 2010 are as follows (poker and life related)

- Be one of the biggest winners at 5/10 on FTP and become a good 10/20 regular.

- Get some HU coaching and become a regular at up to 10/20 HU.

- Maximize my poker time

-By this I mean always make sure I have 6-8 tables up. Sometimes I will slack off and just play the 3 or so 5/10 tables that are running. Not anymore. If there aren't at least 6 5/10 games running then I will fill the void with 3/6 tables. And if there aren't enough of those running then I will use some 2/4 games to fill in until some higher games run. I'm throwing away potential money by only sitting at the 5/10 games running and not maximizing the tables I could be playing.

-Put in more hours, strive for at least 25hrs/week of actual play time. Also waste less time mindlessly surfing on 2+2.

-Withdraw money on a more regular basis and start saving more money.

-Work hard on my golf game as well. Start getting at least 1 lesson per week starting soon. Lower handicap to at least a +3. Go deep in the World Series of Golf. Advance past local qualifying for the US Open.

-Put on 15-20 lbs of muscle

-Read at least 1 book per month, and learn as much as I can about trading.

Well that's all I got for now. Damn this is kind of a long post. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and good luck to everyone in 2010.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-22T12:24:00.001-08:00

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...

2009-12-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

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.

Biggest pot ever and running into some poker players.

2009-12-21T02:48:00.000-08:00

Sup everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates, since I don't play hardly any poker on the weekends I tend to forget to update this blog. So after I last talked to you guys I only played poker twice. Last thursday I 4 tabled someone at 2/4 HU for like 2.5 hours. He ran pretty hot, especially on 1 particular table where he built his $400 up to like >$3000. At one point I was down $2700 to him but them I started to get some momentum back and he quit me when I was still down $1000. Oh well.

Then on Friday, my fiance and I babysat one of her nephews who turns 2 years old today. I had a good time, as the baby is a lot of fun to play with. The weather was pretty bad so we just hung around inside all day and watched stuff like the Polar Express and Disney's Playhouse. I didn't play any poker on Friday.

Saturday I did get to play some poker. I played for an hour or 2 and won around $6K including winning the biggest pot of my life. Here is the HH

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

MP ($2101)
CO ($1719)
Button ($4651.50)
SB ($4658)
Hero (BB) ($5009)
UTG ($4472)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, K
1 fold, MP bets $60, 1 fold, Button calls $60, 1 fold, Hero raises $260,1 fold, Button calls $220

Flop: ($630) 6, 2, 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $325, Button calls $325

Turn: ($1280) K (2 players)
Hero bets $675, Button calls $675

River: ($2630) J (2 players)
Hero bets $1400, Button raises $3371.50 (All-In), Hero calls $1971.50

Total pot: $9373

Results:
Button had 6, 6 (three of a kind, sixes).
Hero had K, K (three of a kind, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won $9370

Lucky me. Other than that hand I think I only played 1 pot bigger than 50bbs the whole session so nothing else really interesting to talk about.

Saturday night was pretty interesting. We went to this bar in midtown Atlanta where Kim's sister's friend knew the band that was playing. So we get there and the place is supppppperrrr smokey (which is pretty abnormal in ATL because most places dont allow you to smoke inside) Combine the smoke with the fact that we didn't really have any desire to listen to a band and we decided to leave to head to another bar in Buckhead. So we get to this other bar and right when I walk in I recognize YellowSub86 in the house. I walk up to him and introduce myself, and congratulate him on all his poker success. He says to me "well if you recognize me, you probably know this guy" and he taps his friend on the shoulder who turns around. It's Shannon Shorr. So I buy them some drinks, they buy some shots and for the next hour or two its a pretty fun time. Both of them are really nice guys. Here is a picture.

In the picture, their friend Chris is on the left(he plays as SlippyJacks on pokerstars and used to work for Bluff Magazine), then Shannon Shorr, Me, and then Jeff "yellowsub86"

So a pretty fun couple of days since my last update. I got a couple days of grinding before I head back to VA Beach so I'm going to get started on that. Talk to you guys later.

HU poker is easy....

2009-12-16T22:14:00.001-08:00

.... when you run hot and people spew to you

I didn't really feel like playing much more poker today(usually happens after I win a decent amount of money) so when I got home tonight I decided to sit around at HU tables between 2/4 and 5/10 and see if anyone wanted to play me. Well after about 2 hours of sitting alone, messing around on the internet, and watching some poker videos a fish finally sat with me at 2/4. We 1 tabled for about an hour and I ended up losing like $18 to him.

Here is the biggest pot we played just so you can get a look at his skillz

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) ($994.50)
SB ($327.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, A
SB bets $10, Hero raises $32, SB calls $24

Flop: ($72) 4, 10, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $40, SB calls $40

Turn: ($152) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $80, SB calls $80

River: ($312) A (2 players)
Hero bets $180, SB calls $171.50 (All-In)

Total pot: $655

Results:
SB had K, 5 (straight, five high).
Hero had A, A (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: SB won $654.50

So about 5 mins before the fish at 2/4 finally left, someone came along at 5/10 and asked if I wanted to 3 table. YAY! Here is the very first hand we played.

