Still grinding but I’m on my way to $1k…

I’m still grinding away online.

Now that it’s nice outside, I see myself playing less and less online but I’m still trying to get in 10 hours a week at least.

I’ve added up how much I have in my poker accounts and I’m almost halfway to my goal of $1k.

I have $349.95 on Fulltilt and about $240 on Pokerstars. Minus the $150 I put into FullTilt, I have a profit of about $390. Not shabby.

I’ll admit that some of the money from Fulltilt came from my bonus ($90) and about $30 was rakeback so basically I’ve won only about $80 on Fulltilt mostly playing 25NL. I ran into a bad streak for about 2 weeks or so and just recently I’ve built my Fulltilt BR back up after being in negative territory for awhile.

As for PS, I’m up $240. It took me close to a year and a half to build my bankroll on PS from $0 and it seems like a shame that I’m not playing there that often as that’s the site where this whole thing began. I think I’ll go back to PS once my bonus on Fulltilt is met or the time has expired to get the bonus (in July).

As for the competition, I think there’s more donkish players on Fulltilt, as they are willing to push and gamble with marginal hands more (that’s my opinion at least) but then that’s what we want as poker players guys who are willing to give money away as a huge underdog.

My live play has been marginal this year. I had a terrific year last year with my live games (both cash and tourneys) but this year it seems like the opposite. I haven’t been cashing as much in my league games and I’ve done ok with the cash games but after the latest AC fiasco I’m actually down $150 on the year playing live cash games (the players in my league are real loose and when you play loosey goosey players you’re bound to get sucked out on). I think it’ll turn around, I just have to keep playing solid and hope my hands hold up. I truly think that the math should benefit me in the long run.

I’m planning to go to AC again in a few weeks so I’m hoping that will turn things around for me at the live games.

After all, poker is one big grind isn’t it? I hope everyone is enjoying the weather!

Atlantic City ain’t a picnic at the park sometimes….

I went to Atlantic City this weekend. There was some good, some bad; some very bad and then there was the utterly insane.

But before I start talking about poker, I’d like to start at the beginning…It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in Brooklyn. It’s sunny and warm and the birds are chirping outside. I wake up super early to catch a bus to Atlantic City. I’m meeting a friend there later on but I want to get there early for a tournament at the Showboat so I take the bus. It’s a $30 roundtrip ticket with the casino giving you back $20 once you get there. With gas prices and inflation what they are now-a-days, this is value town and we poker players love value don’t we? It’s definitely +EV.

I wake up at 8 am grab a coffee and a newspaper and I’m off. I’m pysched, I’m ready to play…I’ve been playing well and I’m ready to whoop ass. The line for the bus is huge, mostly grandmotherly and grandfatherly types full of hope and dreams of jackpot whistles and bells. Everybody is in a good mood. I don’t take the bus very often and everybody is helpful when I ask them how I get the $20 back from casino and how come I have 3 ticket thingies. The bus is full. I see a window seat next to a elderly lady with a bad dye job and ask if the seat is taken, right off the bat she’s chatting me away about how she goes to AC every weekend and usually she sits next her friend but she couldn’t make it this day so she doesn’t mind if I sit next to her as long as I can stand her chatting away with her other friends for the entire bus ride there. I say no problem; I immediately put on my head phones and start working on the crossword puzzle. I can still hear the old ladies gossiping away about their lives but oddly enough I’m content because eavesdropping about Grandma Betty’s delinquent grandkids is still a heck of a lot better than riding with your buddies and recounting the same endless tales of bad beats that they’ve taken and heroic calls they’ve made (guilty as charged). Halfway through the ride the coffee wears off and I’m fast asleep dreaming of huge pots being shipped my way.

It’s 11am and I hear the announcement. “Welcome to Atlantic City”. It’s game time, gotta get serious.

I look out the window and on one side we have the gleaming casinos enticing and alluring, the other side is a ghetto, bleak and lonely. This paradox never ceases to amaze me. As much money and taxes the casinos generate couldn’t they do a better job of improving the neighborhood? 

It’s been 3 or 4 months since I’ve paid her a visit and nothing’s changed. The poker chips are still grimy, the dealers are still inept and the poker players are even worse. I know I’m in for it when I’m walking on the boardwalk and the seagulls use me as target practice. Great, I’m being shit on and I’m not even at the tables…

I’ll admit I lost money. It wasn’t that I played badly, As a matter of fact I got some very good cards. They just didn’t hold up.

