Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Very Superstitious

Im really superstitious with poker. I decided I had an unlucky pair of blue pants a long time ago so I quit wearing them to games. It has grown into me not wearing anything with royal or navy blue. Unfortunately my favorite shoes and my sandals are blue. Maybe Im just a bad player who has a lot of blue clothes so it seems like blue is unlucky but really I have just always worn blue and only noticed when I lose. I still think the pants are way unlucky.

I was playing the other night and realized that ever since I put a pin in my hat from my buddy Reno's skateshop called Urban 9 that I had been losing. I took the pin out and started winning. I went from being down $200 to winning $120. My wife gave me a crystal the other night that she said was for poker players (amoung other things). As soon as she gave it to me I started running really hot online. So now I think I have to have this rock with me when I play.

Ive had other jewelry to that I have come to think of as lucky or unlucky. I have a lucky money clip and an unlucky money clip. Sometimes before I go play I will look in my dresser drawer and try to pick out something that is lucky. I'll pick it up and see if I get a good feeling from it. It could be a chip from a casino (I get a $1 chip from every casino I play at) or my Ace of Spades zhippo lighter, or a wooden nickel, etc...

I remember when I first started gambling in the pool halls I learned that a $50 bill was bad luck. I remember playing Cadilac at Mugsy's and who ever had the $50 would be losing until they had to use it to pay and then whoever got it would start losing.

It kind of a pain being superstitious because I forget a lot and wear my blue shoes and then if i lose I kick myself for it. Or I will be on my way to New Orleans and realize I forgot something and feel like Im gonna run bad.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

All-in Short Stack Tilt Fest

Played 1/2 NL last night. We had a special Sat game with steaks. Ran well out of the gate but lost my profit back playing too many hands aggressively. I value bet a flush on the river with only and 8 high in my hand only to be called by a 9 high flush. I was in position so it made since that he checked the river to me after I just called the turn bet when the flush hit. I dont know why I thought it wa the green light. There werent too many hands that he would call. There were plenty of other people at the table who wouldve looked me up with 2 pair but not him. I was steamin from anther hand where I flopped a set and all the money went in on the flop and I got runner runner flushed by a 6 high spade. To be fair the guy had an open end str8 draw that never hit but he also called $15 preflop with 65off. The same guy I value bet with the worse flush later put me on nuclear monky tilt. I played 87 in a raised pot. I was on the button and there were4 or 5 people in the hand already. The flop is 669 and it checks around to me. I check. I would probably bet there most of the time. Anyway the turn is a 10 giving me the str8 and putting 2 diamonds one the board. A real kook donks out $40 and a really tight player over calls. Im really sorta worried but I decide I cant fold but I cant just call so I push. Original donker folds and tightwad goes in the tank. He starts talking to me and reveals his KQdiamonds. I wanted to show him my cards because he was putting me on just a 10 for some reason but I also didnt want him to know for sure that I wasn't filled up already. Anyway he calls and I immediately propose running it twice which he accepts. This isnt something we normally do but it does happen once or twice a night sometimes. Anyway the story is obvious. He makes his gutshot str8 the first run and his flush the second. Now Im $150 in the hole after being up $300. I am full steam ahead pushes in $50 with KJ preflop I think everyone had limped and I was BB but I could be wrong. Brain no working to good then. I get called by AK UTG and am broke. I am telling myself to go home but my inner tilt is saying to buy in for $400. I decided to by in for just $100 and tilt it off. Very wise choice I know. I get all in the first hand with maybe KQ and get no callers and make like $12. I would continue this shove fest getting no callers for a very long time. I would also limp and call some raises but if I hit my draws I would shove. I yoyo'd from $130 to $80 for a long time doing this. I finally broke out with some reasonable hands to the $160 range and started to get off my pushfest. I ran my stack up a little with a ok cards.I did have one hand where I got allin with AA against my friend RB who had KK and the dealer was beautiful enough to put a str8 on the board. I would end up taking his money anyway by chasing a flush draw with a pair and rivering a better 2 pair than him. Him last hand he put in his last $40 and I called with AQ and the luckbox behind me who somehow went broke even though he hit everyhand, he called. We checked it down and I won with A high. Kooky. So I actually got back up to $190 up but eventually at 5am cashed out with $120 profit and damn glad it wasnt -$300 and very baffled as to how I survived my all-in tilt fest.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Wierd. Probably Just Not Enough Hands.