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

Hero (SB) ($660)
BB ($1000)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9, K
Hero bets $20, BB calls $15

Flop: ($50) 9, 6, 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $40, BB raises $110, Hero calls $70

Turn: ($270) A (2 players)
BB bets $210, Hero calls $210

River: ($690) A (2 players)
BB bets $655 (All-In), Hero calls $315 (All-In)

Total pot: $1320

Results:
Hero had 9, K (two pair, Aces and nines).
BB had K, 8 (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $1319.50

so I had a feeling things might get interesting. Well the match didn't disappoint and my opponent ended up quitting me after dropping $4.7k in a little under 10 mins. Here are the bigger pots from the short match. I'll post them in chronological order.

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

Hero (SB) ($1005)
BB ($1010)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 4, 10
Hero bets $20, BB calls $15

Flop: ($50) A, 2, 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $30, BB calls $30

Turn: ($110) 3 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $80, BB calls $80

River: ($270) 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $400, BB calls $400

Total pot: $1070

Results:
Hero had 4, 10 (straight, five high).
BB didn't show (He had A9)
Outcome: Hero won $1069.50

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

Hero (SB) ($1000)
BB ($1099.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, A
Hero bets $20, BB raises $75, Hero calls $60

Flop: ($170) 5, 3, 2 (2 players)
BB bets $90, Hero calls $90

Turn: ($350) J (2 players)
BB bets $280, Hero calls $280

River: ($910) 5 (2 players)
BB bets $644.50 (All-In), Hero calls $545 (All-In)

Total pot: $2000

Results:
Hero had A, A (two pair, Aces and fives).
BB had 2, 2 (full house, twos over fives).
Outcome: BB won $2099

ARGGGGG

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

Hero (SB) ($2054)
BB ($2134.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7, 7
Hero bets $20, BB calls $15

Flop: ($50) 7, 9, 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $40, BB raises $160, Hero raises $380, BB raises $650, Hero raises $1609 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $1670

Results:
Hero had 7, 7 (three of a kind, sevens).
Outcome: Hero won $2888.50

Pretty special 4 bet bluff by him on that flop...

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

Hero (BB) ($1048.50)
SB ($2092.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, 8
SB bets $25, Hero raises $80, SB calls $60

Flop: ($180) 7, A, 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $120, SB raises $270, Hero calls $150

Turn: ($720) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $440, Hero raises $688.50 (All-In), SB calls $248.50

River: ($2097) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $2097

Results:
SB had 6, A (two pair, Aces and sevens).
Hero had 8, 8 (full house, eights over sevens).
Outcome: Hero won $2096

We ran this pot twice, and I won them both.

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

Hero (SB) ($1879)
BB ($1094.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, K
Hero bets $20, BB calls $15

Flop: ($50) A, 2, 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $30, BB raises $120, Hero calls $90

Turn: ($290) 5 (2 players)
BB bets $210, Hero raises $920,BB raises $739.50 (All-In), Hero calls $29.50

River: ($2189) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $2189

Results:
Hero had A, K (one pair, Aces).
BB had A, 9 (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $2188

EZ game

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

Hero (BB) ($2928)
SB ($1259.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6, 8
SB bets $25, Hero raises $80, SB calls $60

Flop: ($180) 8, 4, 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $120, SB calls $120

Turn: ($420) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $220, Hero calls $220

River: ($860) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $829.50 (All-In), Hero calls $829.50

Total pot: $2519

Results:
SB had 10, A (high card, Ace).
Hero had 6, 8 (two pair, eights and sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $2518.50

The last 3 hands all literally happened in a 30 second time frame, and after the last one he said that he'd had enough and he was done for the day. So I ran pretty hot but he made some pretty speculative plays as well. Lucky me. Finish the day at +$9.7k, veryyy niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Good night.

Zoooooooooooooooooooom

2009-12-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

What's up everyone. I only played a little poker today since my fiance gets off work early on Wednesdays, but I did manage to win close to $5k in the couple hundred hands I did manage to play. I also played my first ever hands at $25/$50 and ended up winning $757(aka my home area code... sign?) The majority of my play today however came at 5/10 where I felt like I played extremely well.

I'll go ahead and go over some interesting hands from today. Unfortunately none of them are from my $25/$50 shot because nothing really eventful happened there.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($3226.25)
Hero (Button) ($3298)
SB ($1583.50)
BB ($3083)
UTG ($2307)
MP ($2000)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6, 8
2 folds, CO bets $40, Hero raises $120, SB calls $115, 2 folds

Flop: ($290) Q, 4, 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($290) 6 (2 players)
SB bets $250, Hero raises $750, SB calls $500

River: ($1790) 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1790, SB calls $713.50 (All-In)

Total pot: $3217

Results:
Hero had 6, 8 (two pair, eights and sixes).
SB didn't show
Outcome: Hero won $4290.50

