Back in the Swing of Things After a Month Long Hiatus

Ok, well I've been gone recently and almost forgot about this blog. I had an unfortunate month that led to me having to give up on poker for a while. The 250 I was sitting on was destroyed by expenses in life. At the end of June, my roommate Bill and I needed to move out of our apartment. Unfortunately we forgot to do one important thing..... Find a new apartment. Yes, so the entire month of July I spent pretty damn homeless, and had no consistent place to sit at a computer and play poker. Thankfully I had people to help me through the month. I stayed at friends' houses and my girlfriend's place. Unfortunately my girlfriend is not too keen on my poker playing and so I was unable to play any time I was at her house. This month I learned the importance of keeping a working bankroll. I used the money that I had planned on playing poker with to buy gas/food/deposit on a new apartment and it meant I didn't get to play any poker.

Well last month is over. It's august now and Bill and I have our own apartment already. Although we don't have any furniture yet we've been a central hub for everyone we know within 100 miles. We have constantly had people sleeping over at our apartment and drinking enormous quantities of alcohol, including the one and only famous Viscant (http://viscant.blogspot.com). Ok so back to poker.

I decided to put a trial $50 into willhill poker at the end of July just to see if I could bring it back up to $300. After grinding that $45 bonus at $1/$2 limit, I brought that original $50 up to $140. I split that $140 and put $50 in to world poker exchange and $50 back into willhill poker. After whoring the august bonus I cashed $113 out of will hill back into my neteller account. Playing at world poker exchange I have generated $20 dollars of rakeback but i've been playin break even poker and I still only have $50 dollars in there. On monday the rakeback will cash into my account and I'm going to set goals for how much rakeback to generate for the week. I think a realistic goal for right now would be to generate at least $150 a week in rakeback alone playing $1/$2 limit. I'm going to grind these low limits all day everyday until I have at least $500, then use any amount beyond $500 to help pay for bills and all that this month. FORTUNATELY, september we don't have to pay rent because we moved in under some crazy deal where you get a free month of rent. Ok this post is getting long and ranty, but my results for the last week are.... start- $50 end-$203
Not a bad week considering I still haven't been playing full sessions.

I'm going to return to casinos starting next week, results coming soon

Last minute Edit: I actually did play poker twice this month, both times were shots for a WSOP main event seat. I won a $6 rebuy tournament to gain entry into the $215 satellite for the WSOP and I won a $55 sit n go tournament for another shot at the same satellite. Unfortunately I lost both of the big shot tournaments. Once I busted out around 250th out of 400 i believe and the second time I busted out around 100th. Both times I was a midstack and lost coinflips to lose most of my stack. Nothing really spectacular or disappointing about my play in these tournaments, but you can't win them all unfortunately. Good luck to anyone still in the WSOP.

A Crazy Swing

Well I had about 680 from my last cashout on partypoker. I decided to deposit 600 on pokerstars to try to get that $120 bonus. I was planning on clearing it whoring 1/2 limit tables but I realized about 2 hours into the promotion that the stars bonus is shitty for people who want to play low limit. I decided to 4 table 3/6 and 5/10 and the end result..... -600. I lost my entire buyin and didn't even clear the damn bonus. It was one of the craziest swings I've ever experienced within a 10 hour period. I just couldn't mount a solid win. Anytime I would be in a huge pot with a big hand I'd get outdrawn on. When it was my opportunity to outdraw I would miss. Stuff like that. I would like to point out that my style of play really caused a lot of this swing. A lot of times in multiway pots if there were 5 or 6 people in i would cap flops and turns with nut flush draws and then miss. I thought this out in my head a bit and it should be beneficial to me for the times I do hit the draws, but for the times that I miss it really sucks. If anyone can help me do the math on this, is it worth jamming a pot that I know will get action 5 ways or more when I'm just on a draw?

Anyways, so I redeposited my last 80 in stars and grinded out the last of that bonus on 1/2 limit. I'm back around $250 which kinda sucks but it's enough to play with for now.

I took a trip to vegas last week too. I'll write about it later.

