Tuesday, November 24, 2009

When it rains it pours.

I went to see Shawshank Redemption the play tonight with some buddies and it was pretty cool.

I got home and didnt really want to go to sleep. I wanted something to distract me. Some rough shits been going on on the homefront right now. If you know me personally....think this summer part 2. Anyways, might not have been the best idea, but i dont think i made too many errors.

Nevertheless, despite how well i play i cannot seem to beat 10nl. Played about 350 hands tonight and lost a solid 100bb/100. Started off fine, then i got it all in for 120bbs each in 2 situations with sets vs draws which got there. Fought back a little more, lose big on a 25JA9 board. I had AQ and cbet the flop, hit my "miracle" on the turn and bet. Got raised on the river and made a crying call to see AJ. Luckily I walked away with some of my stack. As I was wrapping up I get dealt QQ. Get a good chunk of it in pre and checkraise the rest on a 10 high board. Run into aces for the millionth time.

In my 350 hands i did not win a single pot bigger than 140bbs. If we both put in 70bbs i lost. every time.

I am stuck over 90 dollars in this propbet with about three and a half thousand hands to go.

My roll is annoyingly low at about 350.

I am starting to feel the pressure of a deadline. I still have a final/essay/2 trips to go on.

Whenever i skid like this, which is too often to count, i generally like to give up poker for a while. stick my head under a rock. or at least try something else like SnGs or MTTs. Thats obviously not an option here. Im going to need to go on a sick tear but its looking more and more likely that not only will I lose this propbet but it will bankrupt me.

I dont want to get into too much detail about that other thing but suffice it to say, if everyone could just knock on wood for me id be very appreciative.

Going to Morocco for the weekend tomorrow night so Ill see eeryone later. Might squeeze in a session in the afternoon if i feel up to it. Goddamn do i need to book a win.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Whats colder than cold?

Ok.

To be honest, when toots finished his half of this little propbet we have going i thought i had it in the bag. I just needed to maintain a profit and I would win. Its safe to say that maintaining a profit is harder than it appears.

Just finished this afternoon session and got coolered approximately 1.35million times. Over 2700 hands I am now stuck 65 dollars. At the beginning of this bet i climbed out of a 75 dollar hole so its not impossible. I can come back from this. I have over 2 thousand hands to make this back. If i can keep it together and grind then i can defiantly still win this bet. Its going to be harder than i thought though.

Heres some of the coolers/me sucking for posterity.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, t0.10 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t11.63)
SB (t20.09)
Hero (BB) (t21.33)
UTG (t21.19)
MP (t44.58)
CO (t19.59)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, K
2 folds, CO bets t0.30, 1 fold, SB calls t0.25, Hero calls t0.20

Flop: (t1.02) K, 9, 3 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: (t1.02) 3 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t0.60, CO calls t0.60, 1 fold

River: (t2.22) J (2 players)
Hero bets t1.80, CO raises to t3.60, Hero raises to t8, CO raises to t18.67 (All-In), Hero calls t10.67

Total pot: t39.56 | Rake: t2

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, t0.10 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG (t16.17)
MP (t11.02)
CO (t22.20)
Button (t17.80)
Hero (SB) (t23.95)
BB (t24.38)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K
1 fold, MP bets t0.40, CO calls t0.40, 1 fold, Hero raises to t1.50, 1 fold, MP calls t1.10, CO raises to t4.25, Hero raises to t10, 1 fold, CO raises to t22.18 (All-In), Hero calls t12.18

Flop: (t46.08) 8, 8, 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t46.08) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t46.08) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t46.08 | Rake: t2

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($6.58)
BB ($21.21)
UTG ($9.05)
Hero (MP) ($10)
Button ($12.52)

Preflop: Hero is MP with Q, Q
1 fold, Hero bets $0.30, 2 folds, BB raises to $1.10, Hero raises to $3.50, BB raises to $5.90, Hero raises to $10 (All-In), BB calls $4.10

Flop: ($20.05) 7, A, 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($20.05) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($20.05) K (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $20.05 | Rake: $1.33


This plus the usual assortment of suckouts and other beats really makes for a fun night. :(


Overdue

I promised a nice blog post and its finally here. Sorry for the delay.

First of all, London's been super busy. I went to Les Miserables with my roommate the other day. We showed up an hour before show time and got student discount seats for like 25 bucks. We sat dead center of the theatre 8 rows back: the best seats ive ever had for anything. The show was absolutely phenomenal on top of that. A brilliant production with some great music in an intimate setting. The big songs, I dreamed a dream, do you hear the people sing, etc were flat out unbelievable. The whole cast coming out through smoke onto the front of the stage.....wow.

