Feeling Better, Getting Better, and Expecting Better Results

Went to the Belle after work Wednesday. I sat for 4 hours and except for the 30 minutes my friend was dealing I never had a pocket pair nor did I ever hit my Big Slick type hands. Fortunately (but sadly) there was a girl playing who had no clue and just kept pulling out $100 from her bra. She musta bought in for $1500 by the time I left. If the other players wouldnt have strung me up I woulda asked her wtf she thought she was doing at that table. The $100s were all the old style too which was weird. Maybe she raided Granny's sock drawer. Anyway she would call with bottom pair for her $100 so anytime I could get isolated with her I just value bet my middle pair and she kept me afloat. After 3.5 hours and no pocket pair I went to take a break. When I came back my friend was in the box and he hit me with pocket 3's first hand. I limped utg and nobody raised but like 6 people limped. The flop is 10,6,3. The small blind bets $15. The big blind raises to $45. I make it $120. The girl who cant play calls her last $95 and it gets back to big blind. He thinks and mucks 10,6. Nobody in that spot shoulda done that. He should figured I had limped with AA hoping for a raise. Thank God he mucked. The turn was another 6 and he woulda got it all. So its me and dumb girl who actually hits her gutshot that she probably didnt know she had on the river but I got a boat so no harm. Instead of stacking off once again to a hand that was way behind (as usual), I actually made a couple hundred due to someones mistake. I say mistake because over time he would make way more money pushing with top two there. Maybe he saw the hand I played 2 weeks ago when I pushed with top pair knowing 100% the guy had an over pair. But I woulda folded my over pair to a reraise so I guess I will never get the satisfaction of being in that position and sucking out. Anyway my buddy hit me with two more pocket pairs of KK and I won a couple more small pots. When he left I left. Im starting to believe in the law of attraction in regards to dealers who want you to do well (maybe because you will throw them a red bird for a $25 pot) and the cards they send you. I think Im gonna start tipping any new dealer who sits as a rule. Get them on my side. Im really starting to believe in metaphysics and the power of the mind to create its own reality. Anyway Im proud I didnt get too crazy when I was card dead trying to pick up pots that were not for sale. Im planning on playing more cards in the next few months so this was a decent start but really probably insignificant to the overall results I will achieve since basically I won an amount that will be wiped out with one single loss of a significant pot. Oh and btw I have talked about not being a very good poker player on this blog so part of my playing more is going to be learning more too. Im getting a coach and reading a lot. I did the leak busters program from my online database the other day. The results were not shocking or unknown but its just part of the process. Also Ive had a lot of highly emotional things go on in my life this last year and I feel like a few weeks ago I made a break through with how I handle my thoughts and emotions and Ive played only 2 sessions since then but I won both. The other one was a going away poker party for a friend and we played .25/.50 and I took $176 profit from that. I wont go into it but I ran like God hit a buncha sets and flopped straights all night. Too bad it was in a micro game with a few friends who only wanted to spend $20 to $40 bucks. But the point is that Im feeling good, Im staying in the moment, and Im not creating bad luck from negative energy (if you believe in that).