Another Final Table at work

Today I cashed out 400 to my neteller and left 60 to play with. With that 60 I entered 3 tournaments, 2 sit n gos, and a small no limit table. I blew all of that money on the tourneys but did well in the no limit room. Anyways, after donking off all of my chips in the many tournaments I entered, I realized I was down to 1 last tournament entered and 63 cents in my account. I told myself I would play very cautious and try my best to place in the money. Fortunately for me, I made another final table.

Dealer: Player osagat finished in 3 place and received $262.50

I entered the $11 250 man cap tourney on partypoker again today and I made the final table! I actually had a chip lead when it came down to 3 handed play. When the small blind attacked my big blind I pushed all in and she turned over a/q vs. my a/6. That took me down to so few chips that I was eaten alive by the blinds. Anyways, it felt good to finally calm down and hit a few good cards in the process. The most pivotal moment came during the final table. My stack was floating around 50k for the last 30 people that were in. Unfortunately this meant that on my last 2 tables I was always the short stack. When it got to final table I was really concerned with being able to get 9th place since 10th only paid out 25 and 9th paid out 50. The difference between payouts spikes hard once you get to final table. After I hit 9th place I decided to push all in and try to take the blinds from the big stacks at the table with 22. The small blind called me with AK and I won the race at a pivotal moment. This brought my chip stack up to about 80k and back into the average, where I was slowly able to pick up pots and build my way up to the chip lead. Next time i'm going to continue to hang around as long as possible until a favorable situation comes up. I'm also going to be wary of the other big stack at the table if it comes down to a short handed situation like that again. at that hand I had 300k the other stacks were 290k and 140k. Next time I'll continue to attack blinds but yield more caution. I made a bad read and it cost me.

A Good Morning and a Boring day at Work

After grinding a bit on the 3/6 tables I brought my total back up to $500. During this run it was suggested I try out a no limit game so I dicked around a bit with a $50 buyin room and left with $98 after an hour. Not too shabby. Right now I'm entered into an 11 dollar 20k guaranteed tournament with an average chip stack after the 1st break but I was knocked out of 3 other earlier by playing stupid and impatient. I am totally incapable of playing these tournaments when i'm not in the mood to do so. In fact i've noticed when I get this bored with poker I really shouldn't be playing anything significant. Maybe I'll start picking up .50/1 limit games just for when I'm on semi-tilt like right now.

An Unfortunate Series of Events

My parents didn't die and Jim Carrey isn't trying to kill me but I took a gamble and lost.

This morning I decided to enter a 3/6 game and a 10/20 game just for shits and giggles. I made $100 on my 3/6 game but unfortunately I took a $385 in the 10/20 room. This brings my cash left over to $270 meaning i'm back where I started. The 10/20 room is not a huge disappointment though because I was still playing relatively well. I was making aggressive moves and good folds in marginal situations, but I was having unfortunate moments of bad luck. My first hand my heads up opponent picked up runner runner flush to hit me for 70 bucks. Later a raise with jj flops me a set but unfortunately the turn completed flush and straight draws. I lost to the low end straight but my losses were minimized by no raising throughout the hand and a check on the river by me. I raised from 1 off the button with j/10 suited and the small blind called. I flopped the flush and the small blind bet into me. We capped it on the flop. Unfortunately a 4th diamond fell on the turn and his qd/4s took the lead. I called down and lost a huge heads up pot yet again.

The hand that I severely misplayed was when i picked up ac/qh close to the button. I raised and the TAG on the button reraised me with as/kh and I called. A flop of a/2h/4h appeared. I check raised him and he just called. At this point I had a bad feeling that i was up against the exact hand that I thought he had. The turn brought the 9h. I bet he called. The river brought the 4th heart. I think for a second then think... there is only 1 possible card that can beat me right here, if I check i'm playing too weak and i'm going to be missing a lot of bets playing this way. I decide to bet out and i'm raised. I call and he turns over the exact hand I thought he had. This hand was a good lesson in trusting my gut instinct. Although I believe this player was capable of making the same reraise preflop with a/q or kk, I still just had the feeling I was behind the entire hand but I pushed with logic rather than my instincts. I think all these no-limit tournaments have been fine tuning my skills with sniffing out situations like that. One of the reasons i've been lasting so much better in these tournaments lately is my ability to throw away hands like that in danger situations. I think i'll have to take notes on every hand where i get a bad feeling like this and see if it's worth it to fold in those situations. With the size of a pot like that I only need to be wrong 1/5 times or so i think.

