Strong Finish

I just finished a quick session of 235 hands and ended up +$184. I didn't want to play too long today as I have some other things to do, but I am happy with how this session went. I only made one questionable call, but the rest of the hands I felt I played really well. I should've won about double if my Aces didn't get cracked and if I didn't split a pot when I had a guy drawing basically dead with only 3 chop outs. Here is the graph:

Hands:

AA less than K7
This is exactly what you want with this hand and you just have to hope your 3:1 holds up. It was such a nice turn card too in that it killed another out for him, but he still managed to get there. This didn't bother me at all so I am getting better.

Ehhh
This is a pretty questionable call down on my part. The only hand I was really worried about was 79 or a small set, so I think I have enough equity against other hands to call. I Pokerstoved this range: 99,77,33-22,A9s,K9s,Q9s,J9s,T9s,97s+,A9o,K9o and it said I had 60% equity, but that's only on the flop, and the range I applied was more of a turn/river range. If I could somehow adjust, it might be a lot closer to even or less for me. I just don't see him bluff min-raising the turn, and then potting the river without a hand that beats me. At best I was splitting so it's probably a fold but I have made worse calls.

Sets are nice
I didn't have any history with this guy, so when he called my 3 bet, I put him on 77-JJ and AQ+. The flop was beautiful and I bet a small inducer to tempt him to raise or at least not fold out some lower pairs/high cards. The turn was another great card because I could act like it was a scare card and it also hits his over card floats. He bet out nicely allowing me to stall call and I again checked the river because I really felt he would bet. He obliged by shoving and I insta-called and he folded seven high.

Shame
This was against the same guy, who I now see is an awful player. He only had three chop outs going to the river, but I might not have stacked him on a blank. I certainly would've gotten a decent value bet from him though.

Grinding

I played close to 500 hands today and it was actually pretty tame. I didn't win or lose more than half of a buy-in during any hand for the entire session. I wanted to focus on cutting down on some of the crazy variance plays I make like too many big bluffs and trying to get too active with connected cards. I thinks that's why the session went the way it did, but I am happy with this. I wasn't winning a lot of big pots but I was exploiting the weaker players and still making money with much less risk. Here's the graph:

I'm only going to post a few hands because there wasn't a ton of action hands.

Maximizing Value
I really think I maximized value on this hand. This is a flop that doesn't hit a ton of hands so I knew I couldn't really force it as he most likely has something like a medium pair or a medium Ace. The turn was a great card to check to make it seem like I was continuation betting and now giving up. This allowed me to get some value on the river (lol at AT).

Punked
This may sound like I'm trying save myself, but when this guy 4 bet me I immediately hit the max button, but then I stopped myself from being rash and started to think it through more. I folded because I didn't think it was worth it, but I do have to give this guy credit for making a good play. He was definitely the best $100 max player I have seen thus far and probably should be playing higher.

I'm going to be playing a decent amount today as I once again don't have any classes. This weekend is PSU's first football game so I definitely will be there. They are playing some scrub team but next week is Notre Dame so that should be insane. We are also going to maybe do a cookout next week and the thought of it is making me hungry...

Crazy Cash

Cash games have been very volatile for me lately, but I've somehow managed to come back from some extreme intra day lows most of the time. Today was another day like that. I got off to the worst start ever, losing two buy-ins within 50 hands to a bad beat and a cooler. I didn't tilt really at all after those two hands but I still couldn't get anything going at $100 max. I decided to take a break after 430 hands and then came back and played 1/2 for 360 hands. I played ok, but not great, at $200 max and won almost 1.5 buy-ins to put me up $75 for the day. Here are the results and the graph:



I know I have some major leaks at the moment, as well as some emotional discipline problems, and I'm going to do some in-depth study after this post. There were some interesting hands so I'll probably post more than normal:

Annoying
This is one of those hands where I knew I wasn't going to hold. I had watched this guy suck out a few times before this so I didn't get my hopes up. Anyways, the moral of the story is push any draw and you will get there.

Cooler
It's tough to put a guy on a set of fours here but my entire river sequence is just awful here. His turn bet looked like a blocking bet with something like JT, weak King, or pair and flush draw. I tried to make a really small value bet on the river to maybe get some action from another King, but I might have been being optimistic. When he check-raises the river, I should've insta-mucked as he won't do this on a bluff because he has no fold equity. I also don't really beat anything that would check raise the river but I think I got mad at betting and made a crying call.

Leak
This hand is so unnecessary in so many ways that it hurts. This guy had 3 bet me quite a few times (which I really hate) and so I was a little frustrated with him. Looking back over this hand, it is a pretty tough spot with this rainbow board and a lack of scare cards for me. I think it's probably better to just continuation bet and shut down out of position with 77 here. This board is very floatable as it misses so many hands and I didn't really think he was that strong. I tried to play for pot control but he bet the turn, which is what he would do on a float. The turn is the most confusing part for me here, and I hate confusing decisions out of position. I put out a blocking bet on the river because I felt I was going to call a bet but I wanted to dictate the size of the bet and there was still a chance he could fold out a hand like 88 or 99. I think a better line is to turn my hand into a bluff by check raising the turn (which I would do with an overpair on this board) and then bet about 80% pot on the river.

Nicely Played AA
I think I basically called out this guy's hand to myself when he bet the turn. On the flop, his min-raise was either a set or a strong ten, and when he potted the turn, I really didn't think he had a set. I was never folding but I definitely maximized value here.

