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Getting Back to the Grind

I have a little more time for a proper post this morning.  I’m coming off a little mini-vacation from poker.  I had such a rough week on the tables over the weekend that I really didn’t want to look at another poker hand for a while. 

I thought my Full Tilt check withdrawal should have been here by now.  I checked my mail yesterday and still no check.  Then, out of coincidence, I got an email a few minutes later from Full Tilt thanking me for my deposit.  Hrmmm… I made no deposit and this one was the exact amount of the check I was expecting.  Another email soon came and said they had to cancel my withdrawal (even though I had been sent a letter telling me my check would be unaffected).  So, 16 days after the withdrawal and I’m back at square 1.  Ugh… I hate the UIGEA.

The good news is that I got another $100 bonus for my efforts, so I will go ahead and grind on that a while.  I’ve decided to go ahead and move up to $50NL for the time being.  I have enough bankroll, and it will also speed up the clearing process for that bonus. 

My ultimate goal in the $50 games will be to continue to build my bankroll and then start working on my heads up play a bit.  The HU NL games are the most fun games that I have played (besides 2-7 TD) on the net.  I’m no heads up genius or anything, but I feel that I have a considerable edge over the competition.  I know the HUNL games can be swingy, so I’ll wait until I pad my roll a bit more before continuing into those.

Lastly, I finally got Wordpress installed on the new site.  Now, I just need to get it working the way I want and I’ll be all set to move this blog over to the new location.

Lack of updates on my end.  Sorry about that.  I haven’t been in the office.  This won’t be a proper post either because I have training in a few minutes.

I have been working out of town the past 2 days.  I have in-office training the next 2 days.  Friday can’t get here fast enough. 

I played a bunch of tournaments over the weekend and ran like pure ass.  I tried to make it up by playing 2-7 triple draw and run like smelly ass.  I lost a good chunk of money over the weekend.

I haven’t played poker the past 2 days because I have been getting home late.  I went to my parents house to watch the HR derby Monday night.  Last night, I had intended to watch the All-Star game on MLB.tv, but what was I thinking?  It was blacked out of course.  Fox, ESPN, and MLB are tight.

Maybe more of a proper update later on.  I still haven’t began working on the new site either.  So much to do, so little motivation to do it.

Moving / More MTT Thoughts

This website will be moving soon.  I bought a domain and hosting plan for it.  My goodness is webhosting cheap these days or what?

I’m still waiting for my account to be set up and all that jazz.  Then I’ll have to install Wordpress and mod it up a bit.  Hopefully everything will be ready for me to work on that over the weekend or even this afternoon :).  I’ll post the link whenever it’s ready.  The main reason for the move is that Wordpress is some much greater than Blogger.  Plus I want to open up a couple other blogs under some sub-domains.  Hey, I like to purge my brain into the keyboard which sometimes comes out as a blog post.  It’s how I keep my sanity.  It’s my drug.  I don’t claim to be a good writer, but I will claim that writing calms me more than just about anything these days.

Now for the more important stuff.  I have been giving though to the whole MTT concept and how to incorporate more into my play.  I think I will try out the cash games during the week, MTTs on the weekend type thing.  This way, I can buy into some of the larger events (player wise) and not have to worry about sitting around for 8 hours.  I know I won’t have to be at work the next day.

I’m also going to only set aside a certain portion of my bankroll for MTTs.  This way, I can 1.) keep track of my winnings easier (since Pokertracker doesn’t seem to handle that aspect well) and 2.) protect my cash game roll.  I’ll probably play mostly $4/180’s on Stars and satellites to larger events.  This way I should be able to build my MTT bankroll and then eventually move into buying directly into the higher buy-in events.  I can also move up the 20 table scale by going from the $4 –> $10 –> $20 or whatever they spread.

Congrats to Iggy for making the money and surviving day 3 of the WSOP.  I know the little man has to be exhausted right now, but remember the field is full of donkies and with your patience at the tables, you can take this bitch down for the bloggers.

I sucked it up last night on the tables.  I tried playing in several satellites and stayed away from the cash games for the day.  I cashed in zero of the tournaments I played.  I went deep in all of the tournaments but 1 too.  The 1 I didn't go deep in was a triple shootout where I did get down to heads up at my first table, but the dude made 2 hero calls on me and beat me.

I'm going to study up a little bit on MTTs this coming week and put them as part of my arsenal again.  They are too soft not to.

Tonight, I'll be going to the newly constructed concert hall type building they opening in town.  There will be a Bluegrass band playing that I've never heard before.  I'm not a big bluegrass fan, but a music and local music fan, so I'll go check it out...especialy for free.  I'm most interested in this huge building they have erected in town.  It looks fabulous!

MTT Madness

I’ve been a good little boy for 10 straight days.  I’ve stuck to the cash games and I’ve grinded.  I’m on pace for my 20K hand month (I think).  So I’m going to take a night off from the cash games.  Instead of cash games, I will run a few tournaments on Stars and/or Full Tilt.

I’m looking for a couple big scores to boost the bankroll.

River on!

Not an hour after my last post, my buddy Charlie called me.  He is the other half owner of the cabin and the contractor on my house last year.  He said him and his cousin Danny were definitely going to the river.  So the trip was on!  Nice!

I called the usual suspects to see what their status was for that week.

Rusty – Oldest of the crew.  Recently married, awaiting child. One of those What Can Brown do for you guys who wears brown shorts and brown socks to work if you know what I mean.  He works for a Hypermega Global Corp. type company and they have all kinds of procedures for vacation days.  He’s pretty sure he can get off the necessary days.

Bub – 2nd oldest of the crew.  Definitely the most blonde.  Fun to get on a sleepless induced tilt.  Even more fun when he’s drunk.  He said he would love to go and will make it happen.  Bub is a trooper when it comes to fishing.

Roger – My oldest friend.  Personal problems kept him from attending these trips the past 2 years.  He’s going to check about getting the days off.  My mother is his boss, so I’m not seeing a problem there :)

Jason? – Other owner of the cabin. I’m sure he’s working on the park somewhere.  Doesn’t answer his phone.  Checks his email like once a century.  His status is very doubtful as I have mentioned the reasons in my last post.  Jason originally started organizing these trips and I hope things work out so that he can go.  He needs a break anyway.

Danny – Cousin to Jason and Charlie.  Overall good guy.  Kind of looks like Sloth from the Goonies, just not as sexy.  Danny has a knack for landing women that are way out of his league.  It’s either all personality or he’s hung like a horse.  By the looks of his up and coming bride to be, I’m guessing it’s the latter.  She’s way too hot for him :)  Danny is the fish at the poker games.  It’s not that he sucks or anything.  He just lives to spew.

Mike? – 2nd oldest friend.  Mike and I don’t get to hang out much anymore because he spends his spare days jumping from airplanes.  Myself, I’m afraid of planes and have never really had the urge to follow him down to SC on these trips.  Mike is the quiet guy that can probably outdrink anyone on the trip.  We grew up in the pool hall together (along with Roger), went to college together, and both loathe our IT jobs together.

So, what can we expect from this trip?  Well, it’s mostly poker and fishing with some horse shoes on the side.  There will be drinking.  There might be some magical tea passed around.  Fish might actually be caught.  There will be grilling and a lot of chilling.

Danny is getting married next month too.  This means, there might be a trip to Charlestown for a bachelor party.  This means a redneck version of The Procedure.  Poker, Booze, Strippers… not necessarily in that order.