Bandit leads out for $15. I call in position. I get a set of Jacks on the flop with two dangerous spades, He bets $50, I re-pop him all-in. He calls. Turn is a spade, and the river is a spade.  I lose to KK because he has the King of spades. That’s a $400+ pot lost.

I get A/K hearts, a few limpers come in, I raise $15 and get one caller. The boards pairs my Ace. A lady goes all in for her last $85. She has A/4 diamonds. I have her outkicked but she nails the runner runner for the straight. $100 down the drain. Funny thing is that she didn’t even see that she had hit her straight…the dealer had to call her back to the table. These are the players I’m playing with. 

I have KK in late position. EP raises to $12, I re-raise to $30, he just calls. I nail a set of Kings with two diamonds on the flop, he goes all in and I call. He has A/Q diamonds and he hits his diamond on the river to complete his flush. Another $175 flushed away.

There was one hand that I think I misplayed. I have A/9 clubs in the cutoff. A player in EP raises $5. There’s 2 callers and I call along with the SB and BB. The flop is 9,9, J rainbow. I hit trips with the Ace kicker. Everyone checks to me and I bet $15. I get one caller. The turn is a 3. EP checks, I bet $30 guy in EP calls again. The river is a King. Guy in EP bets $15. Hmm…this is a fishy bet. Could he have hit his straight? Does he have a boat and he’s been slowplaying? I’m not going to raise and face another re-raise - that doesn’t make any sense and it’s only $15 in a $150 pot so it’s an easy call for me. Let’s see what he has. I’m pretty sure I’m beat as this small a bet is screaming call. He’s got Q/10 for the straight.

Thinking back, maybe I should’ve bet out more on the turn to block his draw. But I thought the $30 turn bet was a solid value bet at the time so I’ll live with it.

These were the biggest hands I was in and it cost me the equivalent of 2 buy-ins at 1/2 NL. -$600. Yuck.

By this time the other players are asking me what I’m writing on my little pad after some hands. I tell them I’m writing a blog and I want to keep notes. A few players ask me for the site and they said they’ll visit so I’m not going to post what I really think of some of these guy’s game….lol.

I decide to take a break from the brutal cash game and get a quick bite to eat and register for the 7pm tourney.

I finished 7th out of 112 players ($125 buy-in).  This was a deep stack tourney and I got lucky in the middle rounds by doubling up with my A high flush felted a player with a King high flush. I ride this stack until the final table where my A/Q spades loses to a guy with 88. The sucky thing about this is if I had just lasted two more players, I would’ve chopped the prize with the other players and netted over $1,200. I win $300+ for my efforts (finishing 7th isn’t so bad and I did play for the win…although I could’ve folded my A/Q and maybe cruise into the top 5…but you gotta play to win, so I’m happy with my move).

I take those winnings and try my luck at the cash games again. I battle back to being down just about $150 total on the night.

Then I lose $121 when I get my A/Q cracked by some guy with A/J…you guessed it he hit the Jack on the river.

I’m down $271 and it doesn’t feel good but I know that I got my money in with the best of it. I realize that I put in a marathon 14 hour session and I’m dead tired – I decide that playing more isn’t going to help my BR any - so I quit. It sucks to lose but that’s poker.

This isn’t a bad beat story although it may seem like it.  On the contrary, I felt pretty good about my play sometimes your cards just don’t hold up.

I know that if I continue to play solid and other players continue to play weak, I will win in the long run.

I can hold my head up high because I did the best I could and that’s all a poker player can do sometimes.

Flopping a flush and getting paid off….

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

MP: $73.30
CO: $20.20
BTN: $30.35
Hero (SB): $17.35
BB: $19.55
UTG: $23.80

Pre-Flop: A T dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, CO raises to $0.50, BTN folds, Hero calls $0.40, BB calls $0.25

Flop: ($1.50) 5 6 K (3 Players)
Hero checks, BB checks, CO bets $0.90, Hero calls $0.90, BB folds

Turn: ($3.30) 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $1.40, Hero raises to $7.50, CO calls $6.10

River: ($18.30) 2 (2 Players)
Hero bets $8.45 and is All-In, CO calls $8.45

Results: $35.20 Pot ($1.75 Rake)
CO showed A K (a pair of Kings) and LOST (-$17.35 NET)
Hero showed A T (a flush, Ace high) and WON $33.45 (+$16.10 NET)

A friend of mine moved to Vegas over a year ago to make a living playing cards. His blog “The Vegas Year” is a great read and this is sort of a tribute to him because recently he made a post about flopping flushes and this hand reminded me of that post.