I had another fantasy draft tonight with some other newer people like Lauren and my brother. Lauren's team is actually pretty solid and I play her in week 1 and I'm really afraid I might lose. My brother and his friend have also started taking Jujitsu at a local gym that offers a lot of martial arts training. I talked with my brother and his friend Bruce about it, and we decided we might all take some private lessons in Thai Boxing. I really want to do this for so many reasons. It's a great way to get in shape, learn to kick people's asses, and an excellent way to learn discipline. I am pretty excited about it and I'm going to make sure I follow through with it...

Almost forgot

My best friend Bob Preston was on ESPN tonight for the WSOP. He managed to get a feature table when we played in the WSOP and he got some decent coverage. He ended being the Degree all in moment like me except he actually won his as he beat on Mike "The Mouth" Matusow and ended his WSOP tourney life. So congratulations to him and I believe he has more coverage coming on September 11th, so for the 5 people that read this blog (including you Bob), tune in and be amazed...

2nd session

I decided to play another session after I hung out with Lauren and finished grocery shopping. I put in another 620 hands, bringing me to a grand total of 840 hands. I managed to finish the session at +$178 but it was a very swingy session. Here is the updated graph:


A big leak of mine today was trying to bluff too much. I have been having some success with my multi-street bluffs, but today I tried it way too often. The spots were still decent but I can't assume I can always push people off a hand or they will believe what I'm representing and make a big laydown. So I'm going to work on that in the next few sessions. I did take a few beats at critical times in the session but then I had a nice two-outer (I wasn't all in though so not a big suck out) right at the end to cap off the night. Here are some hands:

Ouch
I had been getting beat and was maybe slightly tilting a little before this, but then I composed myself and was on a nice run when this happened. It killed some of my momentum. This was a nice standard cooler that I was suppose to win but didn't work out that way.

Got there
This was one of my multi-street bluffs that actually worked, even though I did get there. The river card is meaningless as I'm betting the same on basically any card, but it does make you feel better when he time banks. It was pretty easy to tell he was on a medium pair. I didn't get any great scare cards so this one was a little more risky, but I was confident about his hand and I really thought I could get him to fold. Now I only wish he would've called.

Whew
I didn't realize this pot was 3-way when I flat called, and I might have raised if I did know, but I was a little suspicious of his lead out. When he bet the turn, I really thought he had a set as he should have slowed down with any weaker hand, but I just called because I didn't want to dissuade him from betting the river if I was wrong. I got semi-lucky but I'm never folding my hand here as I am ahead sooooo often.

I had my first day of classes at school today and it was pretty good. I managed to attend all three and the only hiccup was going to handball (which I thought Josh and I signed up for) and then finding out we actually signed up for a nutrition class with quizzes and other graded material. The class still seems pretty easy so I am going to keep it, but next semester I plan on taking one of the martial arts gym classes. It has been nice to be able to see Lauren everyday up here at school. Her apartment is a little further away this year, but the weather is so nice and her apartment is much nicer than last year that I really don't mind the walk. She also keeps me grounded and has been a big help in me sticking to my resolution of not being wasteful, so thanks babe! I don't have any classes tomorrow, so I am going to rearrange my room furniture, write down all of my assignments, and of course, play a bunch of poker and hopefully win lots of money...

Internet is so nice

I have never been more grateful to have the internet in my life. I really felt Amish these past few days but I was a lot more productive when it came to errands and stuff like that. Anyways, I played my first session since getting the internet back. I only played 200 hands because I'm in between classed at the moment, but I still managed to make $86. I didn't get a chance to blog about my losing day. I played around 800 hands on Friday before the internet and lost a buy-in and a half. It was a really frustrating session where I was constantly getting three bet when I was raising light and then got zero action with my big hands. It was also very swingy with me being down $220 then back to even and then dropping a buy-in at the end of the session, resulting in me quitting right then.

Here's today's graph:


There were a few interesting hands so I'll post those:
Got Lucky I Guess
This hand was pretty interesting and I feel my read was pretty good. I felt this was a good board to continuation bet and double barrel if needed as it hits so few hands. Also, on boards like this, better players will often float you to induce a check from you on the turn so they can steal it on the river. On the flop, I felt he was on a hand like 66 or 77 because a 9 should definitely check raise, and same with a flush draw. The Ace hit the turn and was a great double barrel card and he called again. This was a little confusing and I had to hands like AT, AJ floating the flop and now getting there. I almost didn't realize I had made a straight because I was trying to figure out his river lead. His line kind of looked like a flush draw that got there, but he most likely wouldn't have played it so passively. He also could have slow played a few 2 pair hands, plus he could very easily have an Ace, so I'm ahead of too many hands to fold but there is no value in raising as I'm only getting called by a flush on that board. I really hate his river bet. He isn't getting any value from hands he is ahead of (which is very few) and his line didn't add up, so a nice pot for me.

Won a race
It was nice to win a race, especially when it was over by the turn. I wasn't thrilled by his call but it worked out.

Very Surprising
I didn't think I was actually going to win this hand but I somehow did. I was going to stab on the turn but I didn't want to push myself of my draw.

I might play again later tonight since I didn't really play much this afternoon. I am going to get groceries and run some errands so we shall see...

No internet

I don't have any internet at the apartment right now because I didn't forward my mail home for the summer, leaving me three months behind in bills. I would pretend that I'm upset because it's affecting my ability to do my class stuff, but I try not to lie in my blog. It is preventing me from playing poker, and thus from making money, so that is very annoying. Not having the internet also makes me realize how dependent I am on it. It's really boring when you don't have class all day and you don't have the internet to kill some of the down time. I'll post again when it's back up and running...