Charlestown has strip clubs and a casino.  I’m pretty sure they are running table games now that they are legal too.  If that’s the case and if the Powerball winner that lives beside the cabin comes along, I will try for a stake in the highest stakes game they spread.  If Mr. Powerball gets hammered and starts handing out cash like he did last time this mini-trip happened, then that cash will skip the strippers’ grubby mitts and land in my pocket so I can stake myself :)  That’s how I roll.  I don’t care much for Mr. Powerball anyway.  He’s a pill popping douche who likes to show off his money :)

Vacation Fail

I’m 2 weeks off a vacation and now I have another one scheduled in 3 more weeks.  However, I’m not sure if it’s going to happen at this point.  For like the past 15 years, a bunch of us friends pack up the vehicles and head for Front Royal, VA to do some fishing.  It looks like perhaps last year was our LAST year doing this trip.  Nobody seems to be able to get their shit together this year and get the days straight (we’ve been going the first full week in August for the past 15 years).  The guy that owns the cabin just married the anti-Christ.  They have a child that was born back in December.  So that complicates the issue.  However, the real reason is that the guy is a superintendent at a popular WV state park and has a hard time with his schedule during the summer.  In short, he has managed himself into a corner where nothing gets done if he’s not there.  So he has to work 7 days a week during the summer.  I don’t know about him, but I went to college so I could get a job where I didn’t have to do such things.

So here I sit again, wondering what vacation #2 will bring.  Vacation #1 was decent in the beginning because my Dad and I took the boat out fishing for a few days.  Vacation #1 was supposed to be Bonarroo, but I really enjoyed my time with my Dad.  More so than I would have with a bunch of filthy hippies.  We might sneak the boat out during this vacation too if his work schedule permits.   If not, then I’m not sure what I can do.  I really don’t want to spend another vacation sitting around the house.

I’m actually going to get with some other friends and see about maybe putting together a beach trip.  There are issues with that as well because one of the guys is starting school that following week, so I’m not sure about that either.

Long story, short… Vacation plans are “iffy” at best this year.  Getting old is gay.

One of dem days

First of all, how does this happen?

I still contend that Isabelle thought she was experimenting with another chick.  Well, I’m off to buy a scarf…BBL.

Ok..back.  Last night was one of them nights on the poker tables.  You know what I’m talking about.  Get the money in good, the cards come bad.  You miss flop after flop and never are able to get to a showdown.  Those type of nights.

The good news is that I never really paid attention to it being one of those nights until my session was over.  I knew it was a tough night.  I tried not to worry about it because I also knew I was playing very well. 

When all was said and done, I felt like I had been through a war.  I played as hard as I could for my timeframe I set aside prior to starting my session.  I finally pulled up Pokertracker to check out the carnage and was almost floored when I saw the Amount Won column show green.  Not only green, but +2 buyins green.  WTF?  Did I not import some hands?  A quick check of my Stars balance agreed with my results.  Nice!

We are a little over a week into July and I’ve already surpassed my winnings (minus rakeback) for June.  Hopefully this trend will continue.  I will attribute a lot of the winnings from just running good, although I have taken a fair share of beats this past week.  Mostly, I can attribute my winnings to good table selection, having a sound mind when playing, and just plain good poker.  Also, I’ve matched my total hands I played in June, so that helps :)

I’ll be trying to sweat Iggy today in the WSOP, but it’s hard to sweat a magical dwarf who has no real name nor face.  I’ll rely on Pauly to keep me updated :)

LOL FullTiltaments

After 1 month to do a simple bank withdrawal, I lost confidence in Full Tilt.  But I got my money and all was good.  I went to make another withdrawal this month and they have “temporary” problems with teh payment processor, so checks are my only choice for withdrawing my money.

Today I get this:

Dear WiredAces77,

We wish to inform you of a temporary issue with our payment processor which has affected a small number of recent check withdrawals.

If you are affected by this issue and experience any difficulty cashing or depositing your recent check, please rest assured that we are fully aware of the situation and working to resolve it as swiftly as possible. we will contact you when we receive further information on the details of your recent check withdrawal.

In the interim, please reply to this email or contact checkquestions@fulltiltpoker.com for clarification and assistance.

We appreciate the importance of receiving your funds in a timely manner and apologize sincerely if you have been affected.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker Support

PokerStars #1

Trying to stop spewing with Aces/Overpairs

Some are wins, some are losses.  Here are the first batch of hands without results, but with reads.  How do you play these?

These hands all come out of my last 20K hands played

--------------------
HAND #1
--------------------

Villain is 35.91/9.55/2.88 after 220 hands:

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

SB: $28.05 (112.2 bb)
BB: $53.95 (215.8 bb)
Predator314 (CO): $62.80 (251.2 bb)
BTN: $32.65 (130.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is CO with A A
Predator314 raises to $0.85, BTN folds, SB calls $0.75, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($2.55) 2 7 4 (3 players)
SB checks, BB bets $2, Predator314 raises to $8, SB folds, BB raises to $18, Predator314 raises to $61.95 and is all-in, BB calls $35.10 and is all-in

--------------------
HAND #2
--------------------

Villain is 14.17/10.63/2.29 after 254 hands

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

UTG: $18.80 (75.2 bb)
MP: $34.25 (137 bb)
Predator314 (CO): $32.40 (129.6 bb)
BTN: $32.65 (130.6 bb)
SB: $9.75 (39 bb)
BB: $29 (116 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is CO with A A
2 folds, Predator314 raises to $0.85, BTN calls $0.85, SB calls $0.75, BB folds

Flop: ($2.80) 2 Q 7 (3 players)
SB bets $1.25, Predator314 raises to $6, BTN calls $6, SB folds

Turn: ($16.05) 6 (2 players)
Predator314 bets $25.55 and is all-in, BTN calls $25.55

--------------------
HAND #3
--------------------

Villains are:

BB: 50/14.29/0.80 after 14 hands

CO: 54.46/8.91/0.44 after 14 hands

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

Predator314 (BTN): $25.90 (103.6 bb)
SB: $34.75 (139 bb)
BB: $25 (100 bb)
UTG: $23.15 (92.6 bb)
MP: $40.55 (162.2 bb)
CO: $5.85 (23.4 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is BTN with A A
2 folds, CO calls $0.25, Predator314 raises to $1.10, SB folds, BB calls $0.85, CO calls $0.85

Flop: ($3.40) T A 8 (3 players)
BB checks, CO checks, Predator314 bets $2.50, BB calls $2.50, CO raises to $4.75 and is all-in, Predator314 calls $2.25, BB calls $2.25

Turn: ($17.65) Q (3 players, 1 is all-in)
BB checks, Predator314 bets $20.05 and is all-in, BB calls $19.15 and is all-in

--------------------
HAND #4
--------------------

Villain is 14.59/9.96/3.43 after 28 hands

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

Predator314 (SB): $25 (100 bb)
BB: $24.45 (97.8 bb)
UTG: $25 (100 bb)
MP: $31.50 (126 bb)
CO: $34.45 (137.8 bb)
BTN: $18.15 (72.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is SB with A A
4 folds, Predator314 raises to $0.75, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.50) 6 2 9 (2 players)
Predator314 bets $1, BB calls $1

Turn: ($3.50) 4 (2 players)
Predator314 bets $2, BB raises to $5.75, Predator314 calls $3.75

River: ($15) T (2 players)
Predator314 checks, BB bets $8, Predator314 calls $8

I’m trying not to overwhelm the blog with a bunch of hand histories, but just picked a couple tough hands from my AA holdings over the past 20K total hands.  Again, some are goign to be wins, some are going to be losses.  Some are wins when I suck out, some are losses when I get sucked out on.  That’s why I’m not including the results.  How would you play any of these hands differently.  I know the results and some differently

I will also state that Hand #2 is an abomination to all this is related to poker! I blame the mushrooms.

I will post results tomorrow and maybe a few more AA hands if I can pick out a couple… maybe some KK hands as well.