This was an interesting hand for me. I’ve been trying real hard to get paid off on my made hands. I’ve decided that I would try and maximize profit by betting bigger when I think I’m going to get paid off.

Nothing special about this hand except that I played it like I was drawing to a flush instead of having made it there on the flop already.

Once the button made a minimum raise, I had the feeling that he was playing something strong so I flat call in hoping to catch two pair or a good draw.

The flop comes and I’m golden. I have the nut flush. Now I’m thinking about how to maximize this situation to my benefit. I flat call the flop because I don’t want to scare him away just yet. This could be a standard continuation bet on his part so I just flat call. I still think he has something decent but the small flop bet has me worried that he’s scared, that’s why I just flat called the flop. I’m hoping he’ll fire another bullet on the turn, which will give me an idea of what he’s holding.

So I check and he bets out again. I don’t think he’d fire another round if he doesn’t have something or is perhaps drawing to a flush himself or maybe if I’m lucky he already has hit his flush also and trying to value bet me on the turn.

I check raise him the pot. Yes it seems excessive, so excessive it seems like I’m trying to buy the pot with a drawing type hand. That’s my line at least and it worked he calls my check raise. The reason why I did this is because I know that most players with the nuts would just flat call. It’s so obvious when that happens, so I decide to take a different line on this. I’m trying to make him believe I’m semi-bluffing. I mean why bet so big when you have nuts right? The tricky part is what does he have that’s he’s calling me with. I already put him a decent hand right from the get go (min. raise on the button..it’s either he’s got something big and wants a little action as most players at these levels are apt to do). I put his range anywhere from a set or at least A/K with the K of clubs. Best case scenario he’s playing a flush also and he thinks he’s trapping me by flat calling my checkraise. In any event I don’t think he’s putting me on the nut flush.

The river doesn’t pair up so I’m looking good if he has a set or if he’s got a flush or even A/K. There’s no way he’s putting me on the nut flush especially with the check raise overbet on the turn.

I decided to go all in like I’m trying to buy the pot. There’s no point in checking as he might check behind me and I win the pot anyway. So I have to bet to keep up appearances. I shove and he calls.

The rest is history. We chat a bit and he says to me that he thought I was drawing all the way and he never put me on the nut flush. I don’t want to sound egotistical but I think that I’m playing and thinking way beyond what most of the players at these stakes are, which is a good thing because once I reach my goal of $1k I feel that I’m in good position to move up a level.

Going to AC today, so I will have more stories to tell….hopefully I won’t be writing bad beat stories….lol.

Playing at a passive table and loving it…

I like to choose the tables that I play. The more passive the players, the better the table. Sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way but I try and pick my tables wisely.

I like the passive tables because I can push them around and pick up a lot of small pots. A negative is that a passive table will play their monster hands passively also which can cause some problems for me. But the best thing about a passive table is that they won’t bet their hands or they’ll bet very small and allow me to draw out against them. Usually, I don’t river many people because I’m rarely in a pot unless I’m ahead or I’m drawing to a super strong hand but at passive tables they’re allowing me to river them. They don’t bet super aggressively and when they have a great hand they get greedy and bet small amounts b/c they’re afraid of not making money when they hold monsters. So I busted a couple of QQ, KK and AA etc. by playing some suited connectors and suited cards. The thing is they allowed me to get there and beat them. Limping in or minimum raising and stuff. Allowing me proper odds and when I hit they couldn’t or didn’t have the discipline to lay down their monster pocket pairs. It was really surreal poker to tell you the truth.

So I’m at this table and they’re allowing me to draw out against them. I’m hitting my hands on the river. My showdown % is at 80%. This was strange I played about 200 hands and 20 of them went to the river. Out of those 20 times I won 16 of them. That’s a lot of river showdowns. Most of the time I might reach the river 3% of the time.

Not only are they allowing me to get to the river and hit, they’re calling my value bets as well. I wish all my tables I play at was this good. I don’t even have to play good, I just have to stay out of trouble and allow my opponents to play poorly and allow me to beat them. And then they wonder why their AA doesn’t hold up.

