An update

Hey guys,

Wow, I haven't updated this in forever. I guess it's because it's been the same old story: losing, losing... It's hard to get inspired to write about getting repeatedly crushed. Looking back at the last couple of months, I think I haven't been playing super well, but also I have been getting into extremely unlucky situations, always on the bad side of things.

I've decided to take a step back and move down to $.5/$1 for a little while this week. Apparently that did the trick, since in my last two sessions, I'm up 11 buy-ins. I've been running extremely well, and playing pretty well too. I think I've been getting full value for my hands. I don't imagine that there's such a huge difference in the level of play between $.5/$1 and $1/$2, just how I've been running. Over a reasonably large sample, I've been running at > 12ptbb/100 at $.5/$1 and ~1ptbb/100 at $1/$2...

Well, hopefully I've hit a turning point and am pulling out of this downswing I've been in. When I'm winning, updates will be more frequent I'm sure... Chances are slim that I will hit my goal of $20K for the year, but I'll keep on grinding and see how close I can get!

• Up $5602.93 on the year (28% of the way to goal, about 69% of the way through the year)

• Damn downswings...

Sir Meow says mao btw...

Very quick update

Hey guys,

I've been slacking on updating, mainly because I've only played three sessions since the last one and the results have not been great. I took another big hit on the first of the three sessions: -$1680.95, new biggest single session loss. Hurrah. Again nothing went right. I lost at least $200 on each of several hands:

• KK vs. TT, T on river for a $450 pot.

• KK v. AA and AsJs when an idiot in the BB shoved for $150 after I raised the button and the SB reraised. I called with KK and the SB shoved and turned over the aces. Goodbye $240.

• AA v. KK in a 4 bet pot when the guy with KK flops top set. If I had gone with my gut here, I would have just check folded the turn and saved the last $300, but I didn't...

• AcQc in the SB against a late position raiser and a complete idiot on the button who had been catching great cards. I 3-bet, both players call. Flop comes Kc-Jd-4c. I bet the flop, cutoff calls, idiot on button raises. I am never folding but I want the money to go in 3 ways so I just call. Cutoff moves in, idiot calls, I call. I'm up against KJo from the cutoff and 9c6c for the button (he's drawing almost stone cold dead). I miss my 40% shot. Goodbye $400...

• I have JhTh against the same idiot with the 96s from the previous hand. I call his raise on the button behind two other players. Flop comes down AhKx4h. He leads, I raise, he calls. Turn is a blank, he checks, I bet most of the pot, he calls. River checks through when I brick and his AQo is good. I actually don't mind my turn bet, since with my big draw I would have had odds to call the bet I made if he had bet instead. I can play my hand perfectly on the river with one pot sized bet left back while he cannot.

• I flop the bottom end of a straight against a guy who is playing almost 50% of his hands in the small blind. I have 4h5h. Flop is 678 rainbow with one heart I think. He leads, I raise, he 3bets the minimum. At this point I probably should have just called and tried to show down my hand (although he could have easily gotten all-in given that there were still two rounds of betting left). Instead I raise and get it in and he turns over the 9s5s. I don't know if I could have gotten away from this hand, but given his aggression level (very low) I think it's possible.

The next session was a down one as well: -$560.40. No huge hands, just nothing going my way again.

My most recent sessions I played well and was up $521.30. I hope that this downswing is over and I can claw my way back up towards my $20k goal.

Big hit

I played for a while last night (not particularly well either...)

I did get very unlucky in a couple of pots against the same guy for two full 200bb buy-ins.

In the first pot, I flopped a set and he called my check-raise and turned a bigger set. End of story.

In the second, I flopped top pair and turned top two against the same guy who had squeezed from the small blind with 99. I had QsJs, flop Jx9x4x, turn Q and we get all the money in after he checks it to me. Booo. Overall:

•-$1259.25

• +$8319.94 on the year (41% to the goal, well behind schedule).

Not the post I thought

Hey guys,

I know I said I would update the blog last Friday. I lied... This is a quick update. I bought Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'Em by Ed Miller, Sunny Mehta, and Matt Flynn. I have liked their previous books a lot, so I thought I would give this one a try. So far it seems interesting, although it focuses on beating the $1-$2 games online, which I am already doing very handily, so I'm not sure how much I will learn. In any case, it will probably be useful in cementing concepts already forming in my head.

I promise I'll write an update about my Vegas trip at some point. It was definitely fun, although next time I want to stay for longer in order to do some other things besides poker...

My biggest pot to date

Played a little bit today and had great results. I played well and ran well too:

•+$1113.30

•+$9317.94 on the year (46.5% of the way to my goal, pulling ahead of schedule)

This will be a quick update (longer update to follow tomorrow while I'm bored at WWDC), but I'll just say that I played my biggest hand so far tonight (and won!)