I’m finally back in the office today after a long weekend.  I haven’t missed it one bit.  In fact, I could fired right now and feel nothing but happiness even though I might not be able to pay my bills in the future.  All of this, not 1 week after receiving a nice raise.  Throw all the money you want at me…I still hate my job!

I was looking at my schedule for this month.  I don’t see anything fun on the horizon.  I have a training session scheduled for tomorrow.  Next week, I have to install a new system in Charleston.  That will take 2 days.  Then after that, I get to train a new customer.  The next week…more training.  Week after that, I travel to Washington D.C. for yet more training.  The good news is that after the next 3 weeks, my schedule is pretty clear.  And I have another vacation coming up first full week of August.

I’m hoping the August vacation is to the Shenendoah.  Several of us want to go, but the guy that actually owns the cabin has been unreachable.  We don’t know if the trip is a go or no-go.  In past years, it’s always been just the thing to clear your calendars for the first full week of August.  But these days, wives and kids complicate matters.

As for poker, I’m grinding still.  I only played about 500 NLHE hands yesterday.  That’s normal for me, but prior days say me playing 1200-1500 hands.  I’m supposed to go to the P-Rays game tonight, but it has been storming all morning.  I doubt the field can withstand much more of this rain.  If that’s the case, then I’ll try to score another 1000+ hand session tonight.

This job is all the motivation I need to play poker anymore.  The more poker I play = more money I win = more I can save = bigger bankroll = me telling the boss to take a hike.

Lastly, I watched a couple movies yesterday.  First was The Grand.  I had never heard of it, but picked it up on a whim.  The movie was pretty shitty, but I got a couple chuckles out of it.  It’s a satirical, almost improvisational movie about the state of the poker industry today.  It pretty much hit the nail on the head.  I also watched the new Rambo.  If you never wanted to buy a .50 caliber weapon, this is the movie to change your mind.  They took Sylvester Stallone and his shitty acting and made an entertaining movie.  Basically, Stallone grunts and occasionally yells while firing various guns with awesome precision into enemy heads and toros.  The shootout scenes make the movie.  Nothing like seeing a sniper rifle take a dude’s head entirely off his body.  They didn’t leave out the gore in this movie and it’s fantastic if you ask me.  Just don’t expect to see good acting.  Just awesome shootouts and death scenes.

Blackberry Tilt

I'm on Blackberry tilt right now.  The little scroll ball thingy refuses to scroll down.  It will do left, right, and up, just not down...the most useful direction.  Any ideas?  This isn't the first time it has happened.  It has done this before and then magically started working again.  I really don't feel like dealing with the twits at AT&T again either.

As you might have noticed, some of the local games got raided this past week.  Fortunately, I wasn't in any of them.  You see, I hate live poker.  However, these developments have me a little distraught.  I liked having those games available when I wanted to donk around with some live peoples.  Also, there are rumors of the state police, FBI, ATF, NASA, the United Nations, or the Nevada Gaming commission calling all the contacts on one of the game host's cell phone.  I know my number is on that phone.  I get text messages telling me when and what games are running.  If above rumors are true, then I should expect a call.  I don't care.  I'll answer whatever they ask and then pretty much tell them to fuck off.  I know my rights.

I had ideas of actually skipping a few steps in my bankroll building and go win a few buyins at the local $1/2 game and deposit them online.  However, I'll put those plans on hold for a while and just continue to grind.

Grinding is exactly what I've been doing.  I played over 3500 hands over the weekend, not including a bunch of 2-7 Triple Draw hands that are not recorded, some play on Bodog that's not recorded and a couple tournies.  Overall, I've made pretty decent money, but I went through a small rough patch in the middle.  I managed to claw back through it and continue the win line moving upward.

I'm just going to keep grinding it out on Stars too.  The software is excellent and way faster than Tilt.  I hate the little beeping noises and the stealing of focus on the windows, but I'm pretty sure I can turn that off if I poke around.  The games are about the same as Full Tilt.  There are probably more non-thinking LAGs on Stars than Tilt, but overall, it's about the same.  I'll see how my win-rate looks at the end of the month and decide whether it's better to play on Stars with no rakeback or on Tilt with 27% rakeback.

The Bible Belt Hath Tightened

Dear Mr. Law Enforcement Agency:

Recently, you felt it necessary to raid a couple of local establishments.  You raided these establishments not for running drugs, prostitutes, or even weapons.  No, you stormed in, guns blazing, to break up a poker game.  We're not talking about a big time, high stakes game either.  No sir!  You broke up a couple of $1/2 games.  Huge stakes!  Now that you have raided these games and padded your pockets with several thousand dollars that does not belong to you, I have a question.  Why?

Why is it that I have to lock up everything I have because the pill poppers a couple houses down will steal anything that isn't bolted down?  Why is it that when I drive through town, I see dealers peddling their wares out in the open.  Sometimes the prostitutes will try to get in your vehicle and you have to push them back.  Yet, my friends face persecution for playing a simple game?  I won't even get into the aspect of the actual law enforcement officers I have personally played with in these games.  Not the guys you sent... NO! The guys on your payroll that play willingly...those are the guys I played with.

Dear Mr. Law Enforcement Agency, why is it that you have the resources to have someone playing undercover in these games for 4 months, yet you don't have the resources to clean up our streets?  You get on my television and complain that you don't have the resources to pay your employees overtime.  You don't have the resources to make sure your officers are properly trained or equipped.  Yet you have the resources to bankroll an officer and pay him to play poker with a bunch of decent people.  Who cares, right?  It's just taxpayer money.

Why is it that you squeeze every cent of tax that you possibly can out of business owners and civilians alike, then blatantly steal the rest?  Why is it that a man that runs a certain establishment bring so much to a single town and you take and take and take what he brings into your town...yet you still feel the need to raid this establishment and take some more?  Why is it that this same establishment has 5 video slot machines hooked up to the Governors office, yet they can't play a simple skilled game on the side?  This establishment brings in tens of thousand, if not hundreds of thousands in tax money to the town and state, not to mention the revenue that is direct deposited into the Governors pocket through the slot machines.  Once a month, he hosts an event that brings people from several states to this establishment.  As a result, the neighboring businesses also flourish...which means the law enforcement agencies and other government agencies flourish with the additional tax revenue.  This establishment does that much for you, yet you still feel the need to raid it and steal even more?

Mr. Law Enforcement Agency, why is it that you must call everyone's phone number on that cell phone?  Are you trying to intimidate me?  If so, it's not working.  In fact, I would love to hear from you.  I have a lot of questions I'd like answered.  Also, I'd love to blog the transcript of our conversation on my website.

Dear Mr. Law Enforcement Agencies .... FUCK YOU!

Rolling up a stake

I have been playing a lot of hands the past 2 days.  I started out grinding $10NL because that's all I really had the money on hand to play until my Full Tilt Check comes.  So I grinded my Stars roll up a little bit playing $10NL.  Then I got enough to play some $25NL last night.  I just 2 tabled and I owned.  I played $25NL today and I wouldn't call it owning, but if I had not got 3 out-ed in a huge pot, I would have owned.  As it stands, I booked another nice win.  The good news is that I have enough in my Stars roll to actually 4 table $25NL without the need for deposit.  I'll just put that Full Tilt check to the side and allow it to collect interest for a little while and hopefully I'll never need it.

 

I think I'll play just a couple thousand more hands at $25NL and if things continue to go well, I'll move up the $50 game. 