All good things must come to an end though and the table started to break up so I stopped playing after almost doubling up my buy in.  

Tomorrow I will be going to AC to try my luck there…more to come…

Going down a level to get some confidence going…

——————
HAND #1

——————

Full Tilt Poker, $0.05/$0.10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

CO: $2.05

BTN: $7.35

SB: $10.85

BB: $13.35

UTG: $4

Hero (MP): $4.45

UTG posts $0.05

UTG posts $0.10
Pre-Flop: A A dealt to Hero (MP)

UTG checks, Hero raises to $0.50, CO folds, BTN raises to $1.50, SB calls $1.45, 2 folds, Hero raises to $4.45 and is All-In, BTN raises to $7.35 and is All-In, SB calls $5.85

Flop: ($19.40) 9 5 6 (3 Players – 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($19.40) 2 (3 Players – 1 is All-In)

River: ($19.40) T (3 Players – 1 is All-In)

Results: $19.40 Pot ($1.90 Rake)
BTN showed K K (a pair of Kings) and WON $5.25 (-$2.10 NET)
SB showed Q Q (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$7.35 NET)
Hero showed A A (a pair of Aces) and WON $12.25 (+$7.80 NET)

——————
HAND #2

——————

Full Tilt Poker, $0.05/$0.10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

UTG: $5.70

Hero (BTN): $5.10

SB: $9.50

BB: $5.60

Pre-Flop: J T dealt to Hero (BTN)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.35, SB calls $0.30, BB raises to $0.60, Hero calls $0.25, SB calls $0.25

Flop: ($1.80) Q 9 3 (3 Players)

SB checks, BB bets $1.80, Hero raises to $4.50 and is All-In, SB raises to $8.90 and is All-In, BB calls $3.20 and is All-In

Turn: ($16.30) 5 (3 Players – 1 is All-In)

River: ($16.30) A (3 Players – 1 is All-In)

Results: $16.30 Pot ($1 Rake)
Hero showed J T (a flush, Queen high) and WON $14.30 (+$9.20 NET)
SB showed 9 Q (two pair, Queens and Nines) and LOST (-$5.60 NET)
BB showed A A (three of a kind, Aces) and WON $1 (-$4.60 NET)

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

BB: $26.15

UTG: $15.35

CO: $25

BTN: $13.60

Hero (SB): $12.90

CO posts $0.25
Pre-Flop: J Q dealt to Hero (SB)

UTG folds, CO checks, BTN folds, Hero raises to $1, BB folds, CO calls $0.75

Flop: ($2.25) Q A 6 (2 Players)
Hero bets $1.75, CO calls $1.75

Turn: ($5.75) T (2 Players)

Hero checks, CO bets $2, Hero raises to $6, CO calls $4

River: ($17.75) A (2 Players)

Hero checks, CO bets $5, Hero calls $4.15 and is All-In

Results: $26.05 Pot ($1.25 Rake)
CO showed 4 Q (two pair, Aces and Queens) and LOST (-$12.90 NET)
Hero showed J Q (two pair, Aces and Queens) and WON $24.80 (+$11.90 NET)

So I took a step back and tried and get my game together by playing the 10NL games. The thing about playing these levels is that it makes me get back to the basics. So after a few hundred hands at 10NL I moved back up to 25NL. Mentally, I feel that variance just kind of hit me but still my confidence wasn’t as it should be so taking a step down in buy in level where there’s less pressure, will get my game confidence back. I just tried to play ABC poker and it seemed to work.

All in all, a good showing. The last hand was a little weird as I just called which is a little donkish and against my general rule of raising when I think I have the best hand but for some reason I checked on the river on the last hand then called. I don’t know what made me call but my instinct told me to so I did.

I did check raise the turn, hoping to get the other player off the hand but once he called I really felt that he was on a draw of some kind or working a Q.  If he really had an Ace I’d think he re-raise me on the flop at least and push on the turn especially with what was out there on the board.  Again the weird thing was that when I checked on the river, I was pretty sure he would also but instead he lead out and I called for the win.