Now that im done with 2/3 of my classes I basically work 3 or 4 full days a week. Work is really picking up speed and im doing some cool long term projects as well as basic constituent stuff. Right now, im researching the growth and density of Tesco, a UK supermarket chain that actually controls 35% of the marketshare. Basically they are going into small towns all over the UK and underselling and eliminating corner stores and family run shops. Obviously, this is bad, and so right now im trying to do some research and eventually draft some laws to get it to stop.

As far as traveling goes, I just got back from Scotland a couple nights ago. We spent 3 days in Edinburgh and a day in the Highlands. It was a really fun trip. We spent a lot of time at Edinburgh Castle, bought a bottle of Scotch, and even climbed a mountain! Ill put some pics online one of these days....Im even more behind on uploading pictures than I am on blogging lol.

Tomorrow, Im cooking part of a potluck Thanksgiving Dinner for a lot of my flatmates. Unfortunately, turkeys are not very popular out here. The supermarkets start to sell birds next week, for thanksgiving for the Americans and for Christmas for everyone else. I, however, am going to be in Morocco over the actual Thanksgiving so we're going to celebrate tomorrow. Im going to roast some chickens for my share.

I havent really been playing too much poker recently. I havent played live in quite a while but I did have a pretty big online session the other day and I think i might have another this afternoon. The last one didnt go to well. All in all im stuck about 20 bucks....2 buy ins after just over 2100 hands. Toots finished his 7k hand commitment and ended up with a buck fifty in profit. Im pretty confident I can catch him in the next 5k hands. I know i can and should be a winner at this stake. Its just tough and the bet definitely a sure thing.

one last thing, thanks to BWOP for the add to her blogroll!

Have a happy thanksgiving everyone!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Super busy

Sorry i havent posted in forever....

Cant stay long now, need to go to sleep but hopefully a big post tomorrow.

Cliff:

Last poker sesh = ~700 hands and ~+5buy ins for a profit of 5 bucks overall. Need to stay above a profit of $1.48 to beat the tootsy.

London is super busy

Les Mis is amazing

Just got back from Scotland tonight

Phil ivey :( Cada :)

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

in shock

When is the best time to run possibly the worst you have ever run?
If you answered the first session of your first prop bet you win a cookie.

This bet just got a little harder to win. I managed to lose 750bbs (75 dollars) in a mere 350 hands.

In my first 150 hands i dropped 50 bucks.

Welcome back to online poker. I am in utter disbelief right now.

The first 150 hands i played shit was not going well. Standard run bad scenario, big pairs not getting paid, turning straights and losing to rivered gutshots, losing the random ass 3 and 4 outers etc. I take a break and catch my breath. I sit back down when this happens:


then this happens:

I was 6 tabling. All of these hands happened within seconds of each other.
So brutal.

I have a nice big hole to dig myself out of now.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Propbet

First of all i want to mention that i went back to the cash tables last night and got coolered out of a stack. bye bye 2/3 of my profit from Saturday. I dont want to dwell on that though.

I havent really been playing a terribly amount of online poker recently and when i have been playing i have not been seeing very good results. Overall it is safe to say that my confidence in my game is not very high at the moment. Due to this i decided to try a little experiment today. I dropped back down to 10nl and tried to focus on a couple things.
1. I want to work on multitabling. I ran 6 tables today for 700 hands. I want to get extremely comfortable running 6 tables, which is the max on my laptop screen and eventually work that up to 8 perhaps.
2. I want to open up my game and play more aggressive. 3bet more, open more pots, generally play a more fast paced and pressure packed gamelan
3. I want to work on quickly analyzing my opponents lines and also working to make my lines as effective as possible. I think that working on my game from the ground up will yield very goof results in a number of areas.

After playing for about an hour I was up a solid 2 buy ins and called it a night. I made a couple glaring errors which i need to make sure wont happen again and of course some coolers and suckouts happened on both sides of the felt.

This little session gave me the idea for an interesting little propbet that i am about to undertake with my friend tootsy. This dude just experienced an unreal downswing + tiltness and is back to basically square one. He needs to grind a roll back up to where it was a couple weeks ago (50nl-100nl) from the start (10nl). Unfortunately the immediate downturn has left him with no motivation to play for stacks worth 10bbs at his old stakes. This propbet aims to give him motivation to grind and build his role while helping me put hours in to focus and get better and crush 10nl.

The bet is simply this:
We each have until Dec 19 to play 7k hands of 10nl. Whoever wins the most money at the end of the hands gets a free dinner.