Played Poor, Ok Result

I didn't play that well in the beginning of my 400 hand session today. I made some poor call downs and a pretty bad shove in my opinion. I was down over a buy-in semi-early but I managed to get my act together and start playing well to end the session +$48. I came to the realization that it isn't about making great call downs/folds and fancy plays, but rather getting maximum value from your hands at this level. People take some really weird lines at $100 max so it's tough to decipher, but there are just so many calling stations that checking the turn for pot control often isn't the best play. I have never bet every street with just pair in my life than I have been recently, and it has been working. I just need to make sure I don't do this as I start to move up levels as it doesn't work as well against tougher opponents. Here's the chart:

One of these days my graph will rise at a nice 45 degree angle, but I'll take what I can get. Here are some hands:

Lots of Value
This is a good example of what I was talking about above. I'm not saying I wouldn't bet the turn here against a solid opponent but this guy made it pretty obvious he had a King and I don't expect people to be folding top pair at this level.

Ughh
This is the bad shove hand. This guy was running at something like 62/30 and was a pretty big donk, but I'm just not sure if it's worth shoving here. His huge raise sort of threw me off and made me lean toward JJ, but this was also my first big pocket pair, so I think I talked myself into it. I thought I was going to suck out too..

Bad Call
This was a pretty awful turn but I called anyways because I don't give anyone any credit. The only thing I can beat is a draw that was picked up on the turn (like Ace of clubs) buts thats reaching. Nothing better than putting it in when you are drawing dead.

I'm going back to school tomorrow and I'm pretty excited for it. I have one class that I think might be interesting, a game theory class. I'm also excited because I will get to see my girlfriend more and I should be able to play more poker. So lots of benefits...

Fantasy Football and Cash Games

We had our fantasy football draft today and I was randomly selected as the tenth pick out of ten teams. So I wasn't able to get Tomlinson or Steven Jackson, but I did manage to snag Peyton and overall a pretty solid team.
Manning, Peyton QB IND
Benson, Cedric RB CHI
Bush, Reggie RB NO
Burress, Plaxico WR NYG
Houshmandzadeh, T.J. WR CIN
Johnson, Calvin WR DET
Gonzalez, Tony TE KC
Stover, Matt K BAL
Broncos, D D DEN
Pennington, Chad QB NYJ
Henry, Chris RB TEN
Taylor, Fred RB JAC
Curtis, Kevin WR PHI
Galloway, Joey WR TB
Williamson, Troy WR MIN
I am looking forward to some good results from this team. Even if they don't perform, fantasy football combined with betting on football makes Sundays my favorite day in the fall.

As for the poker world, I had another good day of cash games. I played 471 hands and made $150, so a very nice BB/100 rate. August is going pretty well for how little I have played and including that $1100 losing day. Here is the graph for August so far:

This graph also doesn't include the +$350 day that I had while I was using my computer at school. With that win included, I am just over +$1000 for August so far. I am going to fall short of my $4k goal for the month due to not being able to play as much as I thought, but I would like to hit somewhere between +$1500-2000 for the month. The good news is that I have increased my $2k bankroll to $3k so only $1000 more til I can step up to 1/2. Although leaving $100 max will be painful, because if were to put some serious hands in at this level, I could make more money then at 2/4 on stars. Here are a few hands:

Passive line
I like to mix up AK a lot and just flat call some raises. You can get so much more action Ace high flops and your hand is really disguised. This one worked very nicely even though the guy overplayed his AJ.

Nice light 3 bet
Pretty standard here. I only do it against guys I know are competent and multi-tabling. I got a nice flop to continue the bluff, as not many opponents will float with air out of position on Ace high boards. If my flop bet got called/raised, I can easily shut down and if it ends up going to showdown, it gives me a nice crazy image. A lot of benefits with plays like this even though they are bit riskier.

Tomorrow is another busy day so I'm not sure if I will get to play. I have a doctors appointment 11:30 and I need to get a hair cut. Then Lauren is coming over :) so that will be fun. I then also need to pack all of my belongings and load my car so I can leave Friday morning. If I am very efficient, I might be able to squeeze in a night session but I doubt it...

Long, Swingy Session

I set another record for hands played today: 1350. I only managed to make $45 but I ran pretty poorly and I definitely tilted some. It's an accomplishment that I even finished in the green. As for the session, it was very swingy and makes for a nice graph and some heartburn:

Here's an image to show how I was running:

This doesn't take into the effect of the times I got out-flopped and just got it in bad. It only measure how I ran at points I was all in.

AK #1
AK #2
This guy was absolutely raping my AK on great flops for me. In the first hand, I was positive he had a weaker Ace so I decided to bet all three streets because I knew I could get value from them. He got lucky and 3 outered me but it happens. In the second hand, he again hit another 3 outer but by the time he raised me, there was too much in the pot and not enough in his stack to get away from it.

This hand tilted me
The way this guy played it seemed like a flush draw or something like A8, so I of course snap called and he flipped over 82. Needless to say, the little bit of tilt I went on was probably caused by this.

Good Hand
Four betting this flop with TT may seem pretty awful, but this guy was really bad. My read was good and had him drawing to two outs.

Nice 3 barrel
I really loved this hand because I really felt I knew where this guy was at in the hand, and I knew he was decent enough to think before acting. I really felt he had a medium pair like 77/88 and this was a great spot to bluff. I got two very nice cards on the turn and river to apply pressure with and after tanking the river, he folded.