Hey! It was suited

Your typical 300BB pot :)

 

--------------------
HAND #1
--------------------

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

BB: $7.50 (30 bb)
MP: $17.45 (69.8 bb)
CO: $38.90 (155.6 bb)
BTN: $30.60 (122.4 bb)
Predator314 (SB): $44.55 (178.2 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is SB with 4 6
MP raises to $1, CO folds, BTN calls $1, Predator314 calls $0.90, BB folds

Flop: ($3.25) 2 T 7 (3 players)
Predator314 checks, MP bets $2.75, BTN calls $2.75, Predator314 calls $2.75

Turn: ($11.50) 9 (3 players)
Predator314 checks, MP bets $13.70 and is all-in, BTN calls $13.70, Predator314 raises to $40.80 and is all-in, BTN calls $13.15 and is all-in

River: ($78.90) 3 (3 players, 3 are all-in)

Results:

Spoiler:

$78.90 pot ($2 rake)
Predator314 showed 4 6 (a flush, Ten high) and won $76.90 ($46.30 net)
BTN mucked T 9 (two pairs, Tens and Nines) and lost (-$30.60 net)
MP mucked J T (a pair of Tens) and lost (-$17.45 net)

.

In my quest to reach 20K hands this month, I have 1/2 failed so far.  Tuesday night, I grinded.  Since my money is still somewhere between Full Tilt’s mysterious address and my mailbox, I had to drop down a level and play $10NL on Stars (didn’t have funds immediately available for deposit).  I continued to run hot at that level and ended up winning more than what I probably would have at $25NL…you never know.  I really miss the Neteller days and blazing fast withdrawals and deposits.  Fuck politicians.

Yesterday, I had to go to Matewan for work.  I’m not sure anyone outside of WV has ever watched it, but there was a movie made about the town.  Not much has changed since those Coal Mine war days.  Except now instead of train being the preferred method of transportation, they tend to prefer travelling by 1.) ATV 2.) Hitchhiking or 3.) Car…. in that order.  These are some backwoods folks for sure.  The trip was fairly uneventful with the exception of getting stuck behind a truck painting lines on the road for 10-15 miles….doing at most 20MPH down the straight stretches (which are few and far between).

Once I got home, I played with the pup and mowed grass.  Then I couldn’t miss the Princeton Devil Rays game on such a pretty evening.  So, off I went to the ballfield.  It was pretty much a sell out which is awesome to see.  The only reason there were so many people, though, was because they were playing the Bluefield Orioles, which is pretty much a cross-county rival.  I scored some cool schwag including a Delmon Young figure, a Fred McGriff bobblehead, and a super awesome Carl Crawford superhero figure:

Anyway, the P-Rays won in an exciting game and I got to cheer loudest around the swarm of O’s fans that decided to sit in my area.  So it was a fun night.

Unfortunately the game wasn’t over until after 10:00 p.m. and I hadn’t eat since 12:00 p.m. and I was about to starve.  The concession stand lines were way too long during the game, so I had to do without until after the game.  After food and all, it was pretty much bed time when I got home.  I had to let the dog out and all that good stuff, so I didn’t get to play any poker.

I don’t really have much in the way of plans for the 4th weekend.  At one point, we will try have a bonfire or something, but not sure which night.  Other than that, I just have a trip to Charleston planned to pick up an outdoor dog kennel that my cousin gave me.  I plan on grinding a lot of poker over the weekend too.  I’ll probably do my usual grinding in the morning, enjoying the day, grinding at night, sleep routine.

I’m also getting an itch for live poker.

Baseball Betting Genius?

Over the past 31 days, I’ve been betting baseball on Bodog.  They have all been $1 and $2 bets.  I’m +12.94 on the month.  Go me!

New Month New Hope

I didn’t play as much as I had hoped to in June, but I did get in a sub-par number of hands for the month and an above par (for me) number of MTTs.  The first 1/2 of the month started out fairly break even, but the final 1/2 finally saw me start to win some money.  I ended up winning 4.46 bb/100 at the $25NL tables for the month over about 5,000 hands.  I won at a rate of 76.57 bb/100 over 350 hands at $10NL (sustainable?),  Add in about 100 hands of limit poker running at 15 BB/100 or so and I have $175 or so worth of profit from the cash games.    PT3 still can’t handle Stars tournaments correctly and I refuse to manually enter MTT results, but from my calculations, I netted approx. $75 in MTTs after all was said and done.  With rakeback, bonus money, and my play, I think I made $400 or so.  Not life changing money by any means, but a good shot to the bankroll.  Now if I can only find some time to get in some hands.

July is actually exciting for me.  I want this to be my “breakthrough” month in poker.  I want to take that next step  in becoming a winning player.  I have been working on my mental aspect of the game, mostly the “playing scared” aspect that drives me away from the tables when I’m winning and keeps me at the tables when I’m losing.  I want to get in more hands, but I always seem to be finding excuses not to play.  Theoretically, real life does get in the way of me playing poker.  I have a full time job (that I hate and would love to replace with poker), I have a dog now that consumes my time, I have parents and friends that I visit on a regular basis, I have my own house and all the chores that is in involved in maintaining it.  To put it bluntly, I’ve become an adult and have responsibilities.  I have no clue how you guys/gals that are married with kids find time to even think about poker.  That all being said, I really do have time for poker.  It’s like the person that tells you that they don’t have time to exercise….but yet they never fail to find time to watch Deal or No Deal every night.  There is time for poker.

After working with Jared Tendler’s videos a little bit over at Stoxpoker.  He’s a golf psychiatrist/psychologist/whatever that has turned into a golf/poker shrink.  He has some fantastic videos about how the mind and brain work and relates them to the poker game.  I just made it through the 1st video.  I really think these videos will help my game.  He seems to know what makes up a “grinder” and has a good understanding of how poker works.  I had avoided these videos for a while, because I thought they really just dealt with Tilt, but they deal with all the brain functions during a poker session.  Pretty neat stuff.

So, now that I’m back in the swing of things, I want to set some goals for July.  I definitely want to up the number of hands I play.  I want to see that number quadruple this month.  I’m going to be out of town only twice this month and only 1 of those is for more than a day.  I will be playing solely at Stars this month.  As I was typing this paragraph, I got a response from Full Tilt on how long their bank transfers were “temporarily down”.  I got a canned response that didn’t relate anything to my question, so now I move on.  This might slow me down here at the start of the month as my bankroll will be in transit from Full Tilt to Stars.  I’ve got a little bit on Stars, but not enough to properly multitable.  I might just work with what I got and hope for the best while Full Tilt sends me the rest.  If I get low, I can reload out of personal funds and then let the check recooperate those funds.  I have no faith in getting any type of money from Full Tilt by the end of the month.  But I’m not going to let that be an excuse.  If worse comes to worse, I can grind $10NL until I get things straightened out.  It’s not about the money right now, it’s about playing winning poker.

Here is what I want to accomplish during July

• 20,000 cash game hands
• No shortened sessions.  I will sit down and say I’m going to play until X:00.  I do not stop until X:00 regardless of my results
• No reviewing of hands or anything else in Pokertracker prior to finishing my session
• Profit

July is going to be all about getting my head on straight and not letting it get in the way of my poker game.  I think once I learn how to do this sort of thing, I can sit down and grind out some pretty long sessions.

Sour –> Sweet

Of course you know how bad my day has gone with the following going on:

- 2 commutes to work this morning because I forgot to leave door unlocked for carpet people

- Fought with puppy to get in his crate, he refused, I ended up giving up and locking him in den for 30 minutes until Mom came over to be with the carpet people. He ate my blinds and shit in my floor

- Thunderstorms across the East Coast have caused havoc with my customers and have caused me grief here working on technical shit.

- Full Tilt wont’ let me cash out using a Bank Transfer or MyWebATM. 

But life has a way of evening things out when you run bad.  Just like poker, when you get dealt cooler after cooler after bad beat after bad beat, you just want to give it all up.  Then all of the sudden the light shines and you get unstuck and even make a profit.