The villain's line makes almost no sense from start to finish. The river check-raise is just beautiful, laying me 10-1 odds on my call. What was he trying to represent? Jacks that had rivered a full house and then checked (???) with the betting lead and only 1/2 pot left to play? Sevens full? A2 suited? None of these hands would ever check the river given the way the hand was played and I find it hard to believe that any of these hands would re-raise before the flop so small when out of position and deep-stacked against an almost UTG raiser...

In any case, my opponent gifted me $550 for no reason. After the hand, he called me a donk and left the table. He must have subconsciously been saying that to himself. I think I played the hand perfectly to induce spew. I just wish I had snapped off his check-raise instantly rather than thinking about it...

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($604.80)
UTG ($106)
Hero (MP) ($553.50)
CO ($200)
Button ($398.70)
SB ($410.35)

Preflop: Hero is MP with K, K
1 fold, Hero bets $6, 3 folds, BB raises to $16, Hero raises to $49, BB calls $33

Flop: ($99) 2, 2, 7 (2 players)
BB bets $62, Hero calls $62

Turn: ($223) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $160, Hero calls $160

River: ($543) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $180, BB raises to $333.80 (All-In), Hero calls $102.50 (All-In)

Total pot: $1108 | Rake: $3

Results:
BB had A, K (one pair, twos).
Hero had K, K (two pair, Kings and twos).
Outcome: Hero won $1105

Grrr, stupid google

Well, I just had a relatively detailed description of how I almost died tonight, but wouldn't you know it, Google done gone lost it. Dammit Google, you owe me a blog post. Here is a somewhat shorter and less enthusiastic version:

I was driving down South 101, minding my own business and being awesome. Sir Meow was in the car as well. He was also being awesome, as he has a reputation of doing. As I was coming up on my exit, I noticed what looked like a police blockade. Not wanting to plow through it with my relatively new car and cat and somewhat less new but more valuable head, I slowed down and pulled over towards the right lane of the highway.

The big-rig truck that I had been tailing was apparently not as observant and noticed the upcoming obstruction significantly after I did. No slow deceleration for him, no sir. Lots of burnt rubber and fishtailing instead. Thankfully, I was far enough behind the truck that all I had to deal with was the fumes (they were probably full of carcinogens) and the vague awareness that this could have been much, much worse.

As I followed the truck past the obstacle, I could see that it was in fact a wreck that was blocking the three left lanes of the highway. I saw what looked like the remains of a Honda Civic and whatever else it had kissed at 75 miles an hour, along with a collection of people who did not seem to realize that lights are often helpful in indicating obstructions to oncoming traffic at 2 AM in the morning...

I'm just glad my brains are not splattered all over 101 right about now...

Oh, on a side note:

• +$333.30

• +$8428.09 on the year (very slightly ahead of schedule!)

Nite nite.

Boring one this time

I don't really feel like rambling on for very long, so here are my numbers for the last few days:

•+$1567.39

• +$8094.97 on the year (40% of the way to the goal, slightly behind schedule)

I would say that I played OK over the last few days. There were several hands (all against the same player) that were absolutely atrocious and cost me $600 or so. The most embarrassing one was when I misread my hand so that I thought I had a full house when I in fact had just a pair of 3's. That was stupid, to say the least and cost me $230 or so.

I did hit some lucky hands overall though, so the stupid play on those hands didn't hurt too much. I have found that people at these stakes try to 3-bet squeeze rather more than they should, so I have been slowplaying a lot of big pairs in position to induce spazzy moves from people behind me. This has been working really well. I think I'll keep doing it on a fairly regular basis.

That's it for now. Meow says hi.

Long time no post

Hey guys,

Summary of recent results for those who don't want to read my incomprehensible ramblings:

+$6833.29 on the year: 34% of the way way to my goal for the year (slightly behind schedule....)

I'm running at 6ptbb/100 over ~25K hands at $1/$2, which is pretty good considering some of my crappy play in the preceding weeks.

Long time no post. The main reason for this is just that I haven't been playing much online poker for the last 1.5 months or so. In addition, the majority of the sessions that I played during that time were losing ones, which didn't really make me very motivated to blog about them. ("I lost $800 in four hours! Wheee!")