This hand is against a little bit of a fishier opponent. I 3 bet BTN vs CO preflop here(since we are both really deep, im going to be putting a ton of pressure on him with these stacksizes) and I get cold called by the fishier player in the SB. I flop middle pair on a 2 toned flop and decide to check it back. I turn 2 pair, which also puts another flush draw out. Villain leads into me and I decide to jack it up here so that I can shove the river and get his entire stack. Villain calls and the river comes a 3h. Not the greatest card in the world since it completed the back door flush draw, and villain checks to me. This particular villain really doesnt like to fold very much so I thought he was going to call me with Qx or maybe a slow played AA/KK just about always. So I jam and he calls with AQ.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($3339.25)
Hero (CO) ($2000)
Button ($1923.50)
SB ($2546)
BB ($2077)
UTG ($2000)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 4, 4
1 fold, MP bets $30, Hero calls $30,2 folds, BB raises $125, 1 fold, Hero calls $105

Flop: ($305) Q, K, Q (2 players)
BB bets $185, Hero calls $185

Turn: ($675) 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $475, BB calls $475

River: ($1625) 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1205 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $1625

Results:
Hero had 4, 4 (two pair, Queens and fours).
Outcome: Hero won $2827

Villain in this hand is a pretty decent 5/10 reg. I call the squeeze IP here with 44 since we are pretty deep. The flop comes K Q Q with a fd and villain cbets. I decide to float here because I think this is a board that he will perceive to me pretty hard, where he will probably fire 1 bullet but then give up. The turn is the 6d completing the flush and villain checks to me. At this point I'm pretty confident that I am going to win this pot. When he c/c's the turn I put his range at like AA/AK/maybe Kx/maybe some Qx hands. The river is the 9c and its a pretty awesome card for me, just because if I was bluffing the turn JT would be one of my more likely hands. So I shove the river after villain checks to me, I think I can get him to fold AA/AK just about everytime, and possibly get him to fold some Qx hands.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1209)
UTG ($2464.50)
MP ($1289)
CO ($2180.75)
Hero (Button) ($1000)
SB ($1072)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 5, 6
3 folds, Hero bets $25, 1 fold, BB raises $90, Hero calls $75

Flop: ($205) Q, 4, 3 (2 players)
BB bets $120, Hero calls $120

Turn: ($445) K (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($445) J (2 players)
BB bets $290, Hero raises $780 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $1025

Results:
Hero had 5, 6 (high card, King).
Outcome: Hero won $1512

This hand is against a fairly unknown opponent. I have a pretty decent hand to defend against 3 bets so I see the flop. I get a pretty good flop, flopping an OESD and villain makes a continuation bet. I call and the turn is an offsuit K. Villain checks which led me to believe they have a decent SD value hand, like Qx, 99-JJ, or maybe some Kx hands(which villain should be barreling but some villains freeze up when they turn top pair in 3 bet pots). The other option is that villain is just giving up which is a little less likely because most villains will continue bluffing the K on the turn if they have an airball. So I decide to check back and take the free card, because I wasn't sure how villain will proceed against my turn bet. The river is the Jd and villain makes a pretty weakish bet. Based on his turn action I think its pretty unlikely he has a flush, as I expect most villains to continue barreling flush draws on that particular turn card. Also since I don't really recognize this villain, I sort of assume he's just playing his 2 cards and not really taking into account what I'm doing. So since he made a weakish bet on the river, I decided to jam and get him to fold most of his hands that aren't flushes or straights.

That's all on the poker front for now. As far as the holidays are concerned I've done most of my shopping already, and the shopping I haven't done I have the ideas for I just haven't gotten around to getting my hands on them yet. Ill be back in VA Beach next Wednesday through the following Tuesday so that should be pretty fun.

Running good, some thanks, and fun hands.

2009-12-15T16:02:00.001-08:00

What's up everyone, had another good session this morning winning around $3K in just under 1K hands at 5/10. It was nice, I ran pretty bad at the beginning but I sucked out later in the session to make up for it.

I think for the past few weeks I have been playing some of my best poker ever. My confidence is at an all time high and I probably owe a lot of it to starting to coach. Since I took on my first student a couple months ago, that extra time every week where I am discussing poker in depth with my students is really helping me. I get to talk about interesting spots that come up and I always have to be able to give my student a good argument for making a certain play which helps me think deeper about even spots that seem pretty basic to me. This leads to some potential ah ha moments, where I will be thinking about a spot my student gets himself into and trying to figure out the best play. I will normally have a standard play for the spot, but sometimes I won't be able to make a good argument as to why that play is my "standard" and I will realize that maybe I'm leaking a little bit in that spot. I've also been able to find a couple other lines in certain spots as well as finding spots to exploit regulars a little more effectively.

I have about 8 students right now (2 groups of 3 participating in the group coaching, as well as 2 individual students) and everything seems to be going pretty well. All of my students seem to be enjoying my coaching and learning a decent amount so I'm very interested to see how they progress as players. I'm trying to figure out how many more students I can handle, but I will worry about that as more potential students come forward.

I also owe some of my recent progress to this blog. I originally started it for PokerSwat.com as I waited for them to upgrade their blog software, and I decided to keep it going even when I found out they were being sold. (Hopefully one of the other training sites buys them and I can start making videos against because I really enjoyed them) It's really helped me to go back through just about every one of my sessions, find the interesting hands I played, and then give my thought process for the hand. Sometimes I will look back on hands and say to myself, "what was I thinking?" or "I should have done this here, or this there". Reviewing sessions and avoiding replicating your most common mistakes is something that everyone can benefit from doing.