I got called into my boss’s office for a private conference.  That’s never a good sign.  I’ve been in these types of meetings for the past 14 years of my life.  The first time, I was fired.  Every time after that I’ve gotten a raise.  Which would it be today?  Of course it was a raise.  A pretty good one too.  Why would I get fired?  I’m a model employee who never slacks off (from slacking off). 

One good thing about this job is the pay.  I am now making nearly double what I made when I started in 2000.   Too bad that the rest of the job sucks.

Last straw

This has been such a cruddy day.  After my last post, I decided to go ahead and get my money moving so I could hopefully have a decent sized bankroll on Stars and Full Tilt at the same time.  Then, when I went to Full Tilt to withdraw, it said that the Bank Transfer option was unavailable.  Not a problem, I have MyWebATM….NOPE!  Same problem.

If any of Full Tilt’s reps are reading this, you have broken the camel’s back.  My last cashout took exactly 31 days for a simple bank wire.  You randomly shut down people’s accounts, accuse them of fraud, and then proceed to shut down all communication with the defendents until you have proven them guilty.  Your software looks like some kind of bad Cartoon network show without doing some serious modification to the program.  Your Ironman program is retarded.  Why would you reward someone that plays more days in a row better than someone that just plays more hands?

Face it, Full Tilt, Pokerstars is kicking your ass right now in all aspects.  And that’s where my business goes for a while.

I won a little bit of money on the poker tables this weekend, but really didn’t get to play as much as I had hoped.

Friday night, we went to the Princeton Devil Rays game to watch some more Tim Beckham.  He hasn’t impressed me yet and I still think they should have drafted Buster Posey.  There were 2 rain delays during the game, so it wasn’t over until 11:30 p.m. or so.  Then I ended up just going by a friend’s house afterwards and hanging out with them.  I didn’t get home until after 2:00 a.m.

I did play some poker on Saturday though.  My mother had to go out of town for a wedding shower.  My Dad was working.  Most of my friends were working.  And the weather was off and on rain.  I decided to grind a bit.  I played some cash games and nothing seemed to go right.  I then decided to run some tournaments.  Again…nothing.

I finally gave up after a little while.  I went to the store to get some groceries and clear my head.  Then when I got back, I decided to fire up some Stars and just play some $4.40x180’s on there.  I failed in the first couple to get anything going, but I kept trying.  Finally, I was able to break through and final table one.  I busted out in 4th though.

While I was playing the tournament though, I decided to fire up a $10 NLHE table.  I didn’t have enough left in my Stars account to cover a $25NL table.   Before I even hit the final table, I had recooped all of my losses from the ring games earlier.  I decided to quit the cash game while I played the final table though.

Overall the day was pretty break-even from the cash side, but from the tournament standpoint, I did fairly well.  I actually have a small Stars bankroll now.  3 figures and such.  The NL games (at least the $10NL) seem to be so much softer than the matching counterparts on Full tilt.  I might start playing more ring games on there.  The rakeback does help, but doesn’t really add all that much to my winrate when you think about it.  Just some quick calculations in my head suggest maybe 1BB/100.  That’s great and all, but if I can add 2 BB/100 just by playing on a softer site, why not go with the softer site?

I think what I’ll do is to play solely on Stars in July.  I dont’ really have a sufficient bankroll for $25NL right now, but I can go ahead and begin the slow process of moving some of my money from Full Tilt over to Stars.  I’d really like to go with a 50/50 split of my bankroll between the 2 sites, but that’s going to be kind of hard.  I have 50% of my bankroll collecting interest right now in an ING account.  So for the short term, the best I can do is a 50/25/25 split between ING/Stars/Full Tilt.

I’m not really dogging Full Tilt’s games though.  I mean we are talking about Micro limits here, not the $300/600 games.  However, there are many times where I’ll have 16 Full Tilt tables pulled up for Datamining and only see 6 TAGS on 90% of the tables.  I’m sure these are just rakeback whores and such.  Some are actually good players, some suck.  I don’t fear any of them, but I would be rather sitting at a table full of fish padding my bankroll.

I’m not banking on Stars games being any better.  I do whoever, KNOW that Stars > Full Tilt or any other site on the Planet.  The software is much nicer, more streamlined.  It’s way less of a resource hog on my PC and I can actually run it along with Pokertracker 3 without having to reboot every hour or so. (By the way, I got my new RAM and Hard drive today).

I also like fact that Stars rewards me for my volume of play, not just how many days in a row I can play.  I’ll never be a Supernova Elite or anything, but I’m sure I can make good use of the VIP program they have. 

Morning from hell

Well, it’s a fuckin Monday alright.

This has been the morning from hell.  It all started innocently enough.  I got out of bed after a decent night’s sleep (for me).  Let the pup out while I got showered and ready for work.  I was even early getting ready and proud of myself.  I was going to be at work on time.

I let the puppy back in to play with him for a little bit before I left.  Then something happened.  Puppy decided to be an asshole.  He refused to go in his crate.  No matter how hard I tried, he wouldn’t go.  I have a backup plan for these types of instances.  I’ll just put him in the downstairs bathroom.  Tile floor, fairly small, and I have him a bed and food/water set up down there.  He refused to go in there too!  I wasted 30 God damned minutes dealing with this dog and really had lost my cool by now.

The good news is that my mother would be showing up in about 30 more minutes.  I am having carpet installed today and she had to let the carpet people in.  I finally gave up and locked him in the den downstairs.  There’s not a lot he can get into down there. WRONG!

I get a call from my Mom right at 8:00.  I’m still on the way to the office, but not there yet because of the damn dog making me late.  I had forgot to leave a key for my Mother to get in.  Fucking Christ!  It was pouring the rain, I was already pissed off, damn near empty on gas, and about 48 minutes into my 50 minute commute.

I got into the office, told them I had to go back home.  I pumped some gas, and started another 50 minute commute back home.  My mother had already fell asleep in her vehicle waiting on me.  When I got home, I looked through the sliding glass door where the puppy was.  He had chewed up my vertical blinds!  Not just a little bit either.  Fucking destroyed.  Also, he shit in the floor.

I’m at my wits end with the puppy.  He was doing so good for so long.  But now, it’s like he wants to butt heads with me.  I’ve read so much about doing the positive re-enforcement with the dogs, but I think I’ve failed to establish that I’m the leader of the pack along the way.  I’m not real sure why either.  So far, I figure the puppy has cost me over $1000 with the shit he’s chewed up.

I’m not going to get rid of him or anything.  I love the dog and the company he gives me.  But I have to get him trained or he’s going to tear up everything I own.

Will you be my poker pal?

In an effort to avoid work today, I’ve spent 75% of my workday browsing the 2+2 forums.  Not the BBV, BVD, OOT, NVG, R2D2 forums that suck in the masses, but the actual strategy forums.  And also for the first time, I’ve actually read they psychology forum.

I’ve tried to “stalk” a few of the more successful players and their posts and such.  One common thing I see that most of the successful poker players have are “poker friends”.  These are people that play similar stakes and understand the game.  These are people they can learn from and also teach at the same time.

I’m a horrible guitar player, but it’s something I do for fun.  One thing I’ve learned over the years is that learning to play guitar with a friend is way greater than learning to play on your own.  The entire learning process is much easier and both parties involved usually learn something.

When I sit down at the poker tables, I’m alone.  I have no poker friends.  Sure I have buddies I play home games with and such, but I don’t have any real life friends that understand the game.  They like poker and like donking it up on a weekend while knocking back a few beers, but in now way are they serious about learning the game.  I’m not going to push it on them or anything either. 

I had one buddy I got into the game a couple years ago.  He actually learned about bankroll management and read my Small Stakes Hold ‘Em book.  I got him on course to building a bankroll through bonus whoring.  Then he just pretty much gave up after the bonuses dried up.  He never really expressed any interest in taking it any further and I’m not going to push it on people.