However, over the last few days, I have come roaring back and am up ~$1.5K in the last week. Last night, rather than being smart and going to sleep, I played until ~1:30AM and had a great session. I ran well, and despite losing a $800 pot with top set against a straight, I ended up more than $1k over the course of a few hours. I would describe the big pots of the session, but they were not super interesting. In the biggest pot that I won, I got into a coinflip with 7d4d against a guy's somewhat maniacally played KK:

To start the hand, I am 200BB+ deep, as is everybody else in the hand. Villain raises in EP to 3bb, guy flats in late position, I call from the BB with 7d4d. Flop comes perfect for my hand: Td5d4h, so I flop a pair and a flush draw. I check to the villain, who makes a normal cbet. The other player in the hand flats. I checkraise and the villain shoves for a bigger than pot sized raise. The other player gets out of the way and I end up calling getting significantly more than 1.5-1 on my money. This call is pretty standard. Worst case scenario I am up against a set and am 30% to win. I think I can discount the villain playing a set like this somewhat since I have a 4 in my hand which reduces the number of sets of 4's he has. Furthermore, in my experience, people tend not to overbet jam sets in spots like that. Against pretty much any other hand, I am a slight favorite or flipping. Thankfully, the Jd rolled off on the river and I scooped the pot.

I was playing with a Full Tilt Red pro called Steve Yea on a number of tables. I pretty much just owned him at every opportunity. I am not impressed with his play at all. According to tableratings.com, he barely breaks even before rakeback so he's pretty much just a low-mid stakes grinder who plays a boring, mechanical, ABC game and is profitable only because he gets 100% of his rake back due to being a Red Pro. I beat up on him pretty mercilessly and exploited him left and right.

One thing that I thought I did especially well over the course of the evening was pick up the small and medium sized pots without contest. I also made some good call downs and some nice thin value bets (i.e. value betting TT on AJ95x board and getting paid off by 88, calling a 3bet PF out of position with 44 and then calling a suspicious turn stab with 3 overs on the board.) I also managed to control potsize well in dangerous spots. I checked behind top pair and an open-ended straight draw on the turn and value bet top two (and got paid off) on the river when the villain had flopped top two pair on the flop and decided slowplaying was the way to go for some reason. (final board of x TJQK rainbow, I had KQ, he had JT).

To go along with call downs and value bets, I also was able to identify good bluffing spots. In one case, I raised a guy off his double barrel turn bet when I had a gutshot + overs. Furthermore, since so many of my opponents are playing robotically at 10 tables, I was able to pick up a lot of pots before the flop when I thought they were trying to pick on loose limpers. Never once did that backfire. Finally, I also chose good spots to 4-bet bluff when I thought others at the table were getting fed up with me and were trying to squeeze me out of pots.

I feel like a significant part of my recent downswing was not being in the right mindset to play (which is also part of the reason that I played so infrequently). However, with my recent results, I think that I am back on my game and playing sharp poker. Onward and upward!

And now what you have all been waiting for, the obligatory Sir Meow picture.

Lookit him, such a pimp!

Quick update

I played a somewhat short session today and made a decent profit:

• +$495.95

• Total for the year so far: +$5962.25 (29.8% of the way to my goal)!

Gogogo!

A couple of interesting hands

Here are a couple of interesting hands from my session last night. I will reserve my thoughts on them until people have commented:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($227.40)
Hero (UTG) ($410)
MP ($332.50)
CO ($427.55)
Button ($416.40)
SB ($142.20)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 6, 5
Hero bets $6, MP calls $6, CO calls $6, 2 folds, BB calls $4

Flop: ($25) 10, 6, K (4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $18, 1 fold, CO calls $18, 1 fold

Turn: ($61) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $50, CO calls $50

River: ($161) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $115, Hero raises to $336 (All-In), 1 fold


Total pot: $391 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero didn't show 6, 5 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $388

Folding top set sucks. Booo. Villain is a generally passive player.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($438.30)
Hero (Button) ($400)
SB ($321.40)
BB ($469.50)
UTG ($176.55)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, J
UTG calls $2, 1 fold, Hero bets $9, 1 fold, BB calls $7, 1 fold

Flop: ($21) J, 3, 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $11, BB calls $11

Turn: ($43) 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $30, BB calls $30

River: ($103) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $86, Hero folds

Total pot: $103 | Rake: $3

Results:
BB didn't show

Outcome: BB won $100

Some good friends (in an EV sense)

I finished off a good session today, up $491. I think I played pretty well overall; I can't think of any hands that I really slaughtered...

I did run well below expectation in several big pots that cut into my wins for the evening. If I had won those hands in which I was always a big or a huge monster favorite, I would have been up well over $1K.

The first attempted donator was sitting at one of my tables. I stacked him when I turned a full house with 22 on a 55J2 board with three diamonds. I led right out on the turn, he check raised me, I flatted and he shoved a blank river. I snapped him off and he had 98o for a monstrous 9 high, no pair no draw at any point during the hand. O....K....