I also played around with PAHud today and I figured out how to get the stats off of the betting bar. Now I can use PAHud again, and I think it will really help out a lot. At the moment, I am just assuming everyone is bad and a calling station if they aren't multi-tabling (usually true) but now I will be able to really filter. I can also figure who to continuation bet less and who to press. I still need to work on playing at my best during long sessions like this one. I will probably try to play about the same length tomorrow so we'll see how that goes...

Good to be back

I finally got to play an online session tonight. It went extremely well, with me winning $198 in 185 hands. That's over $1/hand and I even started the session by dropping a buy-in rather quickly. Not a ton of deep thinking hands took place (rarely do at this level) but there are some funny ones. Here's the chart:

Nice and swingy like we like it. I'm not going to go in depth with any hands as they are all pretty straight forward.

Blah
This hand was pretty bad by me. If the board was an dry Ace high flop, this would be so much easier to just dump and move on, but there were clubs as well as various straight draws so I was ok getting it in here. Like I've said before, I don't think it's profitable to be making big laydowns as this level as you will see in some of the following hands.

Speechless
This hand literally made me laugh. I don't mind his check raise on this board as it's a very scary one for a big Ace or a non-set pair. The turn over shove is just atrocious as he isn't getting called by anything he beats (especially 6 high lol). This is why I won't fold TPTK at this level.

Nice Cooler
This hand is the definition of a cooler, but there were ways I could have played this that might have prevented me from getting his whole stack, depending on his skill level. Smooth calling was perfect here as his bet is either a weak squeeze or a decent sized pair, so there was no need to try and get him to fold his hand.

I'm going to Lauren's tomorrow so no poker but I'm really excited to see her. It's been almost a week and that is pretty long for us. I think we are going to see that Superbad movie, which looks pretty funny. I just watched Knocked Up and I thought that fat kid was pretty funny in that, so I'm looking forward to Superbad. I will post when I get back...

Turningstone Trip Report

Just got back from my Turningstone trip. I had planned on updating there but the wireless internet in the lodge section of the hotel was really poor and I still can't get my computer to work with an Ethernet cord.

The first tournament we played was a 1k buy-in event. This was one of the most miserable tournaments of my life. I was so card dead it was painful. Even with this problem, I tried raising some marginal hands in position and stuff, but my cbets got raised almost every time and I wasn't connecting with any flops. I don't think I've ever been more bored in my life than during this tournament. Live poker was a lot more noticeably boring this time around because I have been playing online more, and going from 100+ hands per hour to about 20 hands per hour is just insane. Anyways, I busted by shoving my short stack with AJ into AA.

The next day was an $1100 satellite to the 5k event on Friday. I played pretty well in this tournament and my table was loaded with about 5 kids under the age of 20 swapping screen names and 2+2 names, so it was a tough table. I managed to chip after a couple of hours and got my 10k stack up to about 20k. The blinds increased every 30 minutes and just when they were starting hurt, I went card dead and was blinded down to about 12k. I ended up shoving TT from the button and got called by AQ and lost that race. I finished something like 55th and 34 got a seat, so a semi-bubble.

Friday was the 5k main event. There were 124 players with a first place prize of 200k so it definitely peaked my interest. The tournament was loaded with internet kids and tight old people, so there weren't a lot of soft spots to easily get chips. I played really well the first day, especially when it came to disguising my hand. I got up to about 16k from 10k in about 1.5 hours but then went card dead and kept up a pattern of winning a decent pot to lose it back a couple of hands later. I finished the day at 16.5k which was about half the average, but the blinds were only going to be 300/600, so I would still have about 30 BB's. Jono was still alive as well (he was at my table) and had about 35k so he was in good shape. I started off day 2 nicely and won a few pots to get me around 18k but then I ended up squeezing with AK in the BB and got called by KK and failed to improve. I finished 33rd with top 13 paying so another semi-bubble. Jono busted about an hour after me so no success for the family. One thing I really hate is making a day two but then busting and not making the money. I am favor of making every tournament play down to the money on day 1 (except for things like the WSOP and WPTs) because it's very annoying...

TV and Turningstone

Yesterday my WSOP final table episode aired on ESPN. I decided to have a small party at a local restaurant with friends and family to celebrate. About an hour before the episode, I got a call from a friend saying that the Cardplayer website was claiming a different episode was suppose to air at that time. This made me a little nervous because I also looked at the TV guide earlier in the day and the info section said it was a no limit event, but mine was a pot limit event. I really thought it wasn't going to come on and I felt really stupid for telling a bunch of people I was going to be on tv and even had a party for it. Luckily, my episode did air and everything was great. It was an open bar with lots of different appetizers and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I didn't get as much tv time as I thought I would (they cut out my dramatic 99 vs. the AJ of Jason Lester where he hit a Jack on the river to take half my stack), but I can't complain as some of the other lesser known people hardly got any time at all. Travis Rice got really screwed. He's one of the more well known internet players and he did really well at this year's WSOP, and they didn't show one of his hands. They even further debased him by showing him shaking hands with everyone after a commercial break as he busted (didn't even include the bust out hand!!) You really do have to have a bracelet or be very well known for ESPN to truly focus on you. They did give me a shout out about me buying a lot of flat screen tv's so that was funny. I also stumbled upon this at the Bluff website: http://www.bluffmagazine.com/players/playerBIOs.asp?playerID=29298&pagecolor=FFFFFF#.


It gives all of the results of the tournaments I have cashed in during my lifetime, so if I don't keep track, I at least know where to look.