There were some interesting hands from todays session so I'll go though those now.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($1985)
SB ($2005)
Hero (BB) ($2564)
UTG ($1062)
MP ($1218)
CO ($1132.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6, 6
2 folds, CO bets $30, 2 folds, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($65) 6, 10, 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($65) K (2 players)
Hero bets $20, CO raises $75,Hero raises $205, CO calls $150

River: ($515) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $330, CO calls $330

Total pot: $1175

Results:
Hero had 6, 6 (three of a kind, sixes).
CO didn't show
Outcome: Hero won $1172

Ok so this hand is against an OK villain. He used to be a huge nit but has recently started to open up his game a little bit. He opens in the CO and I flat 66 from the blinds. I flop a set but unfortunately for me he checks back the flop. The turn is a K that brings a flush draw and I decide to lead really small, to induce a raise from Kx or some sort of draw. Villain obliges and I go ahead and 3 bet him. The river is the somewhat nasty 2s but I decide to bet/fold $330 into the $500ish pot and villain calls relatively quickly with KJ.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($2645.75)
Hero (Button) ($4023.50)
SB ($2031.50)
BB ($2273)
UTG ($2021.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 2, 2
UTG bets $40, 1 fold, Hero calls $40, 2 folds

Flop: ($95) 5, 9, 2 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($95) 4 (2 players)
UTG bets $70, Hero raises $270, UTG calls $200

River: ($635) 7 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $920, UTG calls $920

Total pot: $2475

Results:
Hero had 2, 2 (three of a kind, twos).
UTG didn't show
Outcome: Hero won $2479.50

This hand is against the same opponent as the first hand and happens about 35 mins after the first. I call his UTG open with 22 here and flop a set. Unfortunately for me villain doesn't even make a continuation bet, which led me to believe he was going to be c/f'ing this flop just about always. Well I didn't want that to happen so I decided to give him a free card to catch up. The turn is a 4 and he leads into me. I decide to raise it up here because by raising I look pretty full of it, since he probably expects me to bet the flop with my good hands. He calls the turn and the river is an offsuit 7. He checks to me and I decide to overbet the river because I think that will be the best way to look like a bluff in his eyes. He tanks for a while and calls me with AQo(lol?) and I win the fairly large pot.

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

Hero (BB) ($2000)
SB ($1988.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3, 3
SB bets $25, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60) J, 6, 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $38, Hero calls $38

Turn: ($136) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB checks

River: ($136) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $100, SB raises $350,Hero raises $740, 1 fold

Total pot: $836

Results:
Hero had 3, 3 (two pair, sixes and fives).
Outcome: Hero won $1328.50

This hand was pretty fun. Its against a reg who to my knowledge normally plays 2/4 to 3/6 so he might not be super comfortable playing 5/10. Anyway he opens the button and I call with 33. He cbets the J 6 6 flop and I call. The turn 5 goes check check and unfortunately for me I get counterfeited by the river 5. I decide to lead as a bluff and rep Jx or 77-99. This is where it gets interesting because villain decides to raise. HMMMMMMMM OKKKKKKK. Well I am about 10000% sure that this particular villain would never check the turn with 6x or pocket 5s, so his most likely hand is a bluff or 5x. Since he never has 6x but I can still have 6x I decide to 3 bet the river up to $840 after he raised my $100 bet to $350. Villain tanks for his entire timebank and types "sigh" into the chat pretty much signaling to me that he had 5x. After he typed "sigh" I couldn't help but to show my pocket 3s and hopefully get a little under his skin as we started this little HU match on a 6 handed table.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1976)
UTG ($2990.40)
Hero (MP) ($2000)
CO ($2109)
Button ($1190)
SB ($1038.50)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 10, A
UTG bets $30, Hero calls $30, 4 folds

Flop: ($75) 6, 5, 6 (2 players)
UTG bets $50, Hero raises $175, UTG calls $125

Turn: ($425) 8 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($425) 5 (2 players)
UTG bets $110, Hero raises $370,1 fold

Total pot: $645

Results:
Hero had 10, A (two pair, sixes and fives).
Outcome: Hero won $911

Here is another fun river bluff raise. Villain in this hand seems a little fishy which led me to raise the flop because fish love to just bet the flop and fold to raises. I also have some overcards and a back door diamond draw. Villain calls and the turn is the 8c. For some reason I didn't feel like this was a card villain was going to be folding a lot on, and if I bet the turn I think I have to bet the river and that's not really something I wanted to commit too with no reads. So the turn checks through and now the river is another 5. Villain decides to lead out on the river for like 1/4 of the pot. I decide to raise and get him to fold hands like overpairs, 78 and maybeeeeee a flush. I'm not repping too much but I think its fine against slightly fishy opponents (and I think its bad against good opponents and super fishy opponents). Anyway villain tanks for a bit and decides to fold.