Dude Ive been plying the $20 Heads Up SnGs and so far the players are terrible. Way worse than the $10 SnGs. BUT I cant freakin win. I can pwn them all game and then they win the last coin flips and I get coolered. Im getting irrate. Walls are being abused. Anyhoo.

Playing Higher to Get Even = Degenerate Going Broke

I lost a little in my heads up online venture. It could have been worse. I got so frustrated for losing 4 games in a row and never winning a game ending all-in coinflip that I felt like it couldnt keep going this badly. So what did I do? I played higher like a degenerate jack ass. I ended up playing this guy for quit a few games and we went back and forth for a longtime. It pissed me off because the guy was terrible but I couldnt catch any cards. I even had a little gren note on him. He played really tight and tended to bet big when strong and little when weak. How could I lose? No cards. It seemed like all my wins were steals or float bluffs. Endless rags. I could count how many times I had to bet so much it wouldve crippled me and sat there knowing if he called with anything I was toast. Most of the time he folded. But that play has to work so many more times than it doesnt to be profitable. Anyway he ended up leaving one game up one me. I later played on more game and broke even at the higher stakes which still left me down for the day. If I keep playing higher when Im losing I will be going broke soon.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Calls 32 times the BB preflop with K9off. FML

My poker soul is shattered today. Its one of those days where I start wondering what I could do with my spare time besides poker and try to think of something I can blow my bankroll on that will make me real happy. Unfortunately nothing makes me happy when Im losing at poker. I played $1/$2 at the Shack last night. I got up $35 with AK and then turned around and doubled up a $60 short stack with it who had AA. My last hand would be the same situation except I was the relative short stack and I was on nuclear monkey tilt. My favorite hand of the night was when I had QQ in SB and an early position guy opens for $15 and then the maniac who has been dumping money all over the state and had just rebought for $200 after going broke calls the $15. I make a genius raise to $65 total. (I forgot to mention they BOTH call). Now Im totally disgusted. The flop comes KJbrick and I lead for $100. Im hoping no one has a King. Well original raiser folds and the idiot goes in for $35 more. He wins because he is a genius who calls $15 and then $50 more preflop with K9offsuit. Within 10 hands this same degenerate has $1500 in front of him. The last hand of my night I would limp reraise all in with AKsuited and he would happen to have AA for the 5th time in 2 hours. I never saw AA. I saw KK once. Lost. I saw QQ twice. Lost twice. I stole about 5 pots on the night. My biggest hand of the night was won with Jack high in a show down. I called a reraise allin with a flush draw only to find myself up against a worse flush draw. It was on the turn and it wasnt that much but I still wasnt getting the correct odds to call if I was behind. But who cares when you donk it off later. The hand that keeps rolling around in my head went like this: I flop a flush draw. Call a bet on the flop out of position. Turn a flush. Call a big bet outta position. River pairs the board and I check and guy bets big on the river. Any hand that is betting for value is beating me. I was laready scared of a bigger flush and now the board pairs. He was talking to his neighbor and I heard somewhere in his conversation the words I dont give a fuck. He wasnt talking about poker or the hand but it made me think I was good. Like he was mentally preparing himself to absorb the loss if I call. But then I talked myself out of calling. I just didnt think he would bet a straight there. He showed the flopped straight. Instant monkey tilt. Im pretty sure I didnt play great but I cant see my big mistake. I know I donked the last hand but come on. Do I have to be up against AA everytime I try and take a pot with AK. I know I bet into a K high board with QQ but the guy I was actually concerned about dint have a King and the guy who had a King shouldnt have been in the fucking pot for $15 much less $65. I think my overall style was a little loose and passive last night. Maybe I shoulda quit but the loosest players had huge stacks and were raising and reraising the river with the 84th nuts. All in all I lost a third of my bankroll which was at a minimum for a healthy $1/$2 bankroll. Now I gotta hope I dont run bad for the next few games. FML