I'm leaving for Turningstone in about an hour, and I'm excited to play some live poker again. I think I will be playing in 2 or 3 tournaments, and then some cash games if I don't fare well in the tournaments. This tournament typically gets the youngest crowd because you only have to be 18 to play, but it definitely attracts the best online players. I remember last year when I wasn't as accomplished at poker (compared to now)during this tournament, I went to go into the cash game room, and there was a 25/50 NL game running and the average age was probably around 20. I'm definitely going to try and play some 5/10 and 10/20 but if it's filled with a bunch of internet kids, I will probably just play 20/40 or 30/60 limit with the old calling stations. It would be really nice to go super deep in the 5k event, even though I will most likely be staked again. Either way, I am there til Sunday so I should have plenty of opportunities to make some money...

Grinding $100 max

I got back from PSU today around 1pm and started playing shortly after that. I played about 550 hands of .5/1 again, and it was another good day. I ended up finishing at +$154, so a little over 1.5 buy-ins. This graph is rare in that I was basically never in the red except for the first few hands.

I really feel I can make more money at $100 max on Full Tilt then I can playing $200 max on Pokerstars, and I have done really well at $200 max on stars. The account is at $2600 and I'm still debating whether I should just deposit another $7500 or so I can start playing 2/4 or if I should just grind it up until I have $4000 in the account so I can move to 1/2. Then when I get to $8000 I can move to 2/4, etc...just keeping 20 buy-ins for each level.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1366514
This was the only hand worth posting, and I nicely picked off a bluff. When I got check raised, I felt it was either a draw, another Jack, or air and nothing stronger. This board misses a lot of my range so a check raise bluff isn't too out of line. I would've included a set in this range, but a set never check raises and then checks the turn. I checked the turn back for pot control and to induce a bluff. It worked and he ended up bluffing with 9 high.

Tomorrow is my TV date and I am having a little party at the Mill Street Grille to watch me lose a bunch of hands. Lauren is coming in for the whole day, so I can't wait for that! Now I just need to think of something to do...

I Love Full Tilt!

I finally got my Full Tilt Account back, and after a few swap transfers, I had an account right around 2k. I decided to exercise some decent bankroll management so I only played 4 tables of .5/1 6 max. It went extremely well with me winning +$340 in 280 hands, which is about 3.5 buy-ins. It's a shame I couldn't do this at 2/4, but I can't be greedy, and this is a nice little rebound after yesterday's massacre. Here's the graph:


I actually ran really well and hit my first two outer in a long time. These are the big hands:

Glad this wasn't an indicator
When I lost this hand, I honestly thought it was going to be another rough session. His overbet donk shove was an obvious draw so AQ is an instacall all day for me here. I even had the Ace of clubs, but he still got. Luckily he was only a short stack, so it didn't hurt too much.

2 outer
I would normally lay this down or play it more cautiously in a higher limit where the skill level was better, but based on what I had already seen in this session, I wasn't ready to start making big lay downs. I also really felt this could be an overplayed AQ/KQ and possibly even a KT. When he called I thought he had QJ because a set seemed very unlikely (QQ/JJ normally 3 bets to neutralize position and 33 is possible but also very unlikely statistically) but that's what he had. I finally hit a two outer and won a nice pot. I poker stoved this range: {KK-JJ,33,AQs,KQs,KTs,QJs,AQo,KQo,KTo,QJo}
and my equity versus this range is 62% so a clear call. This is an obviously wide range, but I'm assuming the average player here is slightly below average.

Nice Hold
I was actually really shocked that I held here, especially since it was such a large pot. I figured I was up against an over pair and a flush draw or two over pairs, but I wouldn't have been shocked to see 45 here. This was a good way to end the session.

As for the life side of things, I came to Penn State today to clean out my closet and take care of some other errands. After going through my closest, I had 5 full garbage bags of clothing that I don't wear and now will be going to goodwill or someplace like that. This made me realize how wasteful I am, at least in the clothes department, and this is something I want to change. It isn't even close to New Year's, but I'm resolving to be less wasteful...

The 2/4 Curse has returned

It appears that I haven't escaped the curse of 2/4 just yet. Today I lost about 2.5 buy-ins in only 450 hands, so it was pretty much an awful day of poker. I definitely had some coolers but I also played really poorly and I became a calling/bluffing station once again. Here's the graph:


Some hands as well:
So annoying
This hand laid the ground work for my tilting. Like I've said before, there is nothing I hate more than being min-raised in situations like this. This guy was really bad too and that made me even angrier.

Just Tilted Again this very second
This guy is a good player and I know that he plays as high as 25/50. The reason I just got tilted again is that I didn't realize he showed his hand until looking at the hand history right now. I don't like the feeling of being outplayed, but this guy kicked my ass in this hand. Four betting with JJ in his spot is not very easy, and he raised me small enough that I basically had to call, which made his hand really seem like AA or KK. Well, now that I'm reviewing the hand more, I'm really really unsure here. On one hand, his small re-raise allows him to fold to my shove if he wanted to, but on the other hand, it still could look like Aces or Kings trying to keep me involved. I also am starting to think my flop fold is a bad play here as well. Based on the way I've played the hand, my range is basically QQ/JJ with maybe a small percentage being slow played AA, but I think I like most people would just shove with AA and assume my opponent is committed. So he has to know my hand is basically QQ/JJ and an Ace would most likely try to get some value from my hand standardly. But this player is a high stakes player and is capable of leveling me here, so the overbet shove looks more like an Ace than a value bet because if he assumes I'm a decent, thinking player and I assume he is thinking that, then he knows he has to try and disguise his hand. An overbet shove looks like an obvious bluff here with a hand like JJ-KK, and since I know he is good and wouldn't make such a novice, transparent play like this, I assume he has a super strong hand. I probably didn't explain that well, but it wasn't very easy to put into words.