I felt I played this hand pretty well up until the river. If i truly felt I had the best hand I should’ve bet the river plain and simple. So basically I played the river poorly but still wound up winning the pot because I just didn’t feel that the villain was that strong so I checked it figuring he’d check behind me. I put myself in a bad spot this hand and although it paid off, I still feel that I should’ve bet out on the river anyway that is the correct play. The positive thing I can take out that last hand is that I felt he was bluffing so I called him down. I got lucky to be honest, even though my instinct was correct then I should’ve trusted my instincts and bet the river, instead I got away with a marginal call.

This only goes to show that I need to improve my play on ensuing streets. I’m pretty confident about my play pre-flop, post flop and on the turn. It’s the river where I need to improve and value bet my hands better. I know I am losing money because of this. Hopefully, I’ll be able to learn from this mistake and it’ll make me a better player in the long run. That’s why I went down in levels. I need to get my play better on the turn and on the river.

Anyway I’m back to my winning ways and hopefully I will start a new hot streak from this.

I’m back on track on my to $1k bankroll. I have $100 on Fulltilt and $200+ on PS. So I’ve made some money back that I’ve lost on my previous losing streak the past two months.

Saturday Night Poker – Brooklyn Style

I played in a league game this Saturday. It was hosted by a Eddie, a great guy, who sure can host a game of poker.

He provided a lot of great food like a baked ham, BBQ pulled pork, baked some lasagna, pasta salad, beer, soda and some cheesecake from Juniors. Yum, Yum. Now that’s a host!

We started at 2pm and planned to play well into the night. The first tourney was a deepstack tourney we started out at 10k in chips and blinds were 20 minutes long. We had 20 players to start.

Top 3 get paid and 4th gets their money back. It’s a $25 buy in with a $5 bounty for knocking out a player. Cash games in between.

Some of the tougher players are here today so the game should be fun. I start out grinding small pots. I’m not interested in playing for huge pots early on as the action is very fast and loose with the Deepstacks. My gameplan is to play tight early on then opening up and attacking the small stacks during the middle rounds. Early in these tourneys with the blinds so low, you’re going to get lots of action and some guy is going to a bad beat handed to them. So attacking them when they’re short stacked when the blinds start to hurt the  seems like the best move depending on my position and the situation. I’m trying to get this part of my tournament game going. How to play optimally during the middle rounds before the push in fest begins. I feel that the middle rounds is where you start to collect chips aggressively as many shortstacked players are willing to gamble and if you’re playing fairly aggressive, you can attack the limpers and blinds with decent size raises that will make a difference.  This strategy has been opposite of what I’ve been implementing lately, which is try to gamble more early on and attempt to amass a huge stack to withstand the beats you’re eventually going to get during these tourneys. That strategy hasn’t been working to well, so I decided to tweak my tourney game.   

It worked. Until Jimmy (my former nemesis from earlier this year) made a pretty good call and crippled me. I have about 16k in chips and there’s 7 players left in the tourney. The blinds are at 500-1000 so I’m not really in the danger zone but I’m not comfortable either. I’m on the button. Jimmy isn’t severely short stacked with about 12k in chips but he’s about to get blinded so he’s getting close to short stack territory. He’s UTG and he limps in. I get another limper and I’m on the button. Hmm…is this a steal situation for me? I’ve pretty much been consistent showing down good cards most of the time and not playing too many hands. There’s 3.5k out there including the SB and BB. 

I peek down and see 8/3 clubs. I should fold this hand….I should fold this hand I keep telling myself but I smell weakness. I shove all in. trying to take down the pot right there. SB and BB folds. Jimmy takes his time but finally calls. Uh-oh I’m caught. The limper folds. He shows 77 and sheepishly show my 8-3 clubs.

he flop comes out 4,5,6 two clubs. Great flop for me considering I decided to go to war with 8/3 suited. I never made it and I’m crippled. Oh well I gave it a shot and it didn’t work out.

My question is did Jimmy make a good call? Did I make a good play? Should I have insta folded this hand? Was this the right time to make this move? Should Jimmy have folded his 77 in that situation facing a huge raise? Should I have only re-raised instead of pushing? Perhaps… and he definitely could put me on a move like this…on the other hand, calling with 77 is still marginal especially when he had a decent stack.

I don’t mind this kind of move as I felt that I had a better than 70% chance of everybody folding in my estimation. It’s too bad I got caught but I feel like at least i went down swinging and trying to make something happen.