Friday, June 19, 2009

Maybe Everyone Has a Poker Game Suited for Them

It seems like there should be a poker game that fits everyone's personality. Some games where your weak tightness or your loose aggressiveness is a plus. Like taking into account that Limit is less read dependent than no limit. Or that Omaha may be very math dependent as well as demanding hyper aggressiveness (I dont play Omaha so I could be way off there). Obviously in a full ring no limit holdem game the tight aggressive style wins out for most players. Ive been told that this winning style is hard to come by naturally because if you are aggresive then your personality tends to be more geared toward action and therefore probably loose play appeals to you. If you are tight then you are naturally conservative and tend to shy away from agression in risky situations. So for most successful No Limit players it is discipline that gives them this winning style and not natural disposition. Obviously if you are very good at reading people then you can be successful as a loose/aggresive player as well. I would say these are the greatest players in the world. The guys like Ivey and Negreanu who can have any two cards at anytime and make winning plays based on their reads. But I guess what Im driving at is the fact that I feel like my style of play is much more suited to heads up No Limit SnGs. Im fairly new in this arena but I just dont feel like the leaks I have in full ring cash games are nearly as big in Heads Up SnG. And my virtues are rewarded more. I genrally a loose/nuetral player. My online preflop full ring stats are like 24/13. 24 being Voluntarily Put Money In Pot and the 13 being the percentage of raising preflop. I think thats horrible for online full ring. I made way more money during the stretches when I brought the first number down to 16ish. Some people do better bringing the raising number up but I seem to fall into traps and make too many hero calls to overbets. This is all online mind you. My live game is very different. I think its because the standard raise in my live games is so out of balance with the stakes that it almost makes no sense to play anything but premium hands and make these overbetters pay for their mistake. Anyway I seem to have no problem switching gears in my Heads Up games and getting pretty good at figuring the players out fairly quickly. Maybe I just want to believe this. Maybe its not relevant to compare tournaments to cash games. I feel like I have a good tournament strategy and do well but I dont prefer them because I do have to be so patient. This is obviously not true in a heads up game. Anyway it gives me hope that there may be an even better game out there for me. Since the internet exists I actually have a shotr at finding that game too since no off the casinos or home games are spreading 2 to 7 triple low ball eights or better with a cap ( I made that game up in my head just now).

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I Prefer to Auto Muck

Played some head up $10 SnGs last night. I played bad and ran bad and still ended a couple games up. It seemed like I could never make a pair and the other guys were flopping 2 pair every time. How do I know? Most of them showed me every hand. So I could tell that they were playing strong with strong hands or vice versa. Sure they probably planned on changing gears but I doubt they did as much as they planned to. It was bizarre. I never show hands online. It slows the game down too much if Im deciding every time whether or not to show. When I was playing 6 tables of full ring cash games I simply couldnt. It was hard enough to fold on time much less add another action. It generally pisses people off (me included) if you make us wait for the site to time you out and then muck your winning hand. Bad etiquette. So my online bank roll is over $200 now. Im going to laugh for an hour and fist pump for a week once (if) I hit $1000. Of coarse with the current political environment I may have to fly to Antigua to get some money.

I will probably go play at Harrahs again this weekend. I hope the jack pot is still in tack. $180,000+ last weekend. Im gonna be fuckin jealous if someone hits it on another table while im there.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Goofy Online Bastards

I was doing decent in a $5 166 person tourney last night. I was in the top 10 most of the time and chip leader for a while. Im in the Big Blind with A2 and levels are 100/200. The guy on the button raises to $666. I pot raise cause I know he is weak. He has been raising weak all game and if he had any thing he would left of the extra $66. He repops all in. I snap call. He has 76off. He rivers a 6 to cripple me. Why dont he just muck? I cant fold at that point cuz I have half my chips in. Maybe he was tired and $5 didnt mean a lot. Oh Well.

I moved up to $10 buy in games and I can tell the players are better. Ive had some bad runs too. Im only up a half a buyin. I had this one fish playing me last night that would just ship it in with nothing preflop. $20 to play so ship $1500 in the middle. I lost twice calling him with an Ace and neither time did he have a pair or Ace. I think I may have come out 1 game up on him. The games would last maybe 5 hands. It was weird cause the first game we played he only bet good hands and was easy to beat. Then he turned into Hoyt Corkins on crack.