So I’m in search of a poker pal.  Someone I can either stake and teach the basics or preferably someone that is already playing and needs a poker pal themselves.  Just someone to swap bad beat stories with or even better discuss actual tough hands and how the best way to play them.

Will you be my friend?

Going deep, but fizzing out

She was a real life Jerry Springer episode gyrating on my lap and spilling Grey Goose all over my Ecco shoes.

--Dr. Pauly

First things first.  Go Al!  I love when hippies prosper and do what they love.  It breeds good work.  Look at Pauly or just look at my iTunes playlists.  Hippies make good reading and good listening.  And since these are my blogging/poker brethren, I pull for them to prosper even more.

I think I jinxed myself yesterday with spilling the details of my good fortunes on and off the tables lately.  I had a tough night last night.  I didn’t play all that well though to be honest.  I just couldn’t get into that rhythm I had been in lately.

It seemed like I was stacking chumps left and right last night, but it also seemed like I was getting stacked off a lot myself.  And as all you poker players know, the bad stretches always seem to stick out more in your mind than the good stretches.  So when the smoke cleared and I finally checked my PT3 results, I was expecting all my monthly profits to be gone.  Fortunately, all I had lost was 1 buyin.

I had a lot more poker left in me, but the puppy thought otherwise.  He was on tilt from being ignored for a couple hours and decided to start getting into mischief.  I had to take a break and play with him for a while.

After the play session with the pup, I was ready to play some more.  Before I hopped back into the cash games, I decided to check the tournaments.  I nearly bought into the Stud/8 MSOP event on Full Tilt, but the field was too big and while I thoroughly enjoy Stud/8, I don’t feel like I have an edge over any remotely competent player.  So I opted to buy into a $5.50 NLHE tourney and a $4.40/180 on Stars.

The Stars tournament didn’t go so well.  I had an ill-timed bluff early against an apparent monster to lose the first 3rd of my chips.  From there I nursed a short stack down to about 44th place.

In the Full Tilt tourney, I doubled up early, but then went card dead pretty much until the 2nd break.  I kept alive with some steals, a few small pots, etc.  Then I finally hit a big hand when my KK > TT.  Then again, my KK > TT.  Now I have chips to work with.  As we approached the bubble, I played to win while the rest of my table to played to cash.  This saw my chipstack swell considerably.  Then I got KK again and got it all in against…. you guessed it… TT and won for the 3rd straight time and a huge chip lead.  We cashed, I continued my aggression, and continued to keep my chiplead from like 27 people down to 12.

There was a guy to my left that played a 29/2 game and was really causing me problems during the latter stages and he seemed to out-flop me on every hand.  Then I finally picked up Aces in early position (possibly UTG).  I did the normal raise, 29/2 guy re-popped me all in (he was 3rd in chips I think).  I insta-call and he flips over…. deuces.  Of course, deuce on the flop and I’m crippled.  I win that hand, and there’s nobody with even 1/3 of my chipstack.  But that’s not how it played out.

I did make the final table, but with only about 5BBs left.  I finally pushed with pocket 8’s and got called by Aces.  His aces held up.  IGHN in 9th place.  I only netted a little under a buyin for my efforts.  237 runners, 9th place…seemed like I deserved more.  I really wanted the $300+ first place prize though and my 3rd MTT victory of the year.

MTTs are a good distraction from grinding and a good way to luckbox into a nice score, but they just aren’t for me.  I find it incredibly frustrating to bust chumps for 3 straight hours, take 1 bad beat and maybe get a few bucks for your efforts.

I used to be horrible at MTTs.  My strategy was pretty much the same as a full ring game cash game.  This would work if you were catching cards, but not if you go card dead.  I constantly found myself having to fold my way past the bubble and then hope to catch a couple miracle double ups to go deeper.  These days, I have loosened up a bit, upped the aggression, and have been able to build good sized chipstacks…especially around the bubble.  These guys fold EVERYTHING on the bubble.  Occasionally, you’ll find a decent player and he will either get there before you or be on your left and come over the top.  But I’m playing $3-$5 tourneys here, so those players are few and far between.

I have about $35 left in my Pokerstars account.  I have been donking around the PL Omaha and some $10NL tables with that money in my downtimes at work.  I have also played several $4.40’s with zero results so far.  I think I’m just going to take the rest of that money and run a bunch of $4.40/180’s with it.  That will give me my MTT fix.

---

Tonight, I will probably be around grinding out some hands, but I also plan on going to the ballgame first.  Tim Beckham made his debut for the P-Rays last night.   I listened to the game on the radio, but tonight I’ll be there in person to see the #1 pick in MLB play.  It’s also Jonny Gomes bobble-head night, so…BONUS!

My uncle is having a cookout/party type deal on Sunday at one of the local lakes.  I was excited to go, but then I heard there were going to be upwards of 100 people at this shindig and now I’m not looking forward to it so much.  I’m all for family and shit, but when you bring in 80-90 other people I don’t know, then it’s just not for me.  I’ll probably skip out on that event and play in the MSOP HORSE tournament instead.

PC Repair

My poor PC has been having a rough time lately.  I built the thing in the summer of 2006, so it’s got a little age on it.  However, it’s still a 3.0 Ghz Pentium D with 2 GB RAM, and hasn’t been bloated down with a bunch of junk, so something is up.

I have done all I can think of software wise, short of re-installing.  However, the random lockups and overall flaky-ness seem to point to more of a hardware issue than a windows issue.  I’m guessing RAM. 

Since RAM is so cheap, I got 4 GB from newegg just now.  I also bought a 500 GB USB hard drive for backup purposes.  I want to be able to back up my poker tracker databases, some documents, photos, etc.  But most of all, I have a TON of televsion shows on my PC that I’ve DVR’d, Bit Torrrented, or whatever over the past couple years.  These things take up a ton of hard drive space and burning them all to DVD is just way too time consuming for me right now. 

I was going to upgrade to Vista, but I’m not sure now.  I really like XP and while I haven’t had any major issues with Vista at work, it’s kind of quirky and treats me like a retard, so I don’t like it.  I’ll probably stick with XP for now.

I’m hoping the new RAM does the trick.  If not, then I’ll be restoring Windows soon.  I’m assuming Mac owners don’t have to deal with these issues.

F Real Life in the A

Well, I thought an extended session was coming on last night.  However, my mother informed me otherwise.  My cousin from the Coast Guard was in town and we were having a cook out.  I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play some Cornhole.

I had a pretty good time and the puppy went with me so he got to play with all kinds of new people and a couple other dogs.  This equals a wore out puppy when we get home at night which allows me to play poker while he rests.

I was proud of myself because I made time to play poker.  It was getting late, but I really really wanted to play.  So I skipped out on watching the tail end of a couple baseball games in favor of poker. 

I played very well with the exception of 1 hand.  Other than that, it was smooth sailing just like the last couple days have been in poker.  I feel so confident at the tables these days and it rocks.  I don’t seem to be getting smacked with the deck or anything.  I’m just being more aggressive and contesting flops that are less likely to hit my opponents range.

I was going through my stats for the month after my session and I have only been dealt Aces 3 times this entire month.  They have won all 3 times, but only stole the blinds.  I have only been dealt Kings 3 times and they are my biggest loser for the month.  Only because I got it all in pre-flop twice and lost both times.  Once to Ac5c and once to AJo.  The other 3 times, I took the blinds.

So it’s not like I’m running good or anything.  It’s more like things are clicking and the gears are running smoothly.  I feel like a well oiled machine on the tables and it’s fantastic.  I can’t wait to get back and play some more.  I’ll probably play a little bit more tonight, but I feel a marathon session coming on this weekend.  I might pull and all-nighter Friday or Saturday if nothing is going on.