I guess he didn't like that hand, so he moved to another table. I followed him and almost immediately played another big pot with him:

He raises to 3x the BB UTG (effective stacks 100BB). I have him pegged as a crazy stupid bluffy tilt box, so I flat from the BB with 9s8s. Flop comes great: Kd9h8d. I check it to him, he bets 4.5BB and I checkraise him to ~20BB. He calls. Turn is a diamond. I bet 35BB or so and he shoves for the rest of his stack. I think a little bit, since this was not a happy turn, but call him anyway. He turns over: 8d7h for bottom pair and a 8 high flush draw. River is a diamond and he scoops a $400 pot. Bleh... I was a 10-1 favorite on the flop. Boo.

The tables are uneventful for a while, and then another attempted friend sits at one of my tables. On almost the first hand he plays, he limps UTG (we are 4 handed). I raise with QQ, the BB makes a 3bet and my attempted friend flats the 3bet. I 4bet, looking to get it in, original 3bettor folds, and the friend calls off the rest of his stack with: Js5s. And then immediately flops top two pair. I don't improve and he scoops a $180 pot.

This fellow then proceeds to dump my money to the rest of the people at the table with impressive speed. He gets stacked and then I pick of AKo in the SB. He min-raises to $4 and gets called. I make it $40 straight. He moves in, caller folds, I of course snap-call. He tables AQo. And then makes a straight. Away floats another $200 pot.

Oh well, them's the hits. I got my money in good, that's all I can really do...

Don't try to run bluffs based on the assumption intelligence

I was stuck at work this weekend babysitting a test and slow played some poker to pass the time. My first session went well. I ran like god, flopping sets left and right, and playing pretty well overall. I took a break and then played some more. I probably shouldn't have since I almost immediately lost two $800 pots in a row. The latter one was somewhat forgivable. However, the second one was just a spot where I should not have lost more than $16.

I basically made a read that based on raise size, a player could not have a hand much better than top pair. I then ran my AQo high into bottom set. Hooray. In the hand, the flop came Jc7x8c. I led into the pot and got min-raised. At this point, against a sane thinking player, I would eliminate monsters from his range, since on this board, there are draws abound. Making this raise lets medium strength made hands call down cheap and gives draws an extremely cheap card. Two blanks came off and I got called down by 77. I don't really stepping out of line once in a while, but against someone who I don't know who is probably an idiot, it's a really bad idea. I think I can reasonably represent T9, 88 or JJ with that line, so even bottom set has to give calling the river a little bit of thought, but the other player was a significant loser and is not going to be able to fold a set ever.

However, after those two pots, I got my head back together and managed to scrape my way back up. Overall for Saturday, I ended up $147, but it probably should have been significantly more.

Mediocre session

I played for a while yesterday while babysitting a test at work.  I was sharp at the beginning of the session and was up ~$200, which I then lost flopping bottom two pair against top two pair in a blind v. blind hand.  Towards the end of the session, I ran into a few unfortunate situations and made one call that was unforgivable.  From being up ~$200, I was down $330 pretty quickly.

End result: -$336.70

I did make a few really good calls, one with a naked ace high:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($338.65)
Button ($240.80)
SB ($251.15)
BB ($417)
UTG ($255.55)
Hero (MP) ($674.75)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, 8
1 fold, Hero bets $6, 1 fold, Button calls $6, 2 folds

Flop: ($15) 4, 7, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $10, Button calls $10

Turn: ($35) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $25, Button calls $25

River: ($85) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $55, Hero calls $55

Total pot: $195 | Rake: $3

Results:

Button had 8, J (one pair, sevens).
Hero had A, 8 (one pair, sevens).

Outcome: Hero won $192

I think this call is actually pretty standard.  A huge chunk of his range is draws that miss on the river: flush draws, 5's, or some sort of 8 that backed into an open ended straight on the turn.  The only hand that really makes sense is 75 suited or 78 suited.

Another session, another win and my biggest pot to date

Another good session.  It started out poorly, with me leaking as usual (calling too much) and got better after I encountered a few good situations.

Here are the details of the session:

• 4 hours played

• 891 hands played

• +$774.90

• +$5114.15 on the year (25.5% of the way to my goal after 13% of the year has gone by)

And as an added bonus, here's my biggest pot to date:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($403.50)
MP ($200)
Hero (CO) ($494.30)
Button ($1588.75)
SB ($257.65)

Preflop: Hero is CO with A, A

1 fold, Hero raises to $6, Button calls $6, SB calls $5, 1 fold

Flop: ($20) 5, A, 3 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $14, Button raises to $42, 1 fold, Hero calls $28

Turn: ($104) K (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $72, Hero raises to $200, Button raises to $1540.75 (All-In), Hero calls $246.30 (All-In)

River: ($996.60) 2 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $996.60 | Rake: $3

Results:

Button had 3, 3 (three of a kind, threes).
Hero had A, A (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $993.60