Be Careful What You Wish For

Im looking through the results for the New Orleans WSOP Circuit event and seeing a lot of Love Shackers. Most impressive is Lindsey's 1st place in the Ladies NLH event. Congrats!!! Looks like the Capt chopped one 2 ways also. I will see you guys in a couple weeks.

I had a couple of good sessions and then wiped out all my profit in one hand after a long 3rd session. I was trying to get in a big pot with this guy all night. He had done some really erratic shit all night. All in river bluff/show. 3 barreling pots but only betting like $10 into the $100 pot each time. He had played so bad I actually semi-scolded a lady who was giving him advice on how to play flush draws in the future. He had doubled me up earlier by calling my all in on the turn with his flush draw. He felted me later with some river suck out. I dont remember it now but it was pretty nasty. I think I had two pair and he rivered 2 pair. He actually was doing that a lot. He dumped at first but was on a rush and was probably up $800. So I rebought for $300 (the max). I made some progress. I was sitting with $450 in play which was even for the session. I had moved right behind him to get position on him. But this hand im in the SB so out of position with pocket 4s. I flop bottom set of 4s on a A,8,4 board. The only players are me and the guy Im gunning for. I bet. He calls. The turn is a 2 and it makes a flush possible. I bet. He calls. The river pairs Aces on the board. I bet $60 into about about an $90 pot. He min raises me. I debate on just calling to play it real safe but I think this guy is gonna dump here with a flush or even just trip Aces. I reraise $100 more. He pushes in. Fuck. I have $200 left. Fuck it. Call. He shows the nuts. A8. FML.

I played the $60 tournament again a couple weeks ago. I went out 24th. They were paying 15 spots. I never had a good stack. Played most of the time with 15 big blinds on average. This old man get chastising me and this other guy for shoving preflop even though we only had 10 to 15 big blinds. I guess we are supposed to raise 3 big blinds and then fold to the reraise. I snapped back at him once and the other guy chimed in. Probably dumb to engage him but whatever. My last hand I was moved to a new table (I had been moved about 5 times and it sucked). I shoved on the button with K4 and was called by the BB who had pocket 3s. I was ok with that until I missed and was sent packing. Oh well.

I played a few hours of 8/16 Limit today. Swung wildly and eventually cashed out for $210 profit. I got river fucked plenty and only river fucked someone maybe twice. It was a really soft game especially since the majority of players were Asians. Asians tend to be a lot wilder in my experience than this crew was. Playing aggressive was actually profitable for me in this game but like most limit games really to make good money you have to make good hands and dont be a pay off wizard.

Even Steven

I played Thursday and Friday. Thursday morning I played 2/3 spread. I doubled up some old guy after I flopped top pair of Jacks with a big 9 kicker. I bet the flop and he called. When the turn gave me a flush draw I bet it again and he moved in. It wasnt much more. I missed and he had AJ. A lot of these old dudes dont raise preflop with their big aces. Shortly after I called a $10 raise on accident on the button. I thought the guy in the cut off raised as he had done often so I called. Then I see the raise came from an earlier position. I may have called anyway with my Q10 but still I have to admit I called because I had position on who I thought was the raiser and assumed I had a good hand vs his cut off raising range. Anywhoo I flopped top 2 pair and every one checked to me. I checked. Dangerous I realize but I didnt think I could get any action if I made a reasonable bet. The turn was a blank and the first guy bets out $15 into the $45 pot. The original raiser calls, the guy in the cut off folds and I raise it $40 more. The guy who was in the blinds calls and the original raiser folds. A king hits the river and he leads out all in. I call assuming I could be crushed but I played a half buyin so I could avoid big river mistakes so my stack to pot ratio was way low. Probably was a $50 call. The guy had a whopping Q8. What a dipshit. As it turns out the original raiser had K10 and would have rivered me. That hand put me up $60 and I decided to buy into the $65 11am tournament. I didnt last long. I raised with AK of hearts and got 4 calls and the flop was 2,3,5 with two hearts. I cbet and a guy I had covered went all-in. It was 2000ish more. I had 1000 already in the pot. The total pot was about 2700 so I was getting the right odds with just the flush draw plus I had a guy shot and two overs. Unfortunately he had a set so the King on the river didnt help me. I played my short stack for a while making about 3 successful all-in moves until the last one which was the only one I got any action on. Oh well. I didnt hate the way I played. I left. Later that day I went to the Wild Horse Pass casino and played the 1/2 $100 spread limit. Nothing interesting happened and I broke even again.