Tilting
This hand is another one I'm not sure about. I really like the way I played the flop, because this is one of those situation where I am way ahead or way behind, so checking doesn't hurt me and it disguises my hand some to set up value for later streets. His call to me was basically JJ+, AK. This flop reduces the chance of his hand being KK, and the turn makes AK look really slim. So on this turn, I knew his hand was AA or JJ, and my shove here is a huge mistake. Like I said, I was tilted. I have a little bit of fold equity but I'm not getting called by any worse hands so its a really bad shove. Also, I'm still in the way ahead or way behind situation, so I should be just smooth calling here and then evaluating the river. Nothing like being a donator...

Hello 2/4

Today's 540 hand session provided a very nice graph to look at it. Things started off decent, then it plummeted (and I almost quit to prevent myself from tilting), then it sky rocketed at the end with me finishing up +$470. I actually have a lot of interesting hands and pots to post, so this blog entry might run long. Here's the chart:

Here are some hands:

Aces Early
This hand is an example of where I felt pretty lost as to where my opponent was in the hand. When he calls my 3 bet, I can assign a range of something like 99+, AQ+, and some suited connectors, and that might be even a little loose. The flop is a pretty good one for my hand against his range, so my continuation bet is purely for value. When he calls, I can narrow his range down to more like TT+, AK, AQss. I check the Queen on the turn for pot control as I didn't really think a smaller pair could handle much more heat. Plus this allows me to keep the pot smaller if he does happen to have AK. Then he bets the turn, which is the really confusing part for me, and I'm not sure if my shove here is a good one, even though it did win. It's confusing because most medium pairs would check behind for pot control, and a flush draw would surely take a free one on a this board, unless it was AQss. So after evaluating his bet, I felt he either had a King, AQss, or was getting rash with a hand like JJ/air. Since AK is the only feasible King combination, I didn't think it was likely since I had two of the Aces and two of the Kings were on the board. This meant I was ahead of the rest of his range, and I didn't want to flat call and have a spade come, giving him a flush/chance to represent flush. I shoved and he thought for awhile (a sigh of relief for me) and ended up folding.

Gross Hand
This hand was frustrating in many ways. I'm still up in the air about 3 betting with medium/small pairs because just flat calling sort of gives away the strength of your hand, but 3 betting and getting called puts you in a very tough spot with a large pot now. Anyways, I 3 bet here and he called OOP. This is typically a medium pair like TT,JJ or AK,AQ. The flop was actually a good one for my hand because it put TT,JJ in a tough spot and AK,AQ completely miss. When he called my continuation bet, I really thought it was something like TT,JJ and so the Ace was the perfect double barrel card as I can represent an Ace face that got bailed out. Unfortunately, this guy floated OOP with AK (I don't reccommend this play at all because if you miss and want to make a move, you will have zero fold equity for a turn checkraise shove) and hit, so there went a nice $400.

Don't bluff calling stations
This hand is a lot like that last one in that I thought I could represent an Ace here, but then I got the dreaded min-raise (makes me so mad) so I had to fold my Jack high. I haven't gotten a lot better at not bluffing calling stations, but I still do it from time to time.

Perfect Turn
This guy was pretty bad and I was waiting to get him. He donk lead into a few of my raises like this before, but I never had any value and he was a major station so I didn't want to try and bluff him. This time I finally had something and then I got the perfect turn card for both of our hands and there was no way I was folding. This pot felt nice.

Huge Pot
Normally I would just ship it all in with AK here but this guy was a super donk and liked to do stuff like this http://www.pokerhand.org/?1355211. So I was a little weary and decided to just call since we were both pretty deep stacked and I didn't feel like flipping for 250bb pot. I figured he was pretty strong but I got the perfect flop and was going all the way with it. He bet and I just shoved because I knew he was bad and was going to call. The turn gave me the nuts and his JJ was no good.

August is going well so far with me being up about $1200 and I have probably only played 7 out of the 10 total days. I feel good about my game right now and I feel if I run ok I can put up some good numbers for August. Tonight is the Dave concert so I'm going to celebrate and get really drunk. I'm also trying to plan a one or two day trip to Penn State so I can pay the bills and clean and my closet and such...

Stepped it up today

I haven't been able to play the past few days and today I had a meeting in Pittsburgh that prevented me from playing until about 5:30 pm. I did manage to squeeze in a little over 300 hands before I got to hungry to function. What was different about today was that I'm taking another shot at 2/4 and will continue to unless I lose too much money. I've had sort of 2/4 curse in that every time I move up, I lose a bunch of money, get depressed, and drop back to 1/2. I think my game is a lot better than it was this summer and I think a big part of my problem was that I had a case of Fancy Play Syndrome. I would always try to make these big bluffs and would bloat the pot so much preflop with marginal hands that I would losing buy-ins with no pair bluffs. I realize that playing my normal game should be enough to compete at these levels, and hopefully I will keep getting better. Here are the highlights of my session today:

I played way too timid in the beginning, mainly because I wasn't used to the blinds and the sizes of the bets, but I also had my past 2/4 history in the back of my mind.

Playing Timid
I had raised a few hands so my image wasn't tight but it definitely wasn't loose either. Normally, I would continuation bet just about any flop here with position, but I told myself I was getting a call/raise from a good portion of his range, plus like I said, I was playing timid. Checking behind is probably pretty bad looking back on it, as I could most likely fold out any medium pair and Ace face other than AQ. The one thing I did like about the check though was that I felt there were a lot of good turn cards I could bet/raise. If an Ace or King came, I would surely bet for value and any club I was willing to make a semi-bluff, but that didn't happen and I folded like a girl.