Frankly, i think toots has an edge in this bet. I have never crushed a game like he has. I dont want to count myself out though. I think i have a shot, Its definitely going to be a fun bet to partake in. If nothing else itl give me an excuse to post more.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Oh wow, an actual post.

I havent done a ful fledge poker recap in a long while so here goes:

I get to the casino at about 9:00 and theres like 5 people sitting down at the cash table. I recognize most of them. One dude who is the best player at the table, probably the best player who goes to this casino, just because he knows how to 3bet, squeeze, apply pressure, and buy in for the full 500 (250bbs) is sitting down with about a 400 pound stack. Theres one other big stack on the other side of the table and everyone else is cliche old people with something like a 100 pound stack or so. Unfortunately i have to sit to the right of the good player, but we know each other and im not going to fuck with him. Plus, he knows that im tight as a rock so hes not really gonna mess with me.

Now, the problem with me going to a place like this and sitting down with a 200 pound stack is that i really cant afford to lose it. My "bankroll" is the money im using to live off and travel with and i cant really take a 300 dollar hit. Fortunately, if i simply nutpeddle, see cheap flops, and get value out of my hands i can crush this game. But, if i allowed myself to play a higher variance strategy i could crush it so much more.

Anyways, the first hand i sit down im i post in between the button and small blind. A number of new players had just sat down so including the blinds 7 people were in the pot. The rest of the table limped along and i looked down at AK. I raise it up to 17 and three people tag along. The flop is 8c4d6c and I check fold to this aggro guys bet of like 30. Kind of annoying to toss away 20 bills on the first hand but im not really sure how differently i could have played that.

My second hand is in the hijack, the button passed me and the dude to my left, and i look down at AA. A couple people limp along and I raise to 12 seeing 1 caller, the aggro dude. we get a flop of Ad7d4s. The aggro guy checks and i make a cbet of 30 pounds into like a 38ish pot. He thinks and raises me to 70 total. I think about this and im pretty sure he has a good hand. Imnot quite sure if he has like a set or maybe 74 or good diamonds but im pretty sure i can get him to commit his stack here so i jam for another 100 on top. He calls and doesnt flip his hand. The turn river are J J and I take the pot. He never showed his hand but im pretty sure he had something like 77 and thought i was on diamonds. IDK.

A few hands later i look down at JJ. A guy to my right with a medium, bad asian player, makes it 7 bucks and I think about popping him to like 25. problem is the really good player is behind me and I dont want to get pushed out of this pot now that I have a big stack, if he jams im probly folding. So I call and good player calls and then this short stack shoves for 25 pounds. bad asian player calls with like 30 behind and its on me. Im pretty confident that good player wouldnt play a big hand this way, hed have 3bet the original raise so i toss in my stack and he folds as expected. Bad player calls. The board runs out AAT76 and bad asian player tables QJ for the raise/call/call all in. shorty mucks and i scoop the pot.

There were like 2 hands that happened a sporadically that kind of sucked. heres one example. I raise with 99. Good player calls, shorty jams for 40, bad asian calls and I tank. I would love to call this except i dont know what good player is going to do. I end up folding, not wanting to play a huge pot with 99 and good player sure enough jams and ends up cracking AA with 66.

The next hand of note is a hand that I basically butchered. I have a 450ish stack and look down at AQhh in the sb. I call a raise and we see a 5 handed flop of Q24hh. I basically flop the nuts. I decide to check because im pretty sure someone's going to bet and I really dont want to get raised if i bet out. The original raiser fires out 20 bills into the 40ish dollar pot and bad asian player calls and i think. I could raise here but this dude has me covered. If he manages to have KK or AA or 22 or 44 I really dont want to lose a 450 pound stack. that would be brutal. I decide to flat and reevaluate later. If the flush comes ill be happy to raise. I call and one other guy does as well. The turn is an offsiit 6 and again it checks to original raiser who bets out 30. The same thoughts go through my head as bad asian call and i call. The river is another blank and we check original raiser who fires 40. bad asian folds and Im still not going to raise so i call. He tables KQss. Turns out, i might have gotten a nice pot if i had raised the flop or turn but also, he might have given up and stopped firing. Im not sure.

Nevertheless after this hand i was up to a solid 600 pound stack. I proceed to raise a bunch of limpers to 15 w/ AK and cbet 30 on a rag flop and fold to aggro dudes raise. Then i saw a pot w/ 64 and flopped an oesd, called one bet and had to fold the turn. All in all i left the table w/ about 525. After some roullette and blackjack i walked away with a solid 500 pounds in my pocket. Ill take that any day of the week. Im definately going to go back soon and see if i cant capitalize again and im also going to try my luck at a weekly 75 pound freezeout over at the empire.