I have $190 online now. I beat someone last night after getting down to $120 chips. That was frikin sweet. Still going out 67th in that tourney ruined my night really. Tomorrow is my birthday. I better not play. I never ever ever win on my birthday.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

All-in reraise with 99 against 4 smooth calling limpers of a 13 big blind preflop raise by the short stack big blind

Im sitting in the small blind of a $1/$2 cash game with $225 and the big blind has $26 and Im pretty sure he is pushing blind. Theres 4 limpers to me. I got 99. I guarantee if I raise I get callers. I decided to limp and reraise after the BB does his thing. BB pushes $24 more into the pot. All the limpers call. I insta shove. They each deliberate and fold. My hand holds up against the BB even though there are 3 overs out there. The question is am I a genius or how bad do I suck? I figure the only legit hand that I might be up against was AJ but that AJ probably wouldnt call the rest of their money (everyone had at least $150 more).

Dragonfly Luck


This is a fuzzy pic of the Dragonfly that sat on my friends shoulder during our drive to Harrahs in New Orleans. I knew it was lucky and I shoulda put him in the game. He proceeded to go there with about $150 bucks and turn it into like $550. He even won playing $3/$6 Limit!!! Is that even possible?!?!?! He also won at roulette. I watched him play roulette for a while and WOW. Those people are the sickest bunch of degenerates Ive ever witnessed (except for my ex friend who liked to sell stolen checks from his parents). These guys would play nearly every fucking number with anywhere from $20 to $200 per number. It really just hurt when the wheel would hit one of the only naked numbers and they would rake all that money into the giant hole in the table. They had to be flushing $700 per spin down that hole. It was more interesting watching these idiots betting with their little degenerate brains looking at the numbers and getting feelings about which to bet. What fucking losers. I saw this guy hit for a $3000 pay out and I would have bet you my bankroll he was going to leave a loser (I mean money loser. Obviously the dude was a loser in general). I went down there with about 9 guys and I'd say 4 of them are going to be exactly like these guys in 10 years. They are already sorta close. Anytime people try to explain to me their strategy to beat the casino that really works I think you fucking hopeless degenerate. Get some professional help. The only full proof system is to run to the roulette wheel anytime a Dragonfly lands on you and stays there a long time.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Suggestions Welcomed

I made this for a guy I work with who likes to tell me what he thinks about my job. It's come in very handy.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Maybe Moving Up

Well I bubbled out of the Monday tournament. I ran my short stack all-in on the button with a naked Ace into pocket Aces. I wouldnt have had to do that had I not gotten all in after I flopped top two pair against a flush draw and lost. I was out 6th and the paid 4 but prolly chopped as soon as I left. I didnt stay for the cash game. They were playing 11 and gonna do two tables after the tournament but I was in a bad mental spot. My dad is sick with cancer and I was at the hospital all weekend and before the tournament. I do like that it got my mind on something else but Im sure my cash game wouldve been subpar and there happen to be an unusual number of good players there last night. So I went home and played my measley online bankroll. I pretty close to moving up from $5 HU SnGs to $10. I have $180 after starting this heads up stuff with $60ish. I doubt the $10 players are that much better than the $5 players. They might even be easier to beat cause there a lot of hyper agressive dont care about $5 types playing the $5 game. Maybe just steamers from the upper levels coming down to goof off. I prefer timid to over aggressive. Both are money makers. Timid takes longer to beat but I win a higher percentage. Anyway I think 18 buyins is plenty but I have lost like 12 buyins in one night before. It was my only real losing session playing micro heads up Sngs but it was a doozy.