Implementing this more
I am starting to use this play more because I really feel people like to raise light here, and a 3 bet from me preflop is almost too obvious of a resteal, so I like flat calling and then taking it away on the flop. The fact that I had mid-pair here is inconsequential as I would make the play with 6 high (do have more outs here though if called). I really am trying to work on my post flop play lately because from what I've seen, most people are pretty good when it comes to preflop (like squeezing and 3 betting) but a lot of them get very lost when it comes to post flop play.

I should be able to play a large amount of hands tomorrow as I don't have anything planned until the Dave Matthews Band concert in the early evening. I would like to put in a nice 1,000 hand session at 2/4 and see if I have really broken away from my old 2/4 tendencies...

Good Day, Learning PLO

I only played 372 hands today because I had some other things to do. Overall though, I ended up +$253 for no limit and +$43 for PLO. I had some interesting spots today for how short of a time I played. Here is my chart for the day:

I think I have spotted a big leak of mine that is very easy to fix. I have been playing horribly against calling stations. For some reason, I think I can bluff them out of a hand, and I also continuation bet against them way too much. I did that a couple of times today with missed big cards and that's when it dawned on me. So hopefully this will improve my profitability from now on. Some hands are below:

I sucked out for once
This was my biggest hand of the session and there was some metagame involved here. This had three bet me the previous hand and then again on this one. I decided to call because I wanted to send the message that I won't be giving up when he 3 bets me . My hand was also a good one to win a big pot with against a three betting range if I hit the flop right. The flop was beautiful for my hand, and it was especially good against his range. I assigned him a range of TT+,AQs+,AKo, so there were a few hands I was already ahead of, and the rest I had at least 8 outs against. He ended up flopping top set, which is basically the worst hand in his range for me to see, but I hit my 8 outer and stacked him. I knew it was close equity wise, but after using poker stove, I found out it was almost exactly 50/50 without any weak/air hands in there (like 56s, or low pocket pairs).

Standard line
I had been raising quite a bit at this table, especially when there were limpers, so I knew this was bound to happen. I took my standard line and flat called intending to shove over a continuation bet on just about any flop (wouldn't do it on a KQJ, QJT, etc...). The flop came 98x which isn't bad but it still hits 88 and 99 hard, but there are still too many other hands I am ahead of in his range not to shove here. I actually love this line because your hand really looks like an AK/AQ semi-bluff and I often get snap called any over pair. Didn't get the full payoff here but still a decent pot.

More Metagame
This guy was playing aggressively and had 3 bet my button raise once before, so I felt his range was pretty wide. Like the first hand, I also wanted to establish that he wasn't going to get away with three betting me light. If he were to have shoved here, I would have been in an interesting spot. I would be getting just over 2:1 and according to Poker Stove, I am just slightly worse than a 2:1 dog against this assumed range: JJ+,AKs,AKo. I would probably still call just to set up a loose, crazy image that would hopefully get me payed off later.

I played about 40 minutes of .5/1 on two tables at UB. Pot limit Omaha is a very interesting game, and I still have a long way to go, but I really believe I could make some decent money on there just playing the lower limits. The players are pretty bad and love to gamble, so the swings would be large, but it's definitely +EV. I plan on playing more PLO in the future, so hopefully I can start writing about that intelligently...

Satellited into the million

...by the skin of my teeth!


These satellites just get nuts at the end, so much that the chip leaders only have like 4 or 5 big blinds! Now let's see if I can actually make something of this...

A couple of cash sessions

I have played 1300 (500 then 800) hands over the past two days, and it has been quite a battle. I started off both sessions losing a buy-in or more and then having to fight back the rest of the session. Here is a graph of the past two days:

I guess I can't complain too much as I'm only down about $30 over these two tough days. I have been playing only ok and have had some marginal spots that could've gone either way.

I also found another cool Poker Tracker add on. It's called PokerEv and gives you a lot of cool stats like Poker Tracker but the best feature is that it graphs your winnings versus your expected winnings when all in. This basically allows you to determine if you are playing bad or just running bad when all in. Here is an example:

So this graph shows that over the 5600 hands that I have played since I have been home from Vegas, I have been all in and called 42 times. Then from there it is pretty straight forward. The red line represents my expected winnings and the blue line is actual winnings. When the blue line is below the red line, it means I'm running below expectation, aka running bad, and vice versa. I'm only running about $100 below expectation so I'm running just about at my expectation rate.

Here are some noteworthy hands from the last two days:

Almost Folded
This guy is a regular 2+2er and plays a very loose aggressive style. I felt if I were to 3 bet him, there was a good chance he would fold, so I felt this was a good way to get some value from my hand. When I use this line, I almost always check raise any flop. When he called, I was pretty sure he was on an over pair, as a set wouldn't smooth call a draw heavy flop like that. So it was basically down to JJ, QQ, or KK. I am ahead 2/3 of the time in this case, so I have to call, but I really thought I was going to see QQ. Luckily he had KK and I scooped a nice one.

Hate these bets
This one was probably pretty bad but I talked myself into shoving for a couple of reasons. My hand was very disguised as I raised from the cut off and then checked this flop. It's tough for the average 1/2 player to put me on an overpair here, plus it could've been a misclick. I also just didn't think someone would honestly think they could get value with that hand from the action I had taken, but I've seen people make those huge overbets before with huge hands, so I should've folded.

I am in the process of trying to satellite into the Sunday Million, but if I don't, I'm not sure if I will play in it. I might play another cash session if I don't get to play the million so there might be another update...