Thats all the interesting hands from today's session but I do want to show you this hand from a few days ago which I found pretty funny. Villain is mbolt1, leatherass' protege and all around super bumhunter.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($1568)
CO ($1066.50)
Button ($2181)
Hero (SB) ($2304)
BB ($1000)
UTG ($2483)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, A
4 folds, Hero bets $35, BB calls $30

Flop: ($80) 4, K, K (2 players)
Hero bets $50, BB calls $50

Turn: ($180) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $120, BB raises to $300,Hero raises to $480, 1 fold

Total pot: $780

Results:
Hero had 10, A (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won $957

I mean it makes absolutely 0 sense for him to be raising the turn with anything for value( im pretty sure he is aware of this), and I don't think he would ever do this with a flushdraw so his range in my eyes was made up of air and.... air. I guess I could have just called the turn and called the river and that would have been cooler, but I couldn't resist clicking it back on the turn and making him look pretty retarded for folding to a minraise.

Well that's all I got for today. Hope the poker players reading this are running good at the tables, and everyone else is running good at life. Talk to you later.

Falcons fail to ruin the Saints season

2009-12-14T10:46:00.001-08:00

Well my first NFL game every yesterday was a lot of fun, despite the Falcons falling a bit short. I was able to find a Michael Vick jersey before the game which was awesome. Pair that with the Tiger Woods hat I was wearing and I was rocking some pretty controversial apparel which I got a few comments about. Our seats, which I got off of StubHub at the last minute, were pretty good. Right at the 35 yard line in some nice club seating where we had a great view of all the action. As for the game itself I think we got hosed by some really terrible calls, most notably an interception by Grimes that got nullified by a BS pass interference call. Other than that I thought we put up a pretty good fight without Ryan or Turner in the line up.

I just played a short 400 hand session between 3/6 and 10/20 and won a quick 9K, most of it coming at 10/20 where I ran pretty hot. Ill go over some of the interesting/big hands from today.

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

BB ($1603.10)
UTG ($5979)
MP ($3086)
CO ($4750)
Hero (Button) ($4000)
SB ($4707)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, K
2 folds, CO bets $60, Hero raises $200, 2 folds, CO calls $140

Flop: ($430) J, 10, K (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $325, CO calls $325

Turn: ($1080) 5 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $775, CO calls $775

River: ($2630) J (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $2697, CO calls $2697

Total pot: $8024

Results:
Hero had J, K (full house, Jacks over Kings).
CO didn't show
Outcome: Hero won $8039

This hand is pretty standard. I 3 bet pre CO vs BTN and get called. I flop top 2 and make a std continuation bet which gets called. The turn is a brick and I make another bet. If I got raised here I was pretty sure I was going to puke/fold because I don't think the villain in this hand would ever raise this board with worse for value and hes probably not bluffing very much either. Luckily for me he flats again, I make a boat on the river, so I jam for about a pot sized bet and get called by his slowplayed AQ.

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

UTG ($1860.10)
MP ($5399)
CO ($3264)
Button ($3961)
Hero (SB) ($8200)
BB ($4682)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, A
2 folds, CO calls $20, Button bets $108, Hero raises $390, 1 fold, CO calls $380, 1 fold

Flop: ($928) 5, J, 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $720, CO raises $2000,Hero raises $2560, CO calls $861

Turn: ($6650) 5 (2 players)

River: ($6650) 4 (2 players)

Total pot: $6650

Results:
Hero had A, A (two pair, Aces and fives).
CO had K, K (two pair, Kings and fives).
Outcome: Hero won $7084

This hand happened about 5 mins after the KJ hand. The limper is a fish and the isolator is the same villain I just stacked. I could flat here to keep the fish in but I thought the reg would interpret my 3 bet as me messing around a decent amount. I also don't like flatting here oop nearly as much as I would like it if I was on the button and the isolator was in the CO. So I do decide to 3 bet, the fish surprisingly calls and the reg folds. Flop comes J high and I decide here to bet pretty large because I think I might just get 1 street from a fishes 1 pair hands that are lower than Jx, so I want to maximize that one street. The fish ends up raising and I get it in vs his slowplayed KK. Weee.

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

Hero (SB) ($2029.50)
BB ($2025)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9, Q
Hero bets $20, BB raises $90, Hero calls $75

Flop: ($200) 5, J, 8 (2 players)
BB bets $135, Hero raises $300,BB raises $330, Hero calls $165

Turn: ($1130) K (2 players)
BB bets $200, Hero calls $200

River: ($1530) 10 (2 players)
BB bets $1258.50, Hero calls $1258.50

Total pot: $4047

Results:
Hero had 9, Q (straight, King high).
BB had K, A (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won $4049.50

Ok so this is probably the most interesting hand of the session. Here I open Q9s against a pretty good 5/10 reg and he 3 bets, looking at the HH looks like i misclicked pf bc I normally make it $25 not a minraise. Oh well. I feel pretty comfortable playing this hand in a 3 bet pot IP 200bbs deep so I call. I flop a gutter and a backdoor flush draw and decide to raise villains continuation bet. Villain decides to click-it-back on me and make the smallest re-raise he can. I think hes full of it a lot here so I decide to call, but maybe jamming is actually better?