Monday, June 8, 2009

3BB Aint the Standard Raise in Any Live Games I Play

Going to the Monday game tonight. So nice to have a proper bankroll. I'll still probably buy-in for a medium stack. About 60 BB. If I lose that then I'll go for the 100BB buy-in. Im halfway through a poker book so I probably have some dangerous ideas floating around in my head. The only problem with this book is it talks about the standard raise being 3 times the BB. Not in my cash game. You gotta open for 6BB and you will still get 2 callers. So it throws the theory of a little. That kind game turns deep stacks into medium stacks. It makes the loose callers mistake preflop twice as pricey. Last week I opened for 8 BB and got called by the guy behind me and then 4 high suited in the SB. The flop comes all hearts and the SB goes all in for $130 more. I have the nut flush draw but I know Im beat. I have a painful memory of the same guy doing the same play once when I flopped the nut str8 to a suited board and I called him for like $100 thinking he wouldnt play a flush like that. The pot was maybe $18 dollars an I only had $2 in it. I had no redraw either. We I guess I learned something about poker since then and folded. He shown the flush and I got ragged for being a nit the rest of the night. They actually tilted me into playing a coupla bad spots with that shit talk.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

My Online Poker Experience tp Date

I wanna talk about my online poker experience. About 2 years ago my buddy who is an online pro backed me. He put 1k up and took half the profit. Over the next year I swung all over the place. I Played full ring games from 25/50 to 2/4 depending on where my roll was. I went down to $300 at one point and went up to 4k after that. I used the 5% buyin/cash out at 10% Chris Fergesson bankroll management system. My buddy took his end out when my roll was at 3300 giving him a profit of $1150 and leaving me with $1150. I ran that up to 2k but hen ran horrible down to 886. I cashed out 800 and left 86 to play with. I couldnt stomach the idea of going broke after my friend had made $1150 off me. I used the money in my live bank roll and have done well. I also got some cool shit from the rewards store like my 21 inch lcd and the best hoody in the world. I love that hoody. I wish it didnt have a logo on it. I started playing $5 heads up SnGs now and my online roll is at $160 now. I like heads up. I never could be the nit I needed to be to multi table full ring games. Plus I still cant shake the feeling I had that something fishy was going on in the full ring games. Too many sick coolers per 100 hands. Maybe they scrpit hands to make sure the money gets in. Maybe there is an algorythim that rewards bad play to make sure the money circulates better. I doubt there was any software cracking at my levels but certainly collusion was a possibility. Anyway I havent felt like my heads up games are messed up in anyway. I also like the action. Im always in the hand. Its much more art than science too. I want to move up through the ranks of the heads up levels. If I ever push this up to a few thousand Im going to be so fucking proud of myself. Ive alreay gone from having $100 to having my last $20 in one game so Im not saying its been a smooth uphill ride so far. I know I need to start using my HUD software again and figure out what the optimum HU stats are. But at the levels Im playing it doesnt seem to matter. Players are mostly terrible. I'd say 70% of them are terrible. But even the terrible ones win when they are th over aggressive terrible ones. I prefer the soft players. I like to try and be just slightly more aggressive than them. I dont want them to feel run over. I want them to be copmfortable with the styleof play because I want them to play more than one game.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Dont Ask

i dont want to get a job. i dont want to do anything. **** my life.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=10290409&postcount=913

I love this thread post. I can relate. This is the Degenerate of the Week Award:

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adult molester
centurion

Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: UP YOUR MOMS FANNY (ok, alobar?)
Posts: 151

Re: ****The HUNL Tilt Thread**** (**** you poker)
over the last three days since i started cash hu ive played about 190 hands and made about 5 dollars. i was up like 55 till first hand of the last match i played when JJ<33>

Opinion is not Reflected in Results. Typical Poker Player

Had a bad run with my Heads Up experiment in the $5 SnGs at FullTilt. I hate getting some calling station to the brink of extinction 4 times and end up losing the match. I guess I dont care about the money. I really just want to improve my HU game. Unfortunately I need a bigger bank roll to move up so I need to actually win and not just think to myself about how much better I am than most of these players. Typical poker player whose opinion of his play is not reflected in his results. Had a sweet cash game. The first one in two weeks since we missed Memorial Day. I am about to take my first run at the $2/$5 game at the Belle. Im sure I’ll get crushed. I’ll probably uber nit it till I catch big and they will know and I’ll only get called if Im beat.

Why the Internet Rules Balls

http://www.amazon.com/Three-T-Shirt-Available-Various-Sizes/dp/B000NZW3IY

The comments on this sweet wolf shirt are why the internet is the greatest thing ever invented.