The side cash game was already in full swing and I decided to play. The blinds were .25/.50. Everybody bought in for $25 so I did the same. I quickly give that away on a hand where I had a flush and OE straight draw. Blank, Blank….reload. Ok bad start, time to get serious. I have to break my losing streak. It’s driving me nuts. I reload for $25 and this time I win a few races, my hands are holding up and I’m getting a break here and there and I manage to win back my original buy-in and book an additional $40 profit. The next tourney is about to start. Great I feel good about my game today. I’m making good reads and I’m making good bets and timely bluffs.

I again went with my strategy of gambling less when the blinds are low and start to get more aggressive when the blinds are 100-200. This is the level where the pots are getting decent and a good raise can isolate players. I’m playing well. I’m amassing a decent stack. I have two bounties already. I make it to the final table again. This time I’m above the average stack and I get a decent re-draw for seats as I’m in front of two conservative players and acting behind two of the more loose and aggressive players. I know I can steal blinds and I’ve got position over the loose and aggressive players so I’m in good shape position wise.

I play tight mostly early on and we’re down to 6 players. I’m around the average size stack 30k or so. With the blinds pretty high at this point of the game at 2.5k-5k. I have about 3 rounds left, so I have to be aggressive here and try and double up. I pick up a huge pot when I limp in EP with QQ hoping for a short stack to raise and I get my wish and get a little bit healthier. I’m still treading water but there’s only 5 left so I’m in pretty shape to make the money unless I do something real stupid….

I have 99 in late position. 99 is a monster at a 5 person table in my opinion. I have to play this hand. blinds are 3k-6k and I’m around 47k in chips. UTG pushes about 13k in chips, he’s all in. I put him on a marginal hand at best because he’s about to become the BB so any two suited cards with a face card should be in his range.

I have 99, I have to raise to isolate and race so let’s get it going.  25k trying to isolate. Button folds and SB folds the BB goes all in. He’s close to what I have in chips.  Now I’m in a pickle. Suddenly, 99 doesn’t look so big as before. 

The safe and prudent play is fold and hope the short stack doesn’t double up. There’s 5 players left and 4 get paid (although the 4th place finisher only breaks even). If I fold I’m almost guaranteed to get 4th place as the SB who folded is most likely going to be blinded out soon (I don’t know why he didn’t play his hand as he’s getting 4-1 on his money….even if he has two crappy cards he has a chance to quadruple up…but he’s super conservative and he could even be thinking that I have something good enough to call with then when the dust settles he’s backdoored himself into 4th place money).

The aggressive play is to call and hope my 99 holds up against two players, in which case I get real healthy and position myself to finish at least in the top 2.  I have both of them covered. This is a really hard decision in this spot.

What to do. What to do.

I know what some of you maybe thinking. This isn’t huge stakes so why am I agonizing over $30 dollars? I know players or have seen players call with way more at stake than my $30 bucks so this may seem trivial. I’ve also seen players fold in this situation with more at stake also.

I try and not think about the money and try to focus on making the right decision when I’m playing. The profitable decision. The decision that makes the most sense financially. But that’s not necessarily playing to win.

It’s like in football where one team is on the 50 yard line and it’s 4th and less than a yard. Your team is up 1 point and there’s about minute or so left in the game. You make a first down and the game is over. or do you punt and force the other team to make plays with just enough time on the clock to give you agita?  What if you go for it and miss? Then you’re in big trouble.

I decide to fold. Common sense tells me I’m beat. I still have about 22k in chips so I can still do damage.

The other guys reveal their cards. The original raiser has A/J. The BB? He had 99. My exact hand and they held up.

I wind up finishing 3rd anyway along with 2 bounties. So I cleared $55 for my trouble.

I’m still not sure whether I did the right thing. Perhaps I should’ve pushed and isolated myself making the BB fold his 99. My line of thinking was that I felt that if I bet 25k that would be enough to make people fold marginal hands and still get away from my 99 if I was pushed, which was exactly what happened.

After this tourney we play some more cash and I manage to clear another $25 in profit so a pretty day of poker all things considered. I was cashed in one tourney, busted out in another (I broke even for the tourneys) and booked a $65 win in the cash games. That’s not bad all things considered.

But I still wonder if laying down those 9s in that spot was still the right move.

One side of me says it was the right move, yet another side of me says that you should’ve played for the huge pot.

This is just great. Another thing to wrack my brain about in Poker.