The turn is the Ks, and villain decides to bet $200 into the $1100 pot. I'm getting direct odds to call for my FD and gutter ball, but again maybe shoving is better here? The only reason I didn't shove is because I would never shove a value hand here, like if i had KJ or 88/55 because I would just let villain continue bluffing. So if I do shove here I don't think I'm getting any better hands to fold.

I river my gutterball and villain shoves, so obviously I call. He ends up having AK which seems about right. I was pretty confident he was full of it on the flop, and I think if he doesn't turn a pair I can easily take the pot away on later streets.

Well that's all I got for now. This month is going pretty well after a little bit of a rough start. I'm gonna head to the gym and then I have a group lesson and an individual lesson to give this evening, so hopefully those go well. Later.

Good results and Falcon's game tomorrow

2009-12-12T19:39:00.000-08:00

Sup guys. Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Ive done pretty good at the tables recently. I lost $950ish on Thursday but I made that back and more by banking $4800 on Friday and another $2700 on Saturday. Ive been taking some shots at 10/20 and feel comfortable playing in the games but I don't seem to be making many hands in my very small sample. Hopefully those games continue to run as I'd like to get some more experience in them.

I played a few interesting hands in the past couple days so I'll go through them.

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

Hero (SB) ($2211.50)
BB ($1010)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, 6
Hero bets $20, BB raises $90, Hero calls $75

Flop: ($200) Q, 6, 7 (2 players)
BB bets $108, Hero calls $108

Turn: ($416) K (2 players)
BB bets $234.50, Hero raises $2003.50 (All-In), BB calls $567.50 (All-In)

River: ($2020) 6 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $2020

Results:
Hero had A, 6 (three of a kind, sixes).
BB had K, 4 (two pair, Kings and sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $3221

Here is a hand against a pretty laggy regular. I open the button with A6s and he 3 bets. He 3 bets a ton so I'm gonna peel the flop. I flop bottom pair and he makes a cbet which I expect him to be making with about 75-80% of his hands so I call. Now the turn is interesting, I think its a card that he's going to be barreling with a huge percentage of his range. I think he will be betting this turn with just about any draw, such as AT,AJ, every flush draw, and some other straight draw, not to mention some of the time with complete air. I decide to shove here just because I have the best hand a ton of the time in my eyes, and I really don't want to call because every river is gonna suck for me pretty much. Unfortunately for me the villain turned top pair but I hit my 5 outer on the river.

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

BB ($2534.50)
Hero (SB) ($2000)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 3, 3
Hero bets $20, BB raises $90, Hero calls $75

Flop: ($200) 4, 8, 3 (2 players)
BB bets $135, Hero calls $135

Turn: ($470) 10 (2 players)
BB bets $321, Hero raises $1763.50, BB calls $1442.50

River: ($3997) 3 (2 players)

Total pot: $3997

Results:
Hero had 3, 3 (four of a kind, threes).
BB had 6, 10 (two pair, tens and threes).
Outcome: Hero won $3999.50

Ok so this hand is against the same villain as the last hand and I use some relevant history that should be fresh in his mind for my turn play. So I open pockets 3s preflop and he 3 bets again, I call. I flop a set on a pretty drawy board and he continuation bets. I decide to just call because I think he will be double barreling a tonnnnn of the time and I don't want to keep him from barreling. The turn is a T and he barrels again. On the turn I decided to shove(which happens to be about $300 or so more than a pot sized raise), and rep a straight draw or a flush draw trying to get him to fold a marginal hand. Im pretty sure he is going to call me with just about any pair after he saw me shove A6 in the other hand, and he does time down for a little bit before again calling it off with his turned top pair.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($2773.25)
Button ($2535)
SB ($2656)
Hero (BB) ($3561)
UTG ($1576)
MP ($2029)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q, Q
UTG bets $20, MP calls $20, 2 folds, SB calls $15, Hero raises $110, 2 folds, SB calls $100

Flop: ($280) 10, 3, 9 (2 players)
SB bets $165, Hero calls $165

Turn: ($610) K (2 players)
SB bets $415, Hero calls $415

River: ($1440) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1190, 1 fold

Total pot: $1440

Results:
Hero had Q, Q (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: Hero won $2627

Here is probably the most interesting hand I've played in the past few days. I squeeze preflop here with QQ and get called by the SB of all people, which I thought was a bit strange. This player is fairly tight, donk bets a decent amount, and barrels pretty relentlessly. So when he donks the flop, I'm not really comfortable raising and getting it in because I don't think that is going to be super profitable. So I call and we see the Kd on the turn. Now he barrels again which I expect, and now I have a flush draw and a gutter so I call again.

On the turn I have basically decided that this villain is not going to win this pot unless he overbet shoves the river or something. Because I have the Qd and the T, 9, and K are all out there, the only combo of the nut flush that this player can have is AJdd. And I'm not even sure he calls that preflop so his range to me seems to be 99/TT/9T/ random bluff. Most of his value hands are going to have a pretty difficult time calling a sizeable river bet even on a blank.

The river comes the Ac and he checks to me. I decide to turn my hand into a bluff here bc as I said before its pretty much impossible for him to have a strong flush, and a lot of his value hands are going to have a very difficult time calling a large bet on the river. So I decide to fire $1190 into the $1400ish pot and he thinks for a while before folding. Weeeee!