Now, I leave you with this decision.  What do YOU do in this hand?  Villain is 21/5/1.54 over 584 hands.

--------------------
HAND #1
--------------------

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

CO: $32.30 (129.2 bb)
BTN: $10.80 (43.2 bb)
SB: $25.10 (100.4 bb)
Predator314 (BB): $34.75 (139 bb)
UTG: $54.95 (219.8 bb)
MP: $7.90 (31.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is BB with Q Q
4 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Predator314 raises to $2.25, SB calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.50) J J T (2 players)
SB bets $22.85 and is all-in, Predator314 has no fucking clue what to do.

$100K in 31 days

After WCGRider’s fail at making $10K in a month at $25NL, Leatherass over at Stoxpoker is most likely stepping that up and saying he can win $100,000 in 31 days at $2/4NL.  When you do the math, that’s a more do-able bet.  WCG needed to win 40,000 BBs whereas Leatherass only needs to win 25,000 BBs.

I’m excited for this bet to go down.  Not because I want action or anything, but because these types of bets give me motivation to grind. 

You can check out the monster thread on 2+2 here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=233780

Tonight I grind!

The only poker I’ve played the past 2 days was yesterday at lunch, I got in about 100 hands at $10NL on Stars just donking around.  I tripled up in those few hands and everything seemed like child’s play compared to what I have been playing.  I just randomly selected an open table on Stars and it was like the Good Ol’ Party Poker days.  I wonder what their $25NL tables are like these days?  I have been playing mostly on Full Tilt.

Monday night, I went to a softball game and didn’t play any poker that night.  Last night, I went to watch the Princeton Devil Rays play an exciting game and actually win.  I got excited when I saw Danville’s coach was Paul Runge.  I love sub-par 80’s baseball players.  A couple years ago I got to chat with Darryl Evans and he signed my hat.  How cool am I?  I have met some good players as well though.  I’ve met Phil Niekro, Cal Ripken Jr and Sr., Glen Hubbard (he belongs in the sub-par category), and probably some more that I’ve forgotten about over the years.  I’ve also watched Carl Crawford, Rick Ankiel, Jonny Gomes, Josh Hamilton, and probably a lot more without realizing it.  Minor League baseball is the nuts.

Anyway, back to poker, I’ve been really itching to hit the virtual felt lately.  I feel an extended session coming on tonight too.  I’m going to skip out on the baseball game tonight (I’ll be watching MLB.tv though) and opt for a night in with the puppy, some No Limit Hold ‘Em, and just some alone time.  I’ve been a social butterfly this week and that’s just not acceptable!

I figure I have about 1 week of $25NL left in me before I move on to the $50NL waters.  I’ll have about 25-30 buyins to play with depending on how well I do these last few thousand hands go and how much rakeback I end up with when all said and done.

My winrate is not what you would call phenomenal at the $25NL level as it is < 4 PTBB/100.  However, I have a pretty large downswing in the middle there… a little over 16 buyins.  If you can play 20K hands, sustain a 16 buyin downswing, and still post a 3+ PTBB/100 winrate, I’d say it’s time to move on.  No real reason wasting another 20K hands at this level unless I have to retreat from the $50NL games.

Poker for a living

One of the most frustrating things about poker is actually finding time to play.  I’ve pretty much turned poker from a hobby into a semi-profession, then back into a hobby again over the years.  These days poker is more like a video game for me.  However, I struggle to find time to play.

I really thought the lack of a television would help me play countless hands over the course of the summer months.  Unfortunately, all it did is give me more of an urge to venture outdoors.  I’ve been choosing baseball and softball games over sitting on my ass playing poker.  That’s a good thing for socializing and just overall health, but it doesn’t help the bankroll.

As bad as I hate to sound like a typical poker idiot, I still would like to play this game for a living.  I’m getting to a point in my life where that window to allow me to do so is closing.  Actually, I cracked open the window a bit more this year when I dropped the hammer on most of my debts.  But I’m not getting any younger.

The problem is that I have not proved myself a winner in poker.  I could make a decent wage just playing $1/2 NL if I was a moderate winner at the stakes.  I wouldn’t be a balla or anything like that, but I’d be pulling in more income than what I pull now.

It's a little known secret that I hate my line of work.  I knew as soon as I slid off my cap and gown after college graduation that I made a mistake.  I've pursued other lines of work and even had other offers, but I've passed because I knew a new job would not make me any happier.  I longed for freedom.

When I sit down and think about life and my future, I get nothing but a cloud of smoke to come out of my ears.  I don't know what I want out of life.  I'm 30 years old.  Other 30 somethings around me are settling down, getting married, having kids.  2 years ago, I'd have taken a bullet to the brain over that lifestyle.  Now... it looks like a viable option.  This means the window is closing.

Oh how sweet it would be to walk into work one day (fuck that $4/gallon gas means I'd be calling into work) and tell the boss to suck it.  However, that's just a pipe dream right now.  A figment of my imagination.  Next week, I might not have the urge to play poker ever again...but in my experience, the urge is always there... it's just that real life and my job always get 1st priority.

So, this poker journey is a quest of my will and determination to make something better of my life.  I have no problems working on my game.  I love becoming a better poker player.  2008 Predator314 could crush 2004 Predator314 on the tables.  However, 2008 version is playing in tougher games.

I need a gameplan if I would like to make this my career.  It's not like I can drop everything this instant and start grinding out mortgage payments.  I don't have the bankroll to properly grind the stakes I want to play.  I also haven't proven myself to be much of a winner lately, but that is changing.  I'm playing poker on a whole new level lately and the results are finally showing.   The micros seem like child's play when I sit down.  I'm more patient, pay more attention, and less prone to auto-pilot syndrome.  Now I just need to keep improving and become a solid winner.

I'm playing $25NL right now.  In a few short hands, I'll be moving to $50NL.  After that, it's $100NL, then $200NL.  3 short stops between now and where I would like to be to start my new hypothetical career.  It's not like I can just have $8000 in my bankroll and say "Hey I got 20 buyins for $1/2, let's do it!".  I need some sort of cushion to fall back on.  I'd prefer having 2 years worth of salary to fall back on.   Realistically, I could get by with 1 when you factor in rakeback, savings on gasoline, etc.  I live in smalltown, WV and frankly, it's just not expensive to live here.  You make $50K/year and you are doing well.  I shoot for $100K of course.

So the gameplan right now is just to grind it out.  Get my hands in and keep learning.  If I keep doing these things, the bankroll will follow.  It has before and I'm a much better player now than I was then.  I need to quit trying to find time for poker and instead make time for it.  If I want to do this bad enough, I will make time.

The whole point of this post is that poker could be my way out.  I’m not sure poker is the answer to all my problems or anything like that and I do realize what kind of grind that poker can be.  However, when you compare that grind with my current grind, it doesn’t look so bad.  If I had 2 years of expense money to fall back on, I know I could play good poker and enjoy life for at least 2 years anyway.   During these 2 years, I would have the freedom to figure out what I want to do with my life.

Another pipe dream post from Predator314 :)

Hardball

Last night, I opted to take the puppy out to the softball field to watch my friends play in a tournament.  My friends won their game and the puppy had fun and wore himself out for the evening, so all in all it was a success.  I didn’t play a single hand of poker though.

Tonight, I’m going back out to watch a baseball game.  The P-Rays are playing the Danville Braves.  I’m a big Braves fan, but I’ll still be rooting on the local team.  I’m kinda bummed about the P-Rays because I thought Tim Beckham was coming.  It looks now like he will skip rookie ball and go straight to A ball.  I guess commanding a $6 million signing bonus you can also command a no-rookie league clause in your contract.