Dedicated to the First Comment of the Last Post

Stop PMing Me Asking Me to Be Gay with You

Good Money Cant Win

Poker has felt like getting gang raped in a prison for retards. I had Saturday by my lonesome for a change so decided to play the 2/5 NL game at the Belle casino. Pretty much the first player I notice is this little old cajun man in a golf hat who plays poker like we did when we were 8 years old for candy. He saw every flop no matter what and would try to buy everypot or just call people down if he happened to have a hand as big as bottom pair. The kind of guy you pray for basically. I basically play a few pots and stay evenish. Then I pic up AK. The UTG guy min raises to 10 and crazy cajun calls and the guy who looks likke wolfman jack calls. I decide to isolated the UTG guy who obviously has a small pair. I raise to like 65. All 3 called and one maniac behind me called. The flop comes AA5 with 2 diamonds. I go ahead and bet like 85. I want whoever has A9 to think I'm scared and put it in. Well crazy cajun calls and no one else. Oh well. The turn is another diamond. Cajun bets 150 into me. I am not sold on his flush so I call. The river is another diamond. A 4 of diamonds. Fuck me. He puts me all in. I fold. He shows. He didn't have a diamond. He had pocket 4s. Nice boat. Later him and this big Aaron Neville looking guy get in a pot where the river makes a flush and a stright for anyone with a nine. The black guy checks to cajun and cajun bets 100. Black guy reraises all in for 300 more and stares at cajun like its WWE wrestling. Cajun calls. They both had a 9. Its like watching monkeys hump a football. A while later I turned a set of 2s in a limp pot with no action on the flop. I bet it and Wolfman called, Cajun called and big scary guy called. Wolfman tells me that now I got the cajun guy on the hook. I figured he was strong since he was encouraging me while he was in the pot. Well the board pairs on the end and I bet. Wolfman moves in for like $300 more. I'm sure he has a boat. He musta had 53 or 23. I fold my boat and he tries to convince me he had top pair with a queen kicker. Ok buddy. Anyway my lst pot I had J9 and limped after 2 guys. Well big guy makes it $20 and no one folds. I call 15 more and flop is J94 and we all check to raiser. I think he has AA. He bets pot $80. Flods around to me and I make it $280. He thinks for aminute and moves in. I call. He has KK. K on the turn. I get up cussin and went Phil Helmuth on him calling him a fucking idiot who shoulda known he was beat. I walked out cussin and talkin bout how I can't win no matter what and how its like playing poker against monkeys at the zoo (not in a racial way btw).

Dancing a Jig

I said if I ever hit $1000 from my $80 bucks I left on my account I would be dancin a jig. Well it took like a year to get nowhere and then came RUSH POKER!!!!! I remember when I switched to HU SnGs and had my last $20 in a tournament. I ran that up to $750 and back down. Up slow and down fast. Titling into the higher stakes. Well a week ago I was down to like $150ish when I started RUSH. I cant tell you how many hands I have played this week but I didnt spend a ridiculous amount of time on it. But its so damn fun that I probably had my heaviest online playing week in a year and a half. Anyway Im stoked. I dont even know why really. I guess because I started with $1000 from my friend who wanted half my wins and took all the loss. I ran his money down to $300 and then up to over 3K. It took forever and I woulda done better working in an indian sweat shop but since I like to play it was gravy. I made him $1150 when he bought out and then I lost my $1150 down to $880. I couldnt bear to let him win and me go broke so i took $800 out. Now Im back up to my original bankroll again. Sure I may lose it all. that Rush poker is highly volitale and if you go on tilt you can dump 10 buyins quick. Anyway yeeehaa.

Rush Poker is the New Crack

Holy Donkey Balls. I just had the greatest suck out of my career. I was playing .25/.50 NL on the new Rush Poker game on Full Tilt. I raise two limpers from the button with AQ and the small blind calls and the other two call. So the pot is like 11 bucks and the flop is QJ3 with two hearts. The small blind leads out for $5 and the guy in the cut off just calls. I hope the small is on the flush draw looking to see the next card cheap and i hope the smooth caller has a draw or KQ. So Raise it to 30ish leaving me about 30ish. The both push. I snap call because I got so much already in. Im against a set of Queens and a set of 3s. The turn is a heart and I have the Ace of hearts. You know the rest of the story. Cha ching. Nice little $185 dollar pot. I have been running very crappy on this Rush poker. Im still up. Mostly on being aggressive as hell and picking good spots to bluff. Im slightly above even with aces over 2400 hands and Im down with Kings. Im appropriately up with QQ and JJ. I DO HOWEVER LOVE RUSH POKER!!!!!! Getting to turbo fold and move to another table for another hand instantly is so sweet. I have been playing 2 tables and it probably the equivalent of multi tabling 8 tables. There are a lot of grinders. Its actually turning the loose passive people into tight players because they can just fold and move to the next hand. Its not the blind stealing contest you would think though. Seems like a lot of willing callers. I have done very well floating the first bet in position and bluffing the turn. I have basically played loose aggressive and have swung all over the place but have steadily moved up until that last suck out that launched me up to $580 bankroll. I was at like $140 when I started playing Rush. I also find that when I get a bad beat and get angry I actually play tighter which is the opposite in my normal tilt mode. I just get mad and fold until i pick up a really good starting hand. Not sitting there giving my self an excuse to do something stupid while Im waiting to fold is a big help when Im tilting. Plus my rake back is rolling in like never before. I havent had a $50 rake back payment in probably a year and Im sure I will have that this next payment. Im not playing that much more time wise but Im playing so many more hands.