Anyway, thats all I got for now. Kim and I are heading the the Falcons vs Saints game tomorrow, which I think is going to be my first ever NFL game. Should be fun, I hope someone near the stadium is selling bootleg Michael Vick jerseys because I really want to wear one to the game. Later.

Running It Twice does not seem to be helping me!

2009-12-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

Hola amigos. I played a couple sessions today that were swingy but ended up well. In the morning session there were no good 6 max games running. So I decided to try and play some HU. I couldn't really find any action and ended up winning like $200 in a couple hundred hands max.

I played a 2nd session tonight where I played a mix of 5/10 and 10/20, including an extremely tough 5 handed 10/20 game which included the likes of Flipokeher, DerekJC9954, Gogogogogogogo, and Pr1nnyraid. I actually did alright in the 10/20 games despite losing a little over 2 buy-ins very quickly. I ended up the day up $470, which is better than the -$4.5k I was at 15 mins into my 10/20 session but worse than the $5600 I should have been up today.

There were a lot of big pots tonight, so I will go ahead and post those and try to find 1 or 2 other interesting hands.

Here I won the biggest pot of my life against a fish. Nothing like winning your biggest pot ever without having to sweat. :)

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

BB ($4045)
Hero (UTG) ($4889)
MP ($2402)
Button ($7179)
SB ($7167.50)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10, 9
Hero bets $80, 3 folds, BB raises $180, Hero calls $120

Flop: ($410) J, 8, K (2 players)
BB bets $300, Hero calls $300

Turn: ($1010) 7 (2 players)
BB bets $400, Hero raises $1600,BB raises $3142, Hero calls $1942

River: ($8094) 4 (2 players)

Total pot: $8094

Results:
BB had Q, K (one pair, Kings).
Hero had 10, 9 (straight, Jack high).
Outcome: Hero won $8106

However I also lost the 2nd biggest pot of my career tonight, and that wasn't very fun at all. Seems like whenever I run it twice in huge pots, im always the favorite, and I never scoop the pot. I either chop it or lose them both. :(

Full Tilt Poker $10/$20 No Limit Hold'em $3 Ante - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $3884.10
Hero (BTN): $8866.00
SB: $2185.00
BB: $7674.00
UTG: $7100.50
MP: $4000.00

Pre Flop: ($48.00) Hero is BTN with A K
1 fold, MP raises to $80, 1 fold, Hero raises to $240, 2 folds, MP raises to $600, Hero calls $360

Flop: ($1248.00) T 2 K (2 players)
MP requests TIME, MP bets $315, Hero calls $315

Turn: ($1878.00) 9 (2 players)
MP requests TIME, MP checks, Hero bets $1320, MP raises to $3082 all in, Hero calls $1762

River: ($8042.00) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($8042.00) A (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $8042.00
Hero shows A K (two pair, Aces and Kings)
MP shows T J (a flush, Ace high)
MP wins $4019.00
MP wins $4019.00

(Rake: $4.00)

Last huge hand of the day may have been my favorite one of the evening. The villain in this hand is a huge nit ime, so getting him to bluff of this many BB's into my nut straight was an unbelievable feeling.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($2905.50)
BB ($2469)
Hero (UTG) ($2868.50)
MP ($1431)
CO ($1739)
Button ($1188.80)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 6, 7
Hero bets $40, 3 folds, SB calls $35, 1 fold

Flop: ($90) 10, 5, 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $70, SB calls $70

Turn: ($230) 9 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $190, SB calls $190

River: ($610) 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1000, SB raises $2604, Hero calls $1567

Total pot: $5744

Results:
SB had 8, 8 (one pair, eights).
Hero had 6, 7 (straight, seven high).
Outcome: Hero won $5750

This hand was pretty fun

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (2 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($606)
Hero (BB) ($606)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, K
SB bets $15, Hero raises $54, SB calls $42

Flop: ($120) 4, 10, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $80, SB raises $546 (All-In), Hero calls $466 (All-In)

Turn: ($1212) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($1212) 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $1212

Results:
SB had A, Q (one pair, tens).
Hero had A, K (one pair, tens).
Outcome: Hero won $1211.50

Not much to really talk about here, just figured he was shoving a lot of trash so I call with the nut no pair.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($2003)
UTG ($2582.50)
Hero (MP) ($3526)
CO ($1497)
Button ($1972.50)
SB ($1059.80)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 5, 7
1 fold, Hero bets $40, 3 folds, BB calls $30

Flop: ($85) 3, 8, 3 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $60, BB calls $60

Turn: ($205) 4 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $160, BB calls $160

River: ($525) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $400, BB raises $1741.50, Hero folds

Total pot: $1325

Results:
BB didn't show
Outcome: BB won $2672.50

Ok so this hand is against the same nit that jammed 88 into my nut straight(67) for that huge pot. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) this hand happened before the huge bluff he tried to pull off. At the time this hand went down I thought this was the easiest bet/snap fold ever on the river. And I still think its a fold but if I had seen the 88 hand before this I may have gotten a little bit too curious for my own good.