Day 2, So Close

After dropping a quick 80 on a $2/$4 bad beat jackpot table this morning, I decided to enter a $6 rebuy tournament. of 357 players I finished 9th with one rebuy and one add-on. So basically it was a $16 tournament that net me $166.20. I made one critical mistake on the final table where I should have waited it out and tried to let someone else be eliminated. The difference between 9th and 8th was around 80 dollars and I unfortunately tried to bluff the chip leader, whose blinds I had pounded on for the last hour. He called me on the flop with ace high and I was eliminated. Also, on a random whim I decided to enter a WSOP Qualifier Sit n go tournament. the entry was $55. First and second place got a free seat in the WSOP Satellite tournament ($215 buy in). I played very solid and sat on a late game 2-1 chip lead over the other 2 competitors to take the free seat. Unfortunately I was knocked out of the tournament in the first hour. The chip leader at our table, who had about 15,000 chips was blasting on the blinds which were only about 100/200 chips at this point. I picked up a/q in the small blind, he raised to 800. With 4500 in my stack I push all in and he calls with k/10. Unfortunately a king flopped and I was eliminated. That was such a key hand not because it knocked me out but because I could have administered a lot of muscle at the table I was at. Unfortunatly I wasn't a big favorite to win that pot, and maybe just being a favorite is not enough. So question to any blog readers. Should I have pushed there being fairly certain I had the best but vulnerable hand, or shoudl I have waited and picked a better spot?

Day 2 Total Closes at $406.21

Another final table, another disappointment.

First Day Results

3-tabling the 2/4 bad beat jackpot tables at work didn't work out so well for me. After going up $150 early on in the session. I slowly lost a lot of heads up pots to a big string of 3 outters which eventually put me on semi-tilt. End result, down $100 from the 2/4 bad beat jackpot tables. yesterday I entered 2 multi-table tournaments and today I entered 3. I got knocked out of 1 tournament early with qq vs. jj against the chip leader when a jack fell on the flop. 3 tournaments I bubbled getting within 3-20 places from the money every time. 1 tournament I made it to the final table but ran into a bad string of luck at the end. With 70,000 chips and blinds of 3000/6000 on the first hand of the final table, I pick up AK offsuit on the button. Player to my right 3 seats makes it 20,000 to go so I push all in preflop. He calls with AJ and hits a jack on the turn. Unfortunately that brought my chip count down to 20,000 and I only survived 2 more orbits. Fortunately while trying to survive the short stack busted out and some moron pushed in with 3/3 and got called with by 10/10. What does this mean? Even though I busted out in 8th place, I made $25 for each person that busted out and that meant I won $75 instead of $25. Not too shabby. After a bit of 2/4 play today I made another $20 or so. Unfortunately my total after day 1 has dwindled to $297.16. Not a good start but I'm learning a lot about multi-table tournaments.

First thing I need to decide, is if it is worth taking risks when I am so close to the money. I busted out of 2 tournaments with a chip stacks that were not in a critically low state, but I was a favorite in both of the pots I played by at least 2-1 when all of my money was in the pot. Since the payout for barely cashing is pretty meager (between 18-20 dollars), I think it's a better idea to try to make my chip stack healthy instead of just trying to scrape by. These tournaments aren't really worth it if you don't make the final table. I should be gunning for the final table at all moments. I figure, if top 3 pay out between 400-600 dollars and 10th-30th place pay 20 dollars, it's better to take the risk at the big money rather than settle for the small money. Of course I could be wrong and i'll try a few different plays out in the next few weeks.