Friday I played 2/3 $300 spread limit for only a few hours. I bought in half stack for $150. Most of the other players were under $200. It was a passive table full of limpers. Mostly old dudes. I never caught any hands. I double up though when I flopped top pair with one of my blind hands and the turned two pair. I assume he had two pair also the way he reacted to my hand. Then I proceeded to bleed of chips through the blinds and occasionally a late position limp with a mediocre hand. When people did raise they were getting two callers so I didnt want to try to pop it with nothing to steal. I eventually put a short stack allin preflop with my AK vs his AQ. I lost on the river. I raised AK two more times and didnt even see a flop because these geniuses limp shove with their AA and then always show it. I had gone from $285 to about $60. I had somewhere to go so I was looking get it in. I wouldve rebought if I didnt have somewhere to be. I straddled on what I thought was my last hand and picked up the pot by shoving with my A4. I showed the 4. So I played another round. I played all the way back around to UTG and pulled AK of hearts. I decided to pull a limp shove. I limped and someone made a small raise to $8 and about 3 callers behind him so I shove and act like Im saying fuck it. Everyone folds to the big blind who calls. I think he called because I had showed that 4 the round before. He had KQ and I held up. It broke me dead even and i cashed out. So two days, two casinos, two cash games and a tournament and Im dead even. Considering the cards I had Im ok with that.

Read More Poker

I havent played in a while. Im taking time to do some poker studying while my life is in major transition. I dont think its good to play when your life is upside down. I sold my house and finally got to Phoenix with my stuff. My place looked like a storage unit last week and still does to some degree. I also asked my sons mom to switch times with me so I could have him on school days and she could get him on weekends. Thats a big change from 2 nights to 5 nights. Puts a little cramp in my playing time but its going to be a better situation for him I think since she has a new baby and he is still hyper pissed at her for moving him out here in general. Im thinking when I go back I will play during the school hours. Most people think thats not the optimum time but I think its pretty good. No rounders get up at 7am to play but plenty of passive old men get up to play then. Rich old dudes from Scottsdale. They are horrible. Im guessing my most profitable hours so far have been after the morning crew starts filtering in. Maybe my only profitable hours so far. They do still piss me off though. I have left CAZ wanting to choke some white haired bastards out for making some terrible calls and hitting.

I have been reading Ed Millers Small Stakes Holdem. Its a very solid book. It really helps you understand the many things one needs to take into consideration when making poker decisions. For us recreational nits, its a tall order ask us to push the thinner advantages. But if Im gonna make the jump to playing fulltime I realize Im going to have to push a lot harder and smarter. Plus probably see a lot of online pros trying to play live and they are gonna be bringin aggression. I assumed at some point online play would get some kind of action taken against it. Why else would Party Poker have pulled out way back when. Those guys specialize in not going to jail while riding the edge of legal. I hope everyone gets there bankrolls back but I imagine the solution is going to have to be pretty creative on the poker sites part since the money transfer is the illegal part.

I got me a 42" LCD and some cable but damn if I dont get GSN. Im gonna have to special order it just to get HSP. What a bitch. I have been making up for my not watching NBA this season by watching all the playoff games on my new sweet widescreen.

Well thats it for now. I plan on playing Thursday during the day. I will let ya know how it goes. Also Friday night and Sat. Probably play a tournament too. Weeee.

Poker Soul Crushed

My poker soul is dead. I cant take the suck outs anymore. Not for my whole stack. I honestly dont think Im cut out for NL. Actually I think God has put the hoodoo on my game. One can not run as bad as me without divine intervention. Constant 2 and 3 outters after Im committed to the pot lets me know that Im being told something. But in all sincerity I admit I am not a great NL player. My game is waiting for people to make big mistakes. I grind and until I cam to AZ made a decent but small profit. But the next level of play Im not at. My use of fold equity is so bad. Thats another way of saying that I play scared. Im going to play the 8/16 Limit game with a kill button and Im going to play some tournaments. I have always done well in tournaments so maybe this will be the way and also anyone with a half a brain has an edge in limit. There's so many people willing to put in bad money with little hope to improve their hands. Also I dont tilt in limit and I dont go home agonizing about this play or that play or this card or that card. Its gradual and way less stressful. I can loose a few hundred in a limit game and I dont beat myself up on the way home and replay the hands as I try to fall asleep but I cant because the hands have me restless. Im coming back to BR in a couple days so when I come back here in a couple weeks I will have to make some decisions on what I want to do with my time. I have some ideas other than poker but I will still play. I know there's a winning formula for meeven if I drift back into a hobby player.