Looking back at my last 2 monthsish FTP has a pretty solid doomswitch on me, so please to be turning that off. Until next time, gl at the tables everyone.

Been a little while since I updated...

2009-12-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. As expected I didn't really play too much poker over the weekend. My Clemson Tigers took on GA Tech in the ACC championship game, and were handed a heart breaking loss despite CJ Spiller putting on a show. I thought after the USC game last week, he really hurt any chance of being invited to the Heisman ceremony in New York next week barring an incredibly ACC championship game. Well Spiller did not disappoint, rushing for 234 yards and 4 TD's in probably his best rushing game of the year. Looking back at his season, I don't know how anyone can argue that CJ Spiller is not at least one of the top 5 players in the country, if not the best.

Ill end the Spiller talk with one of my favorite Spiller plays of all time...

WOW

Ok so onto poker. I played a little bet on Sunday night in some pretty good 5/10 games and won like $2700. Then yesterday I played for just a little bit and won a little over $3k at 5/10 and 10/20. As for today, I got hot pretty earlier and was up like $7k at 5/10 HU and 10/20 6 max but then crashed and burned 4 tabling a regular at 5/10 HU. I was up a few buy ins on him, then he hit a 2 outer against me and it sort of sent me into a tailspin. Pretty pathetic how I played after that point and I ended up quitting down $1K against him because I could tell I wasn't playing my A game. I ended up my morning session around +$1300.

Ill post some of the interesting hands I've had in the past couple days.

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

Hero (BB) ($1138)
SB ($3780.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, Q
SB bets $25, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60) J, 9, 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $30, Hero calls $30

Turn: ($120) A (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $110, Hero calls $110

River: ($340) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $300, Hero raises $968 (All-In), SB calls $668

Total pot: $2276

Results:
SB had 10, 7 (straight, Jack high).
Hero had J, Q (one pair, Jacks).
Outcome: SB won $2275.50

Here is the last hand from the HU match I played before I decided to quit in disgust at my play, although I don't think this hand is too too bad. I make a std call preflop, and c/c the flop. All pretty standard. The turn is an A and he barrels again. I call because I think it's a good card for him to fire as a bluff. The river is somewhat interesting. I check a 3rd time and he fires again. Now I'm pretty sure at this point I don't have the best hand often enough to call, so it's either fold or shove. I decided to shove, trying to get him off an Ax type hand or a 2 pair type hand. He has seen me slow play some hands on some wet boards so it's possible for me to have a straight or a set here as well as maybe a back door flush with Jx/9x spades. Either way theres no way hes folding a straight so :(

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($2345.05)
Hero (BB) ($2000)
UTG ($1443.75)
MP ($1000)
Button ($1470.95)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, J
3 folds, SB bets $25, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60) Q, 8, 8 (2 players)
SB bets $45, Hero raises $150, SB calls $105

Turn: ($360) 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $280, SB calls $280

River: ($920) K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Total pot: $920

Results:
SB had 6, Q (two pair, Queens and eights).
Hero had A, J (one pair, eights).
Outcome: SB won $924.50

This hand I make a pretty big mistake by checking the river I think. I just flat preflop but decide that this is a pretty decent flop to raise, and since I have the Ah I have some good back door equity. The villain calls and the turn is the 3h, a good card for me to continue barreling. Villain calls again and we see the Kd river. For some reason I decide to chicken out and think that I am going to get called by Qx to much of the time for bluffing to be any good. Unfortunately for me I let the villain get to showdown relatively cheaply with his Q6s.

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (3 handed) - Hold'em ManagerConverter Tool fromFlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($3422.50)
BB ($5456)
Hero (Button) ($4049)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 8, 7
Hero bets $50, SB raises $190, 1 fold, Hero calls $150

Flop: ($420) 2, Q, 8 (2 players)
SB bets $270, Hero calls $270

Turn: ($960) 7 (2 players)
SB bets $585, Hero raises $3579 (All-In), SB calls $2367.50 (All-In)

River: ($6865) 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $6865

Results:
Hero had 8, 7 (full house, eights over sevens).
SB had K, K (two pair, Kings and eights).
Outcome: Hero won $7490.50

Alright so this hand is pretty interesting. I'm playing in a 10/20 game where the other 2 regulars play mostly 5/10 as well and I think I have a decent edge here. Villain in this hand 3 bets a ton vs' steals so I decide to call preflop, plus the fact that we are somewhat deep. So I flop 2nd pair and he continuation bets, I decide to peel one because I think his range is super wide and I don't really expect him to double barrel me as a bluff too much on this flop texture.

I turn 2 pair and he leads again. Since I didn't think he was going to be double barreling me too much as a bluff here, I decide to jam the turn. My reasoning is basically that I think his turn betting range is pretty heavily weighted towards hands that he likes and that he probably thinks is the best hand. He is probably also aware that I can be somewhat spewy sometimes so he can probably see me shoving here if i have like JTdd or 9Ts type hands. Anyway he thinks for a bit and calls with KK and i dodge the 8 outer for a pretty large pot.

Well thats all I got for interesting hands today. Bout to go to the gym and then I might play another session later tonight, well see. Later.