 

2008 results so far…and they’re not good…

My quarterly poker financials are in and I’m losing this year. My variance in cash games this year is more unstable with bigger swings than last year even though I think I’ve become a far better player than I was at the same point last year.

For example, I started playing in this poker league roughly in June/July of 2007. According to my stats I was profitable last year playing live (includes home cash games and 3 trips to AC). I was +$1,000k.

My tourney stats were pretty decent also.  I managed to eke a small profit of $58 during all my tournaments (includes AC and league tourneys).

My online stats were pretty good as I started with $0 on PS and managed to work my way up to $250 from $0.

This year is the polar opposite. I’m -$59 in cash games. -$229 for my tourneys (I have no wins so far in my league in tourneys and all my finishes have been 3rd place finishes which nets very little – most of the time I’m receiving just my tourney buy in amount back for my trouble – compared to last year where I finished 1st or 2nd a number of times in my league).

This year online, I’ve lost approximately $50 on PS and roughly $70 on FullTilt (I was at +$250 on PS and at +$125 on FullTilt at my high point in terms of BR so I’ve lost about $200 on FullTilt the last two months playing at the $50 NL tables (just your basic dry spell and I haven’t been winning the races either, it happens)…therefore I have to drop down due to self imposed BR restrictions as I started with $150 on FullTilt and now I’m at $83 – this figure excludes my bonuses and rakeback money I’ve earned on FT…It’s pure profit and loss statements).

Most of my losses online have come in the last two months for me. It’s been a bad stretch of poker these last two months, I seem to be having variance go against me this year for some reason although I’ve picked it up recently by winning back $40 give or take this week online.

I’m not sure why, perhaps I’m playing “too smart” for my own good, where I should be just playing ABC solid poker (these guys I play live with just can’t fold, so I have to start bluffing less maybe) against these guys. I mean sometimes these guys play very passively. They don’t bet out or re-raise when they have strong hands or they’ve been calling way to loose and hitting. But then maybe it’s just me and my “selective memory” as I’m sure I’ve had my share of suckouts against these guys (but then probably as I don’t chase as much as these guys I play with).

The thing is that I’m disappointed with my tourney play recently and my cash game hasn’t been sharp at all. So I probably have to re-evaluate my game a little and try and play some more solid straight forward poker instead of over thinking, and trying make the sophisticated move my fellow league players don’t seem to understand (like the gap concept and the concept of “if it’s good enough to call, it should be good enough to raise, or limping into a dry pot in position stuff like that). Also I think I’m bluffing way too much against the competition as they’re not good enough players to drop their marginal hands like 2nd pair after the flop or they’re calling with worse odds than they should be calling with on draws for instance (or it could be that they have a good read on me in which case I’m the sucker! hahaha).

Online it’s another story. I tried to move up a level when my BR wasn’t correctly financed for it and once I lost a few buy-ins at the $50 NL tables, I promptly dropped down to the 25NL tables and I’ve done a little better. I’m pretty confident that I can play at the $50 NL level online, except that my BR isn’t equipped to handle the times I’m running cold and lose a 2 or 3 buy-ins, so I have to start at the lower levels and build back up (I surely do not want to put any money into my online accounts as that defeats the purpose of my $0 to $1,000 goal I have made for myself).

Mostly, I think that I’ve been playing poorly and making too many little mistakes that is affecting my variance, that plus a few unlucky pots here and there all add up to one big negative profit margin for 2008.

The one thing I’ve noticed is that if I’m not playing the edges correctly coupled with variance going against you, then I get one long stretch of negative poker profits. It’s over time that really relfects on if I’m a winning player or not. So far I’m still ahead ever since I’ve kept track but in the first 1/3 of 2008 I’ve just been running like shit.

I do know that I’ve haven’t been playing as much this year as last year so that could be the reason why also. The more I play the better feel you get for the game and in crucial situations sometimes that’s enough to get you by.

More importantly, I think it’s time to get back to playing some solid poker moving ahead and try and forget about trying to outplay or making sophisticated check raise bluffs that my opponents don’t understand, it’s clearly not working.   Sometimes going back to the basics is all you need to get kick started in the right direction.

Easier said than done though………and that’s poker folks. My stats are what my stats say they are. There is no way around it. These are my results, I can blame bad luck, bad play, variance, suckouts or whatever I want to think is happening to me but the reality of it is that I’m a losing player the first 4 months of 2008. Those are the cold hard facts that I have to live with. No excuses.