On the live front I got clobbered the other night by the son of a bitch James (who is really the nicest guy you'll ever meet). Coolered to hell. Mostly in two hands. He raised preflop and flopped a flush when I flopped two pair. The last hand He and another guy in the pot I raise with a flush draw and they both raise behind me. So I finally decide to gamble my last $110. The first all in guy showed us a card so I knew he had a set and I knew James didnt put in the 2nd raise with a flush draw. So after its all exposed Im the only flush draw and i hit it on the turn. James had Js and 9s and the other guy had a set of 6s. Fucking J on the river. James wins a huge pot and the set flopper is none to freaking happy and Im plenty pissed to. How the fuck is the board gonna pair. They had all the damn cards in the hole. I decided to leave cause I was gonna lose the next $200 in about 12 minutes as annoyed as I was.

Trip From Hell

I played in the $550 tournament on Saturday at the Beau Rivage. My first hand I played I had J10 and limped in last position. No one bet the flop or turn with a jack high board. I bet the turn and got called. Then a raggedy 4 hits the river and the caller bets into me. I call. He had J4. Why not. I played JJ pretty strong and had to fold to a guy who claimed later he flopped a wheel. I thought it was a set. I played about 7 more pots and won none of them. I flopped two pair once and got counterfeited on the river to have to split the pot. I went down from $8000 to $1700. Then I hit a set and went up to like $4000. I made it back to $6000ish when I had to switch tables. Then my soon to be ex wife calls me. She wanted to know if I was going to be somewhere that night so we wouldnt run into each other and I said no and then she said she needed to talk to me in the next coupla days. Not to fill you in on the details but any contact with her is traumatic and her needing to talk to me about something but not telling me what is cause for concern. So I sit at my new table and all I can think about is wtf could it be. Maybe she's pregnant. Maybe she is moving to Nevada to be a hooker. Maybe she has cancer. Whatever. This is going through my head. Somewhere in there I raised a coupla pots and won them preflop. Then I caught 55 UTG. I shoulda mucked. Someone raises to $800 and I call. The flop is J87 with 2 clubs. I check. He checks behind. Turn is nothing. I check. He bets $1500. Without very much good thought I decide he is on AK and trying to buy it now. I never even looked at him. I raise most of my chips and he puts the rest of me in. He had AA. I woulda thought with an over pair he woulda bet the flop. I guess he put me on a middle pair and didnt want to be up against a set so he checked and when I didnt bet the turn he knew. Oh well. Never answer your soon to be ex-wifes call during a tournament. The rest of the weekend was more losing. I lost most of my cash game money by flopping top pair top kicker and my opponent catching a set on the turn again. That accounts for most of my loses in the last 2 months. Also there was a fire alarm and they evacuated the hotel at 3am but didnt alert the casino people. So all our wives and girlfriends and kids and whatever were shipped outside in the cold while we played casino games. We started getting texts about it and no one got up from the table to go see what the deal was. I paid for that little fau paus later but I wont talk about it. Lets just say when Im gambling expect me to err on the side of being self centered. Its not personal. Its just being a degenerate who is stuck $300. Then the next morning I dumped like $300 into the slots on the way outta town. Genius. My girl friend was up $400 in the first hour on slots but was down $200 with 4 hours. We really tore that casino up good. Never up on any table or machine at anytime. I realize that Im a better tournament player than cash player. I play tight aggressive in tournaments but I play mostly loose passive at the cash table these days. I gotta change that. At least I need to play loose aggressive. I need to start experimenting with taking big stabs at pots when the time is right. I guess it just seems like everytime I stick my neck out on a bluff I get my head chopped off. Gun shy lately. So anyway Im looking forward to playing again soon. I may play Sunday at Harrahs.