There’s not much else going on in my world lately.  I’ve kind of fell into a rut in life lately.  I think I might have found a way out….restoring old friendships and what-not.  Maybe more on that later, maybe not.

Tidbits

A lot has happened since my last blog real blog post.  If I didn’t have this crappy job, I' probably wouldn’t have a blog.  I was on vacation last week, hence the lack of posting throughout the week.  However, there were several occurences during the week that I want to touch on a bit:

Tiger Woods: Broke leg, torn ACL? No match for Tiger Woods as he clearly didn’t have it at Torrey Pines.  However, when Tiger doesn’t have it, he’s still better than the rest of the field.  This man is who your kids should seek as a role model.  He leaves it all out there on the course.  His work ethic is 2nd to none.  Sure he gets mad after an errant shot…especially when his body is preventing him from making a good swing.  But if you notice, it leaves it all behind him before taking his next swing.  Tiger Woods would be the Phil Ivey of poker if he played.

George Carlin: I normally don’t get sad at the passing of celebrities.  They aren’t special.  But Carlin’s passing depressed me.  He took comedy to another level.  His ability to take the dumb shit we do on a daily basis and turn it into comedy was awesome.  For my money, you can’t get any better than Carlin and I just wish I had a chance to see him live when he was alive.

Poker: I played about 1/2 the hands that I intended to play last week.  This really wasn’t my fault though (I don’t think).  I got sick towards the end of the week and even though I wanted to play, I opted to rest instead.  I’m more stoked about poker now than I have been the prior months.  I cant’ explain these waves of motivation that go through my head, but I’m not going to complain.

My bankroll is back over the $1000 mark.  I have only played about 13,000 of my 20,000 hands at the $25NL tables though.  Hopefully I’ll finish up those last 7,000 hands or so in the next week or 2.  My confidence at the tables is so high now though.  It makes all the difference in the world when you expect to win every time you sit down.

I worked really hard on my game, plugging leaks, but mostly re-learning how to deal with the new rash of TAGs at the micro limits.  These players are the only real problems you have to deal with at the micro levels.  Most are decent pre-flop, but horrible post-flop.  I have been playing around a 20/16 style lately and this has worked out fairly well on the 6 max tables.  One thing these TAGs do not do is mix it up a bit.  They are usually playing a few tables and evidently not paying attention to what’s going on with all of them.  After a few orbits, you can put these guys on hand ranges fairly easily and then look at the board texture.  Is this a flop I will challenge?  Who cares if it missed me…all I know is that it missed his range completely and I’m taking that money in the middle. 

As you can see, I’m taking my thinking to a 2nd level.  I’m still playing pretty straight forward poker, but with some thought.  Instead of raising, missing the flop, c-betting and check/folding the turn, I’m mixing things up.  I’m putting my opponents on ranges and thinking about how that range fits in with the board texture.  Standard poker, but you’d be surpised how many people who think they are good don’t do these simple things.

I can’t wait to get past these next 7K hands and move out of the kiddie pool.  I also can’t wait for my bankroll to swell to 5 digits, but I’m sure that’s a little ways away.

Ugh

I’m back from vacation and back to the grind.  Vacation was OK.  The highlight was definitely fishing with my Dad.  The low-light was me getting a stomach bug.

I didn’t get anything accomplished chore wise during the week other than cleaning up the truck.  I had several other plans for later in the week, but they got scratched in favor of bed and relaxation.

I did manage to play about 5000 hands during the week.  Not quite what I had planned on doing, but better than nothing.  The good news is that I ran pretty well and actually made money.  Does it count as running hot when you put your money in ahead and your hands actually hold up?

I spent a good deal of time playing tournaments too.  No big scores, but I did make several final tables including a 2nd place finish in a limit HORSE tourney.  That’s the first time I can recall getting 2nd in a MTT.  I can’t recall a single time I got heads up and didn’t finish the job (Single Table SnG’s not included).

The good news coming from my vacation time is that I didn’t burn myself out on poker and I now have confidence in my game.  I feel like I can sit in a MTT and go deep or sit down in a cash down and double up fairly easily.  More on this as I get more time to post.

Let the vacationing begin!

I have 35 minutes before running out this door and shutting this office completely out of my brain for a week.  I had to frantically work today to get everything done that needed to be done so I can get out of here today.  That’s the reason I haven’t posted until now.

I don’t really have anything on the agenda tonight other than not working.  I think I might put in a marathon poker session or run a few MTTs.  I’m not really sure yet and haven’t talked to anyone today to see what all is going on.

I downloaded the commercial release of Pokertracker 3 last night and toyed around with it for a while.  It’s much better than the beta I had tried out sometime ago.  However, it’s a big time resource hog.  The first time I ran it, my computer vomited on me.  After a reboot, it did OK.  I played around with the HUD most and added stats I like/use and got it looking all pretty on the 6 max tables.   I think the HUD layout design part of the software is much easier to work with than regular PAHUD.

After playing around with PT3, I thought I’d play some poker.  It was getting late, but I played about an hour.  The only real hand of note was me getting it all in with 2 overcards and the nut flush draw against top pair and getting there.  I won about 1 buyin for the night, but only played for a little bit.

I’m kind of scramble brained right now and can’t really focus on writing this post.  So I’ll just end the post here.  I’m going home in a bit and relaxing.  I’ll probably post a couple times over the vacation, who knows.

NIT City

Yesterday was pretty frustrating for me on the tables.  I was cruising along and up a couple of buyins before losing a huge pot when I flopped a set of tens against AA on an all diamond board. 

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=4794345
pokenum  -h ad ac  - th ts  -- td 3d 6d 
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing Td 6d 3d
cards  win   %win  lose  %lose  tie  %tie     EV
Ac Ad  337  34.04   653  65.96    0  0.00  0.340
Ts Th  653  65.96   337  34.04    0  0.00  0.660

I’ll spare you the hand history on that one.  I can’t complain about getting my money in as a 2:1 favorite.

Everything kind of snowballed after that and when I finally gave up, I was dead even on the day. 

The games are so dry right now.  I’ll datamine 16 tables at a time on FT and maybe only 4 will have 2 fish or more.  The rest are filled with rakeback nits and TAGs.   Since I’m trying to improve my game, I don’t mind sitting with TAGs at these micro levels.  They are pretty good pre-flop, but for the most terrible post flop.  I have been trying to stay out of the pre-flop wars with them and outplay them post flop. 

When you play against TAGs, you gotta mix it up a bit.  Raising pre-flop, throwing out a c-bet, then check folding the turn will get you into trouble with a semi-thinking player, so you have to throw a changeup every now and again to keep them honest:

--------------------

HAND #1


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Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players


Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker





SB: $24.40 (97.6 bb)


BB: $25.10 (100.4 bb)


Predator314 (UTG): $39 (156 bb)


MP: $63.75 (255 bb)


CO: $62.15 (248.6 bb)


BTN: $25 (100 bb)





Pre-Flop: Predator314 is UTG with K A


Predator314 raises to $0.85, MP calls $0.85, CO calls $0.85, 3 folds





Flop: ($2.90) 4 2 6 (3 players)


Predator314 checks, MP checks, CO bets $1.75, Predator314 raises to $6.50, MP folds, CO calls $4.75





Turn: ($15.90) J (2 players)


Predator314 bets $11, CO folds





Results:

Spoiler:

$15.90 pot ($0.75 rake)

Predator314 mucked K A (high card Ace) and won $15.15 ($7.80 net)

I think I’ll change things up a bit this evening.  I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for poker as I have several real life chores that need done.  However, when I do sit down, I think I’ll play in a tourney or 2 and then keep 2 ring games open at the same time.