Set a record for hands today, Poker Grapher

I set a new personal record of 1122 hands played, but I wish I would have played some of them better. I still ended up +$175 for the day, but it should have been a lot more. I threw away a whole buy-in on a very awful hand that I almost don't want to post, but it can maybe help remind me how not to play.

I was searching around and stumbled upon Poker Grapher, a free add on to Poker Tracker. Like its name says, it creates graphs of whatever time period you specify. Here is my graph of today:

You can click on it to enlarge it. As you can see, it was a pretty swingy session even though I never dropped below a full buy-in. Here are some of the significant hands:

Nice Start
I don't mind the way this guy played his hand pre-flop if there wasn't that under the gun limper. Disguising your hand is very important and this is a good way to mix up your play, but you just don't want to play Aces in a three way pot.

Aces suck
This may seem like I did the same thing as the guy in the previous hand, but there were other circumstances at play for this table. There were a few aggressive guys at my table who almost always would squeeze (a raise followed by a call from another player and then a 3 bet from a separate guy. This traps or "squeezes" the original raiser between the other two players in the hand)and so I felt it was worth the risk of slow playing. The squeeze never happened and it was a heads up pot with my hand very disguised, so the result wasn't too bad. When I got 4 bet on this flop, I really felt like the bulk of his range here was an overpair trying to prevent a draw. I felt a set of 5's or 10's would just flat call my checkraise and then raise my turn continuation bet. Instead, he had 22 and my elaborate Aces plan went to shit.

I suck
This hand really pains me. I didn't mind my 3 bet play at the time because this guy raised his button every time, so his range was very wide. Looking back on the hand now, this is pretty bad preflop by me. When I three bet light, I want to be doing it with hands like suited connectors because it makes decisions so much easier. Either you hit the flop hard or you don't and can easily get away from a one pair hand. In this hand, I hit my Ace and my continuation bet got called. I should have shut down here and cut the losses, as nobody is going to call my flop bet without an Ace or better. For some reason, I pushed him after his obvious inducing bet. I didn't think at all in the hand and I payed for it.

August has started out very nicely with three winning sessions. My goal is to make $4k this month from online cash games alone. I also want to win one of the Turningstone tournaments next week so let's hope I can make one of these goals happen...

Back from Pittsburgh

I have been in Pittsburgh with Lauren since Tuesday morning doing some business research so I wasn't able to update. The trip went well in terms of the business aspects and it was also a nice little getaway. We ate at the Monterrey Fish Grado at the top of Mount Washington Wednesday night, and it was a delicious meal. The view of Pittsburgh is amazing from up there and makes me want to get a house in that area.

I am in the process of trying to get myself organized for the rest of the summer. When I'm at school, I typically use a planner or print out calendar for assignments/tests, and I would also keep extracurricular things on there like appointments, meetings, etc. This summer has been somewhat different in that I'm not working the whole day and have time for other things. I have had a lot of meetings and little trips that I haven't been writing down, and so I have decided to change that. I was playing around with Vista on my laptop and found they have this really nice calendar for keeping track of things in an orderly manner. I'm going to use it for the rest of my summer and if I like it, I might just use it for school as well.

I just finished a medium length session (327 hands) and ended up +$255, so that was a nice little welcome back. I did have some interesting spots:

Weird hand
Against a minimum raise from an unknown player who doesn't keep a full stack, I will never fold this hand preflop. People like this are typically the worst players at this level, so it's good to play hands against them. The flop was a good one for my hand, as I flopped a flush draw, and it's tough to give him credit for a King with that over bet. I elected to just call so I wouldn't get pushed off of my draw if he shoved. Now when he checks the turn, I should probably check behind and try to draw to my flush outs, but I really thought he was weak with something like Ace high, so my hand has no show down value. A semi-bluff here also looks more credible than a bet on the river. When he min-raised my turn bet, I was pretty sure he had a King of some sort, but I was getting 82:18, or about 4.5:1, so it was profitable to call against that range. Another King hit on the river, and this guy checked again which was very odd. I still believed he had a King and was just a moron, but I thought for a second about checking in case he boated up. After about ten seconds, I realized I would be losing too much value from non-paired Kings.

Close One
This was a pretty tough spot in my opinion and I'm still not sure if my play is correct. I didn't really have any reads on the guy and he hadn't 3 bet me at all yet, so I was weary when I called preflop. He did 3 bet me from the button and bet the flop pretty quickly and only 2/3 pot, so I was leaning more towards AK/AQ hands, but I was still very unsure. I obviously ended up shoving and he folded. At the time, I thought it was very close equity wise, and after using poker stove with a range of 99+,AQs+,AQo+, my equity was only 52.7%. It is definitely more than that because most decent players will 3 bet some suited connectors/small pairs for deception purposes, but using this range gives me more of a "worst case scenario".

Common Bluff
This is the type of thing a tight, aggressive player has to do every so often to maintain profitability. It allows me to use my image on flops like this that totally miss me, and then conversely, on flops like 873 I get paid off because big Aces are such a large part of my range. When my 3 bet is called, I can assign a range of something like 77+, AQ+. When the flop comes with both an Ace and a King, that cuts down the probability of him having AA, KK, AK/AQ hands and more weight now falls on the smaller pairs. A continuation bet on this flop will fold out 77-QQ virtually every time, so it's definitely a +EV bet.

I'm going to try and play somewhere between 700-1000 hands tomorrow as I don't have anything planned besides a doctor's appointment. Hopefully I run well and win many buy-ins...