Trying a New Casino

Well apparently the Love Shack is moving its game to the Shop. Sucks I didnt get to play a last session there. At least now we can cuss more. I said I was going to try a different casino but I had to give the lovely CAZ one more shot. I played about 5 premium hands for raises and reraises (all made by me) and cbet 4 out of those five. I lost every pot and basically doubled up 3 short stacks with nothing but the cbet. In two dealers I was down $430. Then my baby's momma called me and I had to go give my boy a stern talkin to and do homework with him. Then I went to find the other casino. Theytold me Gila Lakes and I punched the address into the GPS but ended up in the middle of an industrial zone in the desert. Apparently Gila Lakes is 3 casinos and none of them are at the address listed. I got some vague directions from the casino operator and then I asked a nice old couple at the light how to get to I-10 to Tuscon. They werent too sure either but told me which direction they thought it was. I would run into them again in 10 minutes at the casino parking garage. We had a good laugh. Buncha lost tourists we are, looking for the money hole in the desert.

So I made to Wild Horse Pass Casino. I signed up for a players card and they gave me $10 in free slot money. I quit slots but if it aint my money it dont count. I ran their $10 up to a $50 profitand cashed out. I took that as a sign of changing luck. After getting on a list for a 1/2 game with a $2 min bet and $100 max bet I called my girlfriend. As I was talking to her I realized I wasnt on a list but rather an Interest list. I went up to the counter and they actually had immediate seating for the game I came there to play. Its confusing how they present these spread limit games to you but it was still a 1/2 game but the min bet was $5 and the max was $250. So there was no limping in. It plays really nice. I really like that structure. Keeps some of the trash out and also seemed to get people open raising for higher. So $15 seemed to be a standard raise which got action. So my plan would be to play premium hands for big pots given the opening mistake of a 7.5 big blind raise with a wide range of hands. Honestly I dont remember much about the play. I came out $470 up which covered my earlier loss at CAZ. The game was pretty loose passive. So tight agressive should clean up in that game over time assuming that was a typical table.

Bout to Cut Somebody

I been playing long sessions at Casino Arizona. Ive seen some of the worst poker ever. Mostly by the old timers who show up starting at 6am. I've decided that they have to be the luckiest assholes in the world. How else could they play every morning and never quit? They should all lose $500 a session. Im running like Schlep Rock though. I left the casino yesterday morning after basically just losing my shit and cussing out the old donkey that just stacked my AK with his K9 and while I was at it I cussed out the old fuck that decided to play me heads up for a healthy raise with his 8,4 vs my AA. I lost the min against the 8,4 but the money was already committed against Mr. K9 and the idiot who decided to draw at his flush against us both with very little left to go in on the river if he hit. As I watched him stack up $800 and realizing that wouldve brought me back to the middle I wanted to fucking cut the mother fucker. Anyway I took my $97 off the table before I did something to get banned. Earlier that morning I saw a dude who I seriously think was mentally ill or maybe had Assbergers pull $2000 of the table. He called my all-in preflop for $65 with 5,4 offsuit and flopped trip 4s. I saw him drag an $800 pot after calling a big flop bet with nothing to match his K2 of spades which he raised with preflop to 7 times the BB and proceed to runner runner the flush. This fuck couldnt miss. He went all in on every draw and won everytime. When he was putting his chips into his 4 racks he said he usually loses. Ya think? I think I'm going to go try a new casino just to get the bad juju off me. I hear theres a wild 1/2 game with a $5 bring in at a casino closer to my apartment. I will be back in Baton Rouge in a couple weeks and cant wait to see the various crews and splash around at the love shack.

Casino Arizona

Oi vey. Im in Phoenix so I went to the Casino Arizona. Wow. The nicest poker room I've ever been to. The poker room was huge. They had as many table if not more than Harrrahs. I played 2/3 Spread limit with a $300 max bet and max buyin. I dont think you can buy up to the largest stack or half the largest stack which is the only thing I didnt like. There was plenty of weak players and the room was packed. I think this place may extend my poker vacation. See I havent worked in a month. I havent had an alarm set in a month. The longer I can keep that up the better. Im in Phoenix for a good while. I plan to try and make money with my career trade too but I also want to see if I can step my game up to consistently make poker money. That way I can travel home to BR when I want to and wont have to fill out an RFTO form which always makes me feel like a loser. It took me a while to adjust to the new levels and I went card dead too so Im starting out in the hole but I got it together the last 4 hours and made a come back. I also felt really comfortable with my reads which for the most part turned out correct. If I didnt get pissed and chase an extremely expensive flush draw I would be doing ok. Ive probably played 600 hands so far and not one pair of pocket aces yet. Once I get my own place and get a better schedule I will get into more specific hand play. I miss my home crew at the Love Shack. I hope I can play some Love